Adi's downtown development will not get the approval it wants until sometime in 2017 - in the middle of the municipal election.

By Pepper Parr

March 16th, 2016

BURLINGTON, ON

It isn’t a new application – it is a revised application and the final phase of the Ontario Municipal Board hearing of the now revised Adi Development Group application to put 26 storeys of condominium development at the corner of Martha and Lakeshore Road will not be heard until February 20th of 2017.

Meed Ward with Mayor Goldring: expect the two of them to head to head in the 2018 municipal election in 2018. At least one of the issues is becoming clear.

Expect this to become a prime election issue in 2018 when ward 2 Councillor Meed Ward will run against current Mayor Rick Golding when the issue will be – what kind of a Burlington do we want?

A much more contrite Adi legal team did everything they could to ensure Chair Susan Schiller that they were going to do everything they could to ensure that there was public participation in the revised application.

The next rendering of Nautique will not look like this.

Hearings are as much about procedure as they are about the merits of an application. Because this is a revised application the city wants to know much more about just what the revision is all about – the only thing they know at this point is that Adi has purchased an adjacent piece of property and wants to merge it into what they already have. And what difference is that going to make to the shape and scope of the development – well those are the issues that are going to get discussed by the city’s planning department and the Adi architects before it gets back to the OMB.

What has been worked out is a schedule of events that has the Adi plans going to city council before they go back to the OMB hearing – which is a pretty interesting way to approach the problem.

Here is the lineup of events:

From now until the end of June Adi will have informal meetings with staff on what they have in mind with the new piece of land to the development.
At the end of June Adi formally amends the application.
There is then public notice of the of the revised application also at the end of June
Staff then does its review of the revised application and has until the end of September to get that done.
There is then a public meeting sometime in October
Late in October city council considers the revised application
There is then an OMB pre-hearing conference after the city council has had a chance to do whatever it wants to do. The date for this meeting will be late October early November.
Expert meeting reports are due November 28th
Witness statements are due December 12th
Participant statements are due January 6th
Reply statements are due January 16th
Visual evidence is due January 16th followed by a 10 day hearing that will start February 20th, 2017.

The city did have the right to ask that the development application be denied on the grounds that it was a new development which would have forced Adi to go back to square one and start all over.

This approach, which the public learned about this morning, is not bad – one might be gracious and call it pretty good.

Denise Baker, lead counsel for Adi promised everything but the kitchen sink as she explained the way Adi intended to proceed. One would have liked to see some of this willing to collaborate when the original application was filed rather than bully the city into an OMB hearing. They did have the right to do what they did – practice within the development community is to allow some grace time for development applications.

Saud and Tariq Adi – it was heavy sledding for the twins at the OMB hearing.

One gets edgy when hearing the promises from an organization that has in the past flouted bylaws and put signage up along main traffic arteries and install large signs that were called hoardings at one point and then a fence on another – forcing the bylaw enforcement people to seek advice from the city’s solicitor before ordering Adi to comply with the bylaw.

Adi development added about 20% more land to the development they plan for the NW corner of Martha and Lakeshore Road.

The OMB hearing that began on Monday came to be because Adi was not prepared to give the city some additional time to vote on the application.

With Chair Schiller running the OMB hearing as it goes through its various stages – there will be no nonsense. Those at the media table in the hearing room remarked that she appeared more diligent when it came to the public interest than the city’s council.

Because some land has been added to the assembly the boundary demarcation for those who are permitted to ask to be part of the proceedings and have standing will become a little bigger and include people who were not included up until now.

Chair Schiller went out of her way to ensure that all the lawyers let people know they could make presentations.

Schiller noted there was a high degree of public interest in the hearings – television cameras arrived at city hall on both Monday and Wednesday.

It now becomes a waiting game. Adi will work at figuring out how much more they can add to the development – they are going to have to find a way to pay for that additional land.