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The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday March 22, 2006 - 11 Closing arguments expected this week Continued from page 1 being a practice of town staff." "To retroactively, in this case, give additional value to the staff practice in Oakville in respect of this application and this appeal, the board finds the resolution not rele-. vant and therefore inadmis sible," said O'Connor. The board said the town could make the practice poli cy through an Official Plan amendment and public input. O'Connor, however, noted the guidelines are already "solidly" before the board and the board will give that fact appropriate weight. The OMB has heard the Palm Place development could marginally push the limits of intersections such as Lakeshore Road at Mississaga Street and Rebecca Street at Bronte Road. Halton Region has "signed off' on the proposal despite such potential conditions on the regionally-controlled Bronte Road at Wyecroft Road intersection, but the Town has not in the interests of good planning. Palm Place lawyer Michael Kovacevic argued for the council resolution to be deemed inadmissible and given no weight. The resolution was passed Veil after the hearing started and after evidence went in that was not helpful to the town," said Kovacevic. Labelled as "politicallyinspired roadblocks," Kovacevic said the town had the region's traffic guidelines since 2001, at least, and its passage of the resolution dur ing the course of the Palm Place hearing "was only an attempt to shore up their case" and was done as a con sent item on a council agenda without public input, Kovacevic said Toronto lawyer Jane Pepino, who is representing the town, orchestrated the passage of the resolution by town coun cil to give the guidelines used more weight than deserved. "Who knew," said Pepino, claiming Kovacevic had "got ten well ahead of himself' when she rose to argue why the resolution should be admissible. PepinO said the town's traffic expert had already tes tified that town staff have been using the regional guidelines for evaluating traf fic impact of development and redevelopment applications. It was the OMB question ing that witness, on whether the practice had been endorsed by council -- which "The resolution was . passed well after the hearing started and after evidence went in that was not helpful to the town." Michael Kovacevic, Palm Place lawyer it had not been -- that Pepino put the issue to council. "Perhaps I was too eager to meet what I perceived to be the board's interest," Pepino told Jackson. "At the end of the day, I don't think it changes anything." Pepfno said she never intended to argue the guide lines as Official Plan policy -- and O'Connor assured in his decision that while the guide lines would not get any more consideration than due them, they would be considered. O'Connor in rendering his verbal decision noted a traffic impact study "can be used as a key.piece of evidence before the OMB." The slow pace of the hear ing and the animosity between the parties has been entrenched from the outset. The hearing was supposed to be last summer, but the parties arrived to say it would take twice as long as the three weeks scheduled. So, the sixweek hearing began in January. This week is the seventh -- an unexpected -- week of continuation. Monday, reply testimony ranged from the potential presence of midges (gnats, no-see-ums, tiny flies), which some birds could eat on the former Shell House property, to the 20 percent less reflec tive glass proposed to be used on the eighth to twelfth floors of the buildings. Palm Place is designing the buildings to have little or no exterior light visible on the building at night by virtue of their residential nature and internal stairwells, and less reflective glass during the day to mitigate bird strikes. Pepino noted Monday that a bird flying over Lake Ontario in the wee hours could "crack its little skull" upon hitting the buildings. Palm Place expert witness es said the potential for bird strikes will never be totally eliminated. Palm Place is a related company to New Province Homes, which developed the subdivision on the former Shell lands north of Lakeshore Road. The OMB has heard about a deal the Town struck with New Province Homes that in return for generous woodlot con veyances to the Town in the subdivision, the Town gave a parkland credit -- not development approval -- on the first 300 residential units on the former Shell House property. Some time ago, Palm Place delivered a development application to the Town for four, 25-storey condos of 1,000 units on the property. It appealed to the OMB when the town failed to act on the application within the prescribed time frame. The town said the application was incomplete. Over time, the proposal has changed, and while Town staff recommended to council that a three-tower, eight storey configuration on the west half of the property might be considered in exchange for getting the east half as a public park, town council rejected it all in favour of low-density residential in the order of approximately 27 units. By the time the appeal hit the OMB hearing, Palm Place was asking for 370units in three, seven to 12-storey build ings -- and not one unit less -- in exchange for the east half as a public park. The hearing has heard some contam ination still exists. Conservation Halton believes the property is a significant wildlife habitat. The OMB heard Monday Palm Place has not been included in studies that determined various woods and valleys in the area were part of a key north/south, east/west bird migration corridor. Palm Place expects its closing argu ment to take more than a day, the town expects it will take a day for closing argu ment, followed by Conservation Halton and the BVRA. / SE E ¥ I CBS f lin g sim ple a n d o o n w rd e n t^ 10% Discount Students Disabled Too busy to get your taxes done... S c h e d u l e a F R E E P IC K U P to d a v ! m m m m To o u r v a l u e d c u s t o m e r s : W e a p o l o g i z e f o r a n y in c o n v e n i e n c e c a u s e d b y a n e r r o r in o u r fly e r d a te d : M a r c h 1 0 -1 6 . Hassle-Free Returns and Exchanges Within 30 Days. Our 30-day returns/exchange policy appears on p. 13 of our March 10th flyer but it does not apply to cameras or camcorders which must be returned/exchanged within 14 days of purchase. Other restrictions apply. See in-store for details. 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