The City of Vancouver is planning to impose restrictions on citizens’ appeals of planning-department rulings. The five-member board of variance has the authority to reverse or attach conditions to decisions concerning development permits, as well as bylaws governing signage, zoning, and trees.

Last year, development consultant Jim Lehto told the Georgia Straight that the board is the closest thing Vancouver has to a “people’s court”. But in a report going to council’s planning and environment committee next Thursday (December 2), city staff have proposed formalizing and tightening the freewheeling appeals process.

Under the board of variance bylaw, residents can ask to extend the period of time in which they can file a notice of appeal to six months. The proposed amendment would reduce that to 75 days. In addition, the amendment would require appellants—many of whom are likely to have English as their second language—to state all grounds of appeal in writing and submit all written materials when they file their appeal.

“Appellants frequently do not fully complete the latter portion of the form to provide notice of all the grounds or arguments they wish to be considered by the Board in support of their appeals,” assistant director of development services Bill Boons wrote in a November 15 report to council. “Consequently when appeals are heard it is common for new grounds of appeal to be presented. This is problematic for staff and others who wish to make submissions to the Board because they are not prepared to respond to these new grounds of appeal.”

Citizens aren’t the only ones facing new restrictions imposed by the city. Journalists recently learned that city staff have been prohibited from speaking to the media on record about their reports before they go to council. As a result, the Straight was unable to interview Boons about why the proposed bylaw changes won’t permit third-party appeals to the board of variance.

The city’s new communications director, Mairi Welman, spelled out the muzzling of city staff in a November 23 e-mail to several city-hall journalists. “Speaking with staff ”˜on background’ prior to a report going before council is entirely reasonable,” Welman wrote. “However, staff being interviewed for attribution regarding a report before the council meeting takes place is not appropriate. As staff we have to be mindful not to pre-empt council debate and discussion.”

As a result, Boons does not have to explain why the proposed bylaw change doesn’t include third-party appeals by citizens of decisions involving developers.

In 2006, B.C. Supreme Court justice R.B.T. Goepel ruled that third parties have no legal right to appeal decisions made by Vancouver’s planning director. Since then, a group of citizens has lobbied the city to reinstate third-party appeals.

“J. Goepel’s sweeping decision changed decades of practice in Vancouver, where neighbours and concerned citizens could bring appeals and address their concerns about decisions of the City Planning Department,” they wrote on the website reinstatethirdpartyappeals.org/. “In effect, he ruled that we should never have been allowed to make our appeal to the Board of Variance in the first place. Now, only property owners (that is, developers) who apply for a development permit have the right to appeal decisions by the Planning Department.”

Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight.