Earlier this summer Madawaska Valley resident Eve-Marie Chamot lodged an appeal with the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) against the Township’s By-Law 2024-44. MV Council enacted the By-Law restricting the use of storage container in the municipality at a Special Council meeting on June 6, after the Township held a Public Meeting on April 23 2024 to enable residents to voice their concerns. Click HERE to read our report of that meeting entitled Storage containers – what’s the problem?
Chamot’s appeal to the OLT is based on several grounds, including the following:
- It is outside the Township’s power to regulate “personalty” i.e. moveable property such as chattels and vehicles. This in accordance with a basic principle of municipal law – a municipality can only do what the province specifically allows it to do, and is not permitted to do anything the province does not specifically allow. In particular, the Planning Act only permits the municipality to regulate “realty” i.e. land, buildings and real estate.
- The definition of “shipping container” in By-Law 2024-44 is very broad and could be extended to many other types of articles such as cardboard boxes, food containers, re-usable plastic food-storage containers, etc.
- Further, while the Planning Act allows a municipality to regulate “buildings,” it does not specifically allow regulation to convert a shipping container into a building or to differentiate any sort of building that incorporates such container(s).
This is merely a summary of the main points, and readers interested in all the details of the issue may inspect the complete appeal documents which are public records.
The Current searched the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) website and found that this appeal is now at the Merit Hearing stage. The case was acknowledged as received by the Tribunal on July 16, 2024 following submission of the appeal form and letter submitted by the Township on June 28, 2024. An OLT spokesperson told The Current that “the Tribunal screens appeals to identify if they were filed in accordance with statutory requirements and can refuse to process an appeal or can dismiss an appeal if it finds that the documents filed to initiate the proceeding did not meet legislative requirements or are not in compliance with the OLT’s Rules of Practice and Procedure.” Although the OLT practice is to schedule hearings as quickly as possible, it has not yet provided a date for the Merit Hearing of this case.
Most hearings of the OLT are held via video conference call. The Tribunal spokesperson confirmed to us that, other than mediation, hearings are open to the public so anyone can attend and watch using the GoTo Meetings platform. For more details on the progress of the appeal, please click HERE to visit the OLT website. The Case Number is OLT-24-000704.
Photo at top: shipping containers, port of Casablanca.
