Christopher J. Williams

The applicants appealed the Township's refusal to amend its Official Plan and Zoning By-law to permit a contractor's yard for an excavation business on prime agricultural lands.

The applicants argued the use qualified as an 'on-farm diversified use' or 'home industry'.

The Tribunal found the excavation business was a full-scale industrial operation that was not secondary to the principal agricultural use of the property.

The Tribunal held the applications were inconsistent with the Provincial Policy Statement, did not conform to the Growth Plan or the County and Township Official Plans, and dismissed the appeals.

The Ontario Land Tribunal held a second Case Management Conference regarding an appeal of a zoning by-law amendment regulating short-term rental accommodations.

The Tribunal addressed the settlement of a motion for the production of documents, finalized the Issues List and draft Procedural Order, and scheduled a seven-day hearing for March 2022.

The defendant municipality brought a motion to strike the plaintiff bridge company's statement of claim, which sought contribution and indemnity for damages and legal costs arising from five nuisance actions brought by local residents.

The residents alleged that the plaintiff's boarded-up houses caused urban blight.

The plaintiff claimed the municipality unlawfully withheld demolition permits, causing the nuisance.

The court dismissed the motion to strike, finding it was not plain and obvious that the claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action, and that the action was not an abuse of process nor barred by issue estoppel.

The plaintiff was granted leave to amend its pleadings to better particularize misfeasance in public office and negligence.

The applicant mother was found in contempt for breaching an access order and failing to provide notice of a school change.

This endorsement addresses the penalty and compliance.

The court found the mother had not purged her contempt and was actively undermining the child's relationship with the father through various means, including influencing the child and involving an off-duty police officer friend to thwart access.

The court ordered reconciliation counseling, paid by the mother, and a modified access schedule with police enforcement to re-establish the father's relationship with the child.

The appellants appealed an order recognizing the respondents' common user rights over narrow parcels of land fronting Lake Simcoe, known as the 'Slivers'.

The application judge found that the respondents, as owners of lots in the subdivision, had openly and continuously used the Slivers since 1950, satisfying the requirements under the Registry Act and Land Titles Act.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the application judge's assessment of the uncontradicted affidavit evidence and declining to restrict the user rights to bathing purposes.

Following a successful application confirming user in common rights on a subdivision plan, the applicants sought costs of $51,593.86.

The respondent landowners argued the amount was excessive for a one-day hearing.

The respondent municipality also sought costs against the respondent landowners.

The court awarded the applicants $45,000 in partial indemnity costs, finding the claimed amount excessive despite the complexity of the historical real estate issues.

The municipality was awarded $2,500 in costs for its helpful submissions, though its costs were reduced because it remained adverse in interest to the applicants until the morning of the hearing.

The applicants, owners of lots on a 1950 plan of subdivision, sought a declaration that certain lots designated as an 'area of user common to each property owner' remained subject to those rights.

The respondent owners of the fee simple in those common lots argued the rights had expired under the Registry Act and were extinguished upon conversion to the Land Titles system.

The court held that the dedication created valid, subsisting quasi-public rights and easements that were openly enjoyed and thus saved from expiry under the Registry Act.

The court declared the lands remain subject to the applicants' rights and prohibited the respondents from interfering with them.

The Ombudsman investigated 60 complaints alleging that seven members of the City of London council held an improper closed meeting at a restaurant five days before a key budget vote.

The Ombudsman found that the gathering was purposeful and planned, and that discussions occurred regarding city business, including a Trillium Foundation grant.

The Ombudsman concluded that the gathering constituted an illegal closed meeting in violation of the open meeting requirements of the Municipal Act, 2001, and recommended that the city adopt a clear policy to discourage such conduct.

Following an appeal, the Court of Appeal for Ontario issued a costs endorsement.

The court rejected the respondents' request for substantial indemnity costs and the appellants' request for no costs.

Instead, the court awarded costs on a partial indemnity basis, ordering the appellants to pay a total of $64,000 to the various respondents.

Following dismissal of an application alleging that a municipality and its mayor and councillors conspired in bad faith to block a bridge expansion project through heritage and demolition control by-laws, the court determined the issue of costs.

The court found the allegations of conspiracy, illegality, and bad faith against the municipal defendants to be entirely without merit and emphasized that unsubstantiated allegations of dishonesty justify elevated costs.

Applying the principles in s. 131 of the Courts of Justice Act and Rule 57 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the court awarded substantial full indemnity costs to the successful municipal respondents and individual councillors, subject to proportionality considerations reflecting differing levels of participation.

The court held that both the applicants and the Canadian Transit Company—though formally a respondent but aligned with the applicants—were jointly and severally responsible for the costs award.

The applicants challenged a City of Toronto by-law imposing an annual tax on third-party signs, arguing it was an ultra vires indirect tax, discriminatory, and that existing signs were grandfathered under the City of Toronto Act.

The application judge upheld the by-law but found existing signs were grandfathered and granted a sealing order over the applicants' financial information.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the applicants' appeals, finding the tax was direct and not discriminatory.

The Court allowed the City's cross-appeal, holding that the grandfathering provision applies only to regulatory by-laws, not taxing by-laws, and that the sealing order was unjustified under the Dagenais/Mentuck test.

The appellants appealed a decision confirming that the composition of the County Council should be reduced from 20 to 16 members due to a decline in the number of electors in four townships.

The Court of Appeal held that the municipal by-law governing representation implicitly required a reduction in representatives when a township's population fell below the specified threshold.

The Court also found no error in the application judge's decision to nullify the Striking by-law and remove the additional representatives mid-term, as they had no legal entitlement to hold office.

The appeal was dismissed.

The Town of Collingwood sought leave to appeal a decision of the Ontario Municipal Board that dismissed an appeal respecting the Education Development Charge By-laws of two school boards.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal, finding that the Town failed to identify any arguable error of law in the Board's decision, as the issues raised primarily involved questions of fact or mixed fact and law.

The appellants appealed the judgment of the Superior Court of Justice.

The parties filed minutes of settlement with the court.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on consent in accordance with the minutes of settlement, noting that it was not passing judgment on the merits of the lower court's decision.

The appellant appealed a decision dismissing its application to declare invalid and set aside two building permits issued for a nine-storey transitional housing and shelter building.

The appellant argued the Chief Building Official erred in classifying the proposed use as a 'hostel' rather than a 'crisis care facility' under the zoning by-law, and that the pending Municipal Shelter By-law appeal should have prevented the permits' issuance.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the application judge's acceptance of the CBO's zoning compliance determination or the finding that the pending by-law appeal did not constitute 'applicable law' preventing the permits' issuance.

The appellants, developers of a residential subdivision, appealed an Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) decision requiring them to pay $568,391 as their proportionate share of municipal infrastructure costs previously front-ended by a neighbouring developer.

The appellants argued that the Development Charges Act, 1989 prohibited the imposition of such charges.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, holding that while the Act prohibited imposing a charge by way of agreement, it did not prohibit the OMB from imposing the charge directly as a condition of draft plan approval under section 51(25) of the Planning Act to ensure a fair and equitable allocation of infrastructure costs.

The appellants appealed a decision upholding the Deputy Treasurer's exercise of discretion in a municipal tax sale matter.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the motion judge's application of the reasonableness standard of review, concluding the Deputy Treasurer fully considered all relevant factors without fettering his discretion.

The Court also rejected the appellants' new argument regarding a purported 'secret practice' of accepting late payments, noting it was raised for the first time on appeal, was not actually secret, and caused no prejudice.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

The appellant sign companies challenged a municipal by-law that imposed an annual fee on third-party billboards and capped the total number of such signs.

The appellants argued the fee was an ultra vires indirect tax and the cap violated their freedom of expression under the Charter.

The Court of Appeal upheld the by-law, finding that the annual fee was a valid regulatory fee authorized by the Municipal Act, as it defrayed the costs of the municipality's sign section.

The Court also held that while the cap on billboards infringed freedom of expression, it was saved under section 1 of the Charter as a reasonable limit to protect the city's urban plan and streetscape.