Darko vranich biography examples

By Pepper Parr

January 20th, 2022

BURLINGTON, ON

This report sets out the very awkward situation in which the Planning department finds itself.

If you love your city and you care about what it is going to look like in five years, read on.  The report is lengthy.

The city has had a Waterfront Planning Study in the works since 2015.  At one point the Planning Department advised that they did not have a planner assigned to the file.

Most people thought progress was being made – turns out everyone was wrong.  Nothing (at best very little) was being done.

While city planners were asleep at the switch the owner of the property wasn’t.

The Waterfront Hotel is owned by Darko Vranich, who owns Burlington 2020 Lakeshore Road Inc., the site of the hotel he wants to demolish and put up a two tower development – one at 35 storeys, the other at 30 storeys – both would sit atop a five level podium.

Back in April 28, 2021, the consulting firm, Bousfields (leading the development application team), met with staff in the Planning Department  to determine the requirements for a complete development application.

The developer wanted to amend the City’s Official Plan and Zoning By-law to facilitate the owner’s proposal to redevelop the site with a mixed-use development that does not conform to in-effect Official Plan policies or Zoning By-law regulations.

That meeting should have triggered some action on completing the Waterfront Study – apparently it didn’t.

The city provided the developer and their representatives with a preconsultation package (by email – May 5, 2021).

The preconsultation package outlines the following;

Types of applications required (Official Plan Amendment and Zoning By-law Amendment);
Application fees required;
Requirement to hold a Pre-Application Public Consultation Meeting prior to submitting an application;
Required Information for Complete Application.

In accordance with the requirements set out in the preconsultation package, the applicant consulted the Burlington Urban Design (BUD) Panel regarding their proposed development on August 19, 2021.  At a meeting less than a week ago the Director of Community Planning, Mark Simeone, was not aware that a meeting with BUD had taken place.

Another example of senior city staff not being fully briefed on everything which was now in play.  Staff were fully aware of the scale, size and scope of what the developer had in mind.  The public didn’t have a clue until a virtual Pre-Application Consultation Meeting was held via via Zoom September 8, 2021.

Lisa Kearns, the Ward Councillor and Mayor Meed Ward attended and took part – the news was not new to them.

Years before the pre-consultation meeting at which the public got to see what the developer had in mind, a group of citizens believed there was a better way to develop the Waterfront Hotel site and they formed Plan B and created the idea of a thin red line beyond which there would be no development.

The city, in the meantime, had hired a group to hold public meetings at which different concepts were developed.  The Plan B people were never really sure if they were being heard by the city planners.  When the graphic below became public it was pretty close to what the Plan B people were prepared to settle for.  Was it close enough to the three concepts the city made public?  And, by the way, what are the current concepts the city planners have for the site?  Nothing anywhere that sets out the city’s position.

You can bet real money that the developer knows what they want – at this point all we have is what they presented last September – and that wasn’t a pretty sight.

On October 22, 2021, City staff received a submission package from the applicant requesting amendments to the City’s Official Plan and Zoning By-law to permit the proposed development at 2020 Lakeshore Road.

On October 26,2021 the City received the application fees set out in the preconsultation package. City staff confirmed receipt of these materials and fees as of October 26 and initiated a completeness review to determine whether the required information and material, as identified in the preconsultation package, had been provided.

The Planning Department, at first, took the position that the development application was not complete but sometime after the January 13 council meeting at which the development application was deemed incomplete the matter was on the January 18th council meeting as an Urgent Business matter.  At that time the application was deemed to be complete.

Sometime on the Friday between the 13th and the 18th meetings new information from someone (either the city planning staff or the consultant for the developer or the city’s outside legal counsel) was provided resulted in the application being deemed complete.

The development application that was deemed incomplete did not have the the following required information:

1. Phase Two Environmental Site Assessment;
2. Park Concept Plan;
3. Angular Plane Study.

Staff notified the applicant that their application had been deemed incomplete.

Subsequently the applicant submitted a request to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) for a motion date to determine if the application was in fact in complete. The OLT never did schedule a date for such a motion to be heard.

On December 17, 2021, the applicant provided the following additional materials to the City in relation to their applications:

1. Phase Two Environmental Site Assessment;
2. Park Concept Plan;
3. Angular Plane Study.

Sometime before January 18th, City staff reviewed the additional materials provided and determined that with the receipt of additional materials described the development application was deemed to be complete December 17, 2021.

The clock was now ticking – starting December 17th, 2021 the city had 120 days to produce a Staff report on the development.

The immediate impact was the loss of about 30 days that could have been used to review the development application to be in a position to complete a review of a very big and a very complex file dumped on a department that was understaffed and had very recently added 15+ planners to staff who had to work in an office environment dictated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sometime in February, 2022 the city will hold a required statutory public meeting at Council Committee to consider the development applications.  It is expected that the statutory meeting will be virtual, which will crimp the number of delegations made at Council.

Sometime in April, 2022 a Staff recommendation report will be sent to Committee followed by a special Council meeting.

The city has three options:

Approve the application

Approve the application with required changes

Refuse the application setting out the reasons for the refusal

If refused the developer will take the case to the Ontario Land Tribunal

That is not the whole story.

When Marianne Meed Ward ran for Mayor in 2018 she told the citizens of Burlington that she wanted the Urban Growth Centre (UGC) to be moved north – to where the Burlington GO station was located.

It took a lot of energy and political guts to take that position but as Mayor, Marianne Meed Ward pushed and pushed and pushed.

And the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing eventually agreed and the UGC boundary was moved north with the southern boundary pushed north from Lakeshore Road to about Prospect.

Unfortunately, in the same decision, the Minister grandfathered a number of development sites and said they would fall under the rules of the old UGC – which ran right to the lake.  Right where the Waterfront Hotel development is to take place.

The decision didn’t help.

Council passed a motion last week that included an amendment.

Deem, in accordance with sections 22.1, 22(5) and 34(10.2) of the Planning Act, that applications submitted by Burlington 2020 Lakeshore Inc. to amend the Official Plan and Zoning By-law for lands at 2020 Lakeshore Road as made and complete on December 17, 2021, as the required information and materials were provided on that date; and

Direct the Director of Community Planning to notify Burlington 2020 Lakeshore Inc. that the required information and material have been provided for the applications to amend the Official Plan and Zoning By-law for lands at 2020 Lakeshore Road, in accordance with sections 22(6.1) and 34(10.4) of the Planning Act.

The amendment:

Direct the Director of Community Planning to complete the processing of the application to amend the Official Plan and Zoning By-law for lands at 2020 Lakeshore Road within the statutory time frames, and bring forward a recommendation to Council and the Community to provide input and a decision before the statutory review period expires.

So what now?

There is a very senior planner on the file and an all hands on deck attitude is infusing staff – many who are working remotely.  Not the best situation to create the sense of team needed to get the very best out of people who have been pushed to the limit for more than 20 months.

To add to the troubled situation, Heather MacDonald, the chief planner as well as an Executive Director with the city, advised the city manager that she was going to retire.  This apparently was not a surprise to the city manager.

Members of Council are limited on what they can say about a development that has yet to be put before Council with a Staff recommendation.   As a result there hasn’t been as much as a peep from any of them.

We do know that Ward 1 Councillor Kelvin Galbraith was not very excited about what took place in those Closed sessions.  He didn’t vote for the decision to direct Burlington’s legal counsel to proceed that came out of the Closed session.  Because it was a Closed session the public will never know what Galbraith was opposed to.

Way back in 2010 Marianne Meed Ward ran for Council as the ward 2 candidate running on a platform to Save the Waterfront.  Burlington may be about to see shovels in the ground by the end of the year putting a dagger in the heart of what Meed Ward set out to do

The Plan B group that wanted the western edge of any development on the hotel site to be limited by what they called a “thin red line.

At one point the Planning department appeared to be onside – no one is sure at this point if the thin red line concept will be applied.

What we do know is that the Planning department is working hard at completing their report that will go to city council and that sometime before it goes to Council there will be a required Statutory meeting at which the developer can tell their story (they are not required to take part) and citizens can delegate on what they don’t like.

It will be quite a meeting.