A "Factum" is basically a summary of a party's arguments they intend to present. This one is from the District's lawyer, Royston.
Among the more glaring errors is the statement that the Town failed to deal with Pieper's application (they dealt with it -- they turned it down)
On July 10, 2007, Judi Brouse, a District of Muskoka employee, filed the attached affidavit outlining all the "research" that she had been doing in support of Pieper's request for a re-hearing. Oddly enough the date and place the affidavit was sworn coincides with the date and place that the developer's consultant swore out his affidavit in support of the appeal. In retrospect, this was the first of many intimations that District staff were working hand in hand with the developer.
When the OMB ruled in our favour, Pieper's lawyer sent a letter to the Chair of the OMB asking for a review of the ruling. We did not feel that such a review was warranted under the OMBs own rules, but that's another story.
Originally the District of Muskoka said they had no interest in being a "Party" to the proceedings. (Under the OMB rules, Parties must establish their interest in advance of the hearing.)
But on the first day of the original OMB hearing Judi Brouse showed up, bringing along consultant Niel Hutcheson and asked for status as "Freinds of the Court". There is no such provisionin the OMB forum, but they were granted a role as "Participants". This group became to be known as the "Panel of Experts" in subsequent documents.
A/01/2007/THE – Skultety
First of all, I’d like to say that we will refer to the waterbody that this property fronts on as “Jessop Lake”, although many locals refer to it as Jingo Lake, that is actually the name of the road, not the official name of the lake.
We have some concerns about this application. First, we note that Jessop Lake is Over Threshold, as shown by the District of Muskoka fact sheet, and of course, adequate setbacks are an important part of protecting OT lakes, as well as enhanced septic systems and so forth.