Our Experience

The following is a summary of some of our key municipal law matters:

• Successfully represented an upper tier municipality official plan amendment before the Ontario Municipal Board:
• to protect lands within Alfred Bog from development and site alteration
• to provide francophone cultural activities within the Larose Forest
• Successfully represented an upper tier municipality in a civil action brought by the municipality against a city for reimbursement of the cost of supplying emergency services to the city.
• Regularly provide written opinions to law firms that do not specialize in Municipal Law and Land Use Planning and Development.
• Regularly represent a number of municipalities in Eastern Ontario in a variety of litigation, planning and regulatory matters.
• Represented a major municipality in a multi-million dollar claim against a number of engineering and construction firms arising out of problems associated with the design, construction and start up of the South Ottawa Tunnel collector sewer.
• Provided services to both private sector clients and municipalities with respect to public-private partnerships.
• Acted for both private clients and municipalities in the expropriation process and have extensive experience acting on large commercial real estate transactions.
• Act for municipalities and school boards with respect to legal issues arising from procurement and public tendering processes.
• Extensive knowledge of waste and wastewater management issues, MOE guidelines, and Ontario Water Resources Act and Clean Water Act, 2006.
• Provided Municipal Freedom of Information Act and Protection of Privacy Act opinions to municipalities and school boards in relation to custody of reports, information, personnel files and other information and data.
• Construction disputes including bridge construction, road construction, major sewer construction and water and sewage treatment plant construction.
• Building deficiency claims involving municipal Chief Building Officials.
• Personal injury including slip and fall on municipal property, mould exposure claims, personal injury sustained in the course of municipality-sanctioned sporting events.
• Premises related claims such as over-service of alcohol in municipal-owned facilities.
• Legal counsel to local Social Housing Authority in relation to mould claims filed by tenants.
• Experience with claims against municipal building inspectors for failure to inspect private premises during the course of construction.
• Experience with claims related to failure to inspect and maintain municipal water and sewage works, resulting in infiltration into commercial and residential premises.
• Experience with transit liability cases, including serious fatality claims and unprotected defendant cases (i.e. improper design or roadways, crosswalks, positioning of bus stops, inadequate traffic controlling measures, etc.)
• Experience in handling Building Code violation claims and in architect and engineer liability claims, roadways, crosswalks, positioning of bus stops, inadequate traffic controlling measures, etc.
• Represented municipalities in respect to bridge construction, road construction, major collector sewer construction, water and sewage treatment plant construction, and various types of building construction.
• Experience with nuisance, trespass and negligence claims relating to municipalities.
• Provide on-going risk management advice to various municipalities with a primary objective or reducing potential claims against the corporation.