After stretching over four weeks, the hearing deciding the fate of a hotly-contested piece of green space in the Town of Richmond Hill came to a close, leaving one resident’s group asking if it was necessary at all.
The hearing before the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) tribunal ended Sept. 12. It concerned an agreement mediated between the town, landowner Corsica Developments, Inc. and residents’ groups. This agreement would preserve 99 of the 189 acres of the David Dunlap Observatory lands from development, but the Richmond Hill Naturalists (RHN), who seek to save it all, objected, prompting the hearing.
However, Karen Cilevitz, chair of residents’ group the David Dunlap Observatory Defenders, said she was particularly upset the RHN’s brief closing arguments seemed to boil down to altering a single boundary line and removing a small piece of land from the settlement. She said such issues should have been resolved in mediation, which RHN did not attend. “Practically everyone I spoke to since then is actually quite shocked, if not aggravated,” she said. “If that was all their concerns, if that is what they came to, then everything that was discussed, for the 12 days prior, was really a waste of everybody’s time, effort and money.”
RHN president Marianne Yake disagreed, defending bringing her group’s evidence for preserving the site’s wetlands, wildlife and overall designated historical landscape before the OMB. “I think if that is how they would characterize it, I would differ on that,” she said. “I think it is the evidence that is before the board that is more important.”
She said RHN did not want to “give up” any of the site in mediation behind closed doors, adding an OMB hearing was crucial to keep the public involved in a process that has been going on for five years.
“That is why this [OMB] process has been helpful to the public,” she said. “People that were interested can go to the hearings and hear what the evidence is.”
The final ruling is expected to come within weeks.