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Accessibility Advisory Committee

The Accessibility Advisory Committee is a sub-committee of City Council’s Committee of the Whole. It is required under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). The Committee is responsible for advising City Council on the development and implementation of the Annual Municipal Accessibility Plan and advising Council on issues relating to citizens with a disability. Stakeholder representation includes:

  • 1 culturally Deaf person
  • 1 person who is hard of hearing and deafened
  • 1 person who has a mental health-related disability
  • 1 person who has a mobility-related disability
  • 1 person who is deaf blind
  • 1 person with a developmental disability
  • 1 person with a visual impairment, including those who are blind
  • 1 person with a brain injury
  • 1 older adult with a disability
  • 1 person with a speech impairment
  • 1 person with a learning disability
  • 1 parent or guardian of a child or youth with a disability
  • 1 caregiver to a person with a disability
  • 1 City Councillor
  • 1 citizen at large
  • 1 Service Agency Representative with a mandate/responsibility for people with disabilities

Picture of Accessibility Advisory Committee Members 2011

Pictured at Left: City of Thunder Bay 2011 Accessibility Advisory Committee Members

Front Row (L-R): Maurice Rubenik, Christine Auger, Rob Wheeler   Back Row (L-R): Randy Sponchia, Stephen Holloway (City Admin. Rep), John Duncanson, Tessa Soderberg, Karen Higginson, Joe Peotto (Past Committee Coordinator)   Missing: Councillor Rebecca Johnson, Darren Lillington, Sharon Bryenton, Amy Vaillant, Michael Benninger, Dana Heinrich (City Admin. Rep.), Gordon Stover (Current Committee Coordinator)

 

New Builds, REnovations, and Site plan controls

The Accessibility Advisory Committee provides guidance on all new builds and renovations of municipal facilities. In these functions they are bound by the Ontario Building Code, but also reference the London Design Standards, 2007. City Council supports the use of the London Design Standards as a best practice in accessible design.  Once the Built Environment Standard of the AODA, 2005 is law, then compliance will follow.

Under the ODA, 2001 and the AODA, 2005 the City’s Accessibility Advisory Committee is required to review all Site Plan Controls that come through the City’s Development Services Department. Here is a list of what the committee can give feedback on for these plans, as covered in the Planning Act:

Extracted from Section 41 of the Planning Act, 1990:

Provide to the satisfaction of and at no expense to the municipality any or all of the following:

  1. Subject to the provisions of subsections (8) and (9), widenings of highways that abut on the land.
  2. Subject to the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act, facilities to provide access to and from the land such as access ramps and curbings and traffic direction signs.
  3. Off-street vehicular loading and parking facilities, either covered or uncovered, access driveways, including driveways for emergency vehicles, and the surfacing of such areas and driveways.
  4. Walkways and walkway ramps, including the surfacing thereof, and all other means of pedestrian access.
    4.1 Facilities designed to have regard for accessibility for persons with disabilities.
  5. Facilities for the lighting, including floodlighting, of the land or of any buildings or structures thereon.
  6. Walls, fences, hedges, trees, shrubs or other groundcover or facilities for the landscaping of the land, or the protection of adjoining lands.
  7. Vaults, central storage and collection areas and other facilities and enclosures for the storage of garbage and other waste material.
  8. Easements conveyed to the municipality for the construction, maintenance or improvement of watercourses, ditches, land drainage works, sanitary sewage facilities and other public utilities of the municipality or local board thereof on the land.
  9. Grading or alteration in elevation or contour of the land and provision for the disposal of storm, surface and waste water from the land and from any buildings or structures thereon;

    (b) maintain to the satisfaction of the municipality and at the sole risk and expense of the owner any or all of the facilities or works mentioned in paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of clause (a), including the removal of snow from access ramps and driveways, parking and loading areas and walkways;

    (d) subject to subsection (9.1), convey part of the land to the municipality to the satisfaction of and at no expense to the municipality for a public transit right of way. R.S.O. 1990, c. P.13, s. 41 (7); 1996, c. 4, s. 24 (1, 2); 2006, c. 23, s. 16 (6, 7).

 

Accessibility Advisory Committee Minutes

January 5, 2012  Adobe PDF, 4 pages, 80 KB         
January 19, 2012  Adobe PDF, 4 pages, 81 KB         
February 16, 2012     Adobe PDF, 6 pages, 100 KB       
March 22, 2012 Adobe PDF, 6 pages, 96 KB        
April 26, 2012 Adobe PDF, 5 pages, 90 KB         
June 28, 2012     Adobe PDF, 3 pages, 75 KB
 September 20, 2012 Adobe PDF, 6 pages, 95 KB
 October 25, 2012 Adobe PDF, 4 pages, 85 KB
 November 29, 2013 Adobe PDF, 7 pages,105 KB

 

The next 2013 committee meetings will be on April 18, May 16, June 20 from 1:30 - 3:30 pm at West Thunder Community Centre at 915 S. Edward St. These meetings are open to the public, but contact must be made with the comittee before you attend.

If you are interested in becoming a member of the Accessibility Advisory Committee, or in attending a meeting,  please contact Dana Heinrich at 625-2419 or email at danaheinrich@thunderbay.ca.