Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
The key here is that under the present system it's relatively cheap and easy to appeal.
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When I worked in Fort McMurray (for the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo) an appeal was far from cheap. Granted, having a high appeal fee (to disuade people from launching tit for tat appeals) has other impacts.
Case in point: In the RMWB, the Development Authority had (up until around 2006) very limited variance powers. So when someone would come in to get a compliance on their property (to ensure everything met setback rules) and their deck didn't, they would apply for a variance. Because of the limitations, we sometimes had to refuse a variance for 4 inches because it was beyond our power to grant, causing the property owner to spend $525 to appeal. Then at appeal, we'd recommend overturning the refusal because we felt the variance was minor. Thank goodness we changed the rules and that virtually eliminated that problem.
But it was $1025 to appeal any multi-residential, commercial or industrial project. Typically the only time you would see those appeal (in the RMWB) would be because they didn't like the conditions of approval, were appealing a refusal or a well organized community group (with $) were appealing an approval.
Here at the City of Calgary - any appeal is $25, which is far too little and we get spats of all sorts!