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The city of Burlington is trying to stop the development of a 26-storey condo building on Martha street near the waterfront; but officials feel the decision is out of their hands now that the application has gone to the Ontario municipal board. Thursday morning there was a pre-hearing at Burlington city hall to establish what issues the Ontario municipal board will look at. That meeting adjourned in less than an hour and a second meeting set for Friday was cancelled. The parties agreed to go to mediation before the OMB hearing which is set for February but that means the proceeding is no longer public, the negotiations will all go on behind closed doors.

“Right now the OMB has the power to overturn local decisions. It’s not democratic, it overrides the wishes of elected officials and local communities and that should be stopped.” Marianne Meed Ward.

Ward says in Burlington the OMB has most often sided with the developer making a whole city process irrelevant.

The site is currently a parking lot and a house zoned for a four to eight storey building. The developer has said it expects an exemption, because of other tall buildings nearby including a new 22-storey condo-hotel under construction within its view. The developer already has a presentation centre open on Brant street it says it has 170 units for sale and expects people to be living here by November 2018. But the city has 26 problems with the proposal; mainly to do with so much height on such a small lot.

More than 100 municipalities have complained about the unfairness of the OMB so the province right now is reviewing its scope and effectiveness through public meetings. The next one is Thursday at Oakville town hall and the mayor of Oakville is encouraging people to register. He says Oakville has been frustrated for years by the, “unfair, arbitrary decision-making of the OMB,” and he says it’s critical for people to have their voices heard now.