Morden City Council passed second and third reading approving a rezoning by-law, which they had defeated earlier this year, under what Mayor Brandon Burley calls, 'duress,' at Monday night's public meeting.
Several residents attended the public hearing on November 28th, to oppose the zoning change for a large family dwelling unit on Victoria Street in Morden, behind the Coop Gas Station. On December 28, 2022, the by-law went to council for 2nd & 3rd reading, and it was defeated.
The applicant was notified and then filed an appeal with the Municipal Board, at which time a hearing was scheduled for the end of April. Recently, the Municipal Board approved the appeal and council had no choice but to pass second and third reading at this week's public meeting.
Mayor Brandon Burley explained council's concerns with approving it.
"There were a number of them. First of all, the fact it's a premier corner in the city, in our estimation, high density residential might be short sighted, due to the exposure that corner brings. But also, infrastructure challenges at that corner, especially around traffic and proposed future development at the corner of First (St) and Thornhill. There are challenges there we did not feel were properly addressed by the province in advance. And so, it was really the lack of specificity from Manitoba Infrastructure and the province around First (St) and Thornhill that kept us from approving it in the first place."
Burley believes the level of government closest to the people should have jurisdiction and eyes on the problem in these kinds of matters.
"I think that is certainly something the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) is messaging very strongly on, going into this provincial election; municipalities across the province are bearing the brunt of decision making by people who are not in our communities and who are not democratically elected to make those decisions. So, there's a lot of concern and a lot of annoyance that we seem to be place folders for decision making. If decisions are just going to be unilaterally overturned by people who don't have any obligation or duty to our community, that's going to be a problem for Manitoba municipalities going forward."
When asked what Burley is hearing in the community about the approval of the appeal, he replied it seems to be a resignation to the fact that nothing can change or will change.
"But I think we saw with Bill 64, when people get around the idea that jurisdiction locally matters, changes do come. That's the kind of resolution we need now is municipalities around the Municipal Board. There are legal mechanisms already established their courts for developers and for people who dislike decisions made by councils to have recourse but to put that decision making into the hands of unelected people from outside of our community is really inappropriate."
Burley said the bigger challenge for municipalities is that there is no recourse in situations like this.
"The order is now for this Council to vote in favour of that zoning amendment, and they're requiring elected people to formally vote in ways they do not support. And so, the sanctity of the vote and the respect for individual councilors to vote as they see fit, is stripped from them. It's a little bit of insult to injury to not only have our homework graded and returned with a ‘fail,’ but then also to be required to change our homework as they see fit. That, to me, is particularly disrespectful and unfortunate."
Council had no choice but to pass second and third reading to approve the development at Monday night's public meeting. Burley said council will work with the developer to alleviate as many concerns as possible.
Pembina Valley Online reached out to the Municipal Board to share the process and basis for its decision and the value of local voice, receiving this statement: the Municipal Board operates as a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal, established under the Municipal Board Act, and does not comment on its written orders and decisions or reports and recommendations.