A municipality is not obligated to provide building compliance notices

Joanne Côté, lawyer

On February 2, 2010, the Commission d’accès à l’information rendered an interesting decision (G.B. v. A (Ville), 2010 QCCAI 33) regarding building compliance records access.

In this case, the plaintiff was seeking to obtain the excerpts of the zoning, building and land subdivision regulations that were in effect and applicable when a building permit was granted to a neighbour in 2006. The purpose was to find out if the neighbour’s project complied with these regulations.

The municipality therefore sent the plaintiff the zoning, building and subdivision regulations that were in effect at the time without, however, highlighting the excerpts that applied to the neighbour’s project.

Dissatisfied with the municipality’s response, the plaintiff filed a request with the Commission d’accès à l’information to receive only the excerpts that demonstrated that the neighbour’s project complied with the aforementioned regulations.

Commissioner Me Hélène Grenier therefore had to decide whether the municipality was obligated to provide the 2006 zoning, building and subdivision regulatory provisions that specifically applied to the plaintiff’s neighbour’s project, which, as maintained by the municipality, complied with all regulations.

According to the commissioner, the plaintiff was requiring that, after assessing the project, the municipality justify its approval and provide the compliance notice based on regulatory provisions, confirming that the project was indeed compliant.

The commissioner was of the opinion that the municipality was not obligated to fulfill the request. The plaintiff was therefore only allowed access to the documents relating to the request and not to the analysis of the regulatory provisions as they pertained to a specific project.

In addition, the information that the plaintiff was seeking to obtain was considered to be personal information pertaining to the neighbour. The neighbour being a physical person, the compliance notice with the reasons therefor, if held by the municipality, constituted confidential personal information.

In light of the decision rendered on February 2, 2010, by the Commission d’accès à l’information, the municipality did not produce the notice of compliance with the reasons therefor nor transmit the specific regulatory excerpts requiring analysis as part of an application for access to records.

LAW COLUMN 02/2012

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