Planning : Hearing Procedure
Once a Notice of Appeal has been filed, the Appeals Officer/Clerk will contact the parties to discuss possible dates for the scheduling of a hearing. The hearing is typically held within 90 days after the filing of the Notice of Appeal.
Following the scheduling of a hearing date, a Notice of Hearing will be prepared by the Appeals Officer/Clerk and published three times in a local newspaper. The newspaper will invoice the appellant directly for the cost of these advertisements in accordance with Rule 20 of the Municipal Government Act Rules.
About one month prior to the hearing, the Appeals Officer/Clerk will send the appellant a letter directing that a copy of the Notice of Hearing be served on all assessed owners within a distance of 500 feet of the subject property. The Appeals Officer/Clerk will co-ordinate with Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations to provide the appellant with the names and addresses of the assessed owners on the basis of the appellant’s written undertaking that they will be used solely for the purpose of delivering the Notice of Hearing.
Prior to the hearing, the Municipality will prepare and file an Appeal Record containing all the information which was before municipal council or the development officer at the time the decision was made. The appellant will be provided with a copy of the Appeal Record.
In addition to the Appeal Record, both the appellant and the Municipality will be required to file with the Board, and each other, all written evidence or visual evidence upon which they intend to rely at the hearing. Written evidence includes any reports, documents, letters, hard copies of overhead projection sheets, and other data, while visual evidence includes any photographs, maps, audio tapes, videos, charts, models, overlays, and computer generated images. In the event either the appellant or Municipality seek to qualify a witness as an “expert” in planning matters or other fields, a curriculum vitae, a report, and any written or visual evidence prepared by the expert is to be filed in advance of the hearing.
Prior to the hearing, the Board may convene a prehearing telephone conference to canvass issues of procedure with the parties, or to make preliminary rulings on such issues as: whether the appellant is an “aggrieved person” under the Municipal Government Act, whether the grounds of appeal are within the Board’s jurisdiction, and the admissibility of certain documents at the hearing.
The hearing is held in the Municipality where the appeal arises. In HRM, the hearings are held at the NSUARB offices, while appeals outside HRM are usually heard in municipal council chambers or other rooms within the municipal building. While parties are not required to be represented by legal counsel, a majority of appellants coming before the NSUARB are represented by a lawyer. The appellant is the first party to present evidence at the hearing, followed by the Municipality. The Municipality will typically call a municipal planner as a witness, asking the Board to qualify him or her to testify as an “expert” in planning matters. The “expert” designation, if granted by the Board, entitles the expert witness to provide opinion evidence. In presenting its case initially, the appellant may attempt to qualify an “expert” of its own, subject to the Board’s approval of the qualification.
A public evening session, commencing at 6:30 or 7:00 p.m., is scheduled for all hearings in order to give members of the public the opportunity to speak in favor of or against the appeal.
Most planning hearings take one or two days, while some can take several days. At the conclusion of the presentation of evidence at the hearing, the Board allows each party the chance to make oral submissions to summarize their position, including their view of the evidence, and highlighting any case, or any provision of the Act, the municipal planning strategy, or the land-use by-law, which they believe is relevant to their position. In matters involving complex legal issues or voluminous evidence, the Board may permit written submissions following the hearing.
The Board issues a written decision following the hearing. Past decisions of the Board can be accessed through the “Decisions” button located on the left hand side of this screen.