OSEA's Municipal Green Energy Brief
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Municipalities are key partners in helping Ontario become a clean energy leader.
The municipal role in renewable energy development can include participating as a developer, encouraging projects for economic development purposes, establishing renewable energy policies and targets, providing comments and input on project design via the consultation process, authorizing the use of municipal property, entering into agreements with developers and enacting by-laws affecting projects, or any combination of these roles.
This guide is intended to help municipalities understand the renewable energy development process, with particular attention paid to the rights, responsibilities and opportunities for municipalities to be meaningful participants in development.
All Renewable Energy Approvals (the process that merged a patchwork of processes) that are under review are posted on the Ministry of the Environment’s website. With this page you can easily see who has progressed, who has had to go back and do some more work and who have withdrawn or been asked to withdraw from the process.
Anyone can appeal the approval of a proposed renewable energy project. The Environmental Review Tribunal will have six months to assess whether or not the proposed project will cause serious harm to human health or serious and irreversible harm to plant life, animal life or the natural environment.
This balances the need for certainty and timeliness of approvals with the need for legitimate concerns to be heard and addressed.
For more information on the Environmental Review Tribunal and how to appeal, please visit www.ert.gov.on.ca.
