By Pepper Parr
March 1st, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Part 1 of a series
Burlington has had a seven-member council since 1997, when Burlington had a population of 139,000. Since the last review, the population of Burlington has increased from approximately 160,000 in 2005, to approximately 186,948 in 2021, according to Census population data.
The Municipal Act, 2001, provides the legislative framework for municipalities to change its composition of council and review ward boundaries. A municipality is authorized to “divide or re-divide the municipality into wards or to dissolve the existing wards.”
The Act requires that a municipality provides public notice that a ward boundary by-law has been passed within 15 days after the by-law is passed. The notice must specify the last date for filing a notice of appeal. The Act states that within 45 days of the ward boundary by-law being passed, it may be appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal (Formerly the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal, and the Ontario Municipal Board before that).
For any changes to be in effect for the 2026 Municipal Election, the by-law establishing new ward boundaries must be in force before January 1, 2026. This means if the by-law establishing new boundaries is appealed to the OLT, the notices of appeal must be withdrawn, or the Tribunal must have issued an order to affirm or amend the by-law before that date.
The Act also provides a mechanism where electors of a municipality can present a petition to Council asking them to pass a by-law dividing or re-dividing a municipality into wards or dissolving the existing wards. The petition requires the signatures of 1% of the electors in the municipality or 500 electors in the municipality, whichever is less.
If council does not pass a by-law in accordance with the submitted petition within 90 days of receiving the petition, any of the electors who signed the petition may appeal to the OLT to have the municipality divided or re-divided into wards or have the existing wards dissolved. The Tribunal is required hear the application and may make an order dividing or re-dividing or dissolving the existing wards. It is important to point out that in this scenario the Tribunal becomes the decision maker for establishing ward boundaries with little input from the municipality.
At last count about 3,712 people signed a petition against the tax increase that was mostly ignored and then unanimously passed by our current 7 members of council. Section 223 S 1 thru 8 of the Muni Act sets out that 1% or 500 electors can petition council to pass a bylaw to redivide or dissolve existing wards. When the will of the electorate is ignored something has to change and adding more councillors may help. We have nothing to lose, so, lets do it.
Yes
The west end on Appleby north of the QEW has had huge amount of new development since 2005. Most of that population growth is concentrated there and it’s only going to get worse with so many new developments planned.
So we could use this petition to request that the forgotten area west of maple and east of the QEW is put back into the downtown core ward again?