Precedent Setting Municipal Planning

(This piece orignally appeared on the Hamilton Spectator Poverty Blog)

An Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) ruling that came out earlier this year may have implications for tenants and others living in Hamilton.

The ruling involved an attempt by to use zoning tools to “clean up” a 10 block area in that city known as Cedar Hill. It seems that Cedar Hill needs cleaning up as twenty percent of this area’s residents are persons with disabilities and/or persons in receipt of social assistance. Many live in shelters, group homes or rent-geared-to-income housing.

The City had decided that this situation represented an “over-concentration” resulting in “an unhealthy social environment.” The neighbourhood was on “a downward trajectory.” Scary stuff, indeed.

Some of the parties represented at the OMB hearing suggested that Kitchener was doing a little bit of “people zoning.” The important planning principle to keep in mind being that when you zone, you zone for uses not for people.

This is an important and probably precedent setting case. Way back in 2003 the City banned any new “downward trajectory” promoting facilities. But, at the same time a commitment was made to do more study which would promote the development of new lodging houses and residential care facilities in all other appropriate areas of the city.

After four weeks of hearings the OMB agreed that there was, in fact, a concentration and that the City is entitled to develop initiatives to distribute facilities throughout the city. The Board, though, had a problem with the fact that the promised additional study never happened. As a result they ruled that the restrictive measures put in place were premature and ordered the city to do the study it should have done five years ago.

In other words if a city is going to restrict opportunities for housing people with disabilities and/or those on assistance they’ll have to do appropriate preparation required by the Planning Act.

Human Rights Concerns

There is also a significant human rights issue. Ontario Human Right Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall sees it this way:

“People with disabilities or on social assistance were the targets; they were told in effect ‘we don’t want more people like you in this neighbourhood.’ The Human Rights Code says you can’t discriminate like that.”

The OMB has given the municipality 15 months to get it right. Municipal planners around the province are taking notice. Let’s see what happens. In the meantime you can view this interim decision on the OMB website (http://www.omb.gov.on.ca) by typing in PL050611.