Mr Burd,

On Aug 11, 2026 you posted an email from your long time friend Max LeMerchant where he suggests that a wave of development is being pushed through Cobourg Council with my knowledge and complicity, ahead of the election.

This is an outright falsehood. It has absolutely zero basis in fact, and I would ask Mr. LeMerchant to produce any proof otherwise.

Mr. LeMerchant then insinuates that provincially certified planning professionals on Cobourg’s staff — and numerous independently retained, provincially certified planning consultants that are hired— may lack the basic integrity and competence required to do their jobs.

I would again ask Mr. LeMerchant to produce any evidence of that insinuation. These are professionals with no public microphone with which to defend themselves.

Ben you have offered to publish my response, I am asking that you publish my line-by-line analysis of this electioneering stunt, as well as this forward in its entirety to put facts to the fiction on the very blog where these falsehoods originated.

Kindly

Lucas Cleveland Mayor of Cobourg

NOTE – the paragraphs in Italics are quotes from Mr LeMarchant’s post on the two blogs in Town

Line by Line response with FACTS

“It struck me as odd when two major development proposals — the 8-storey high-rise behind Town Hall and the 256-bed LTC development on Kerr Street — were brought forward and scheduled for consideration at the July 22, 2026 omnibus Council meeting, particularly at the beginning of a municipal election cycle.”

FACT — The 660 Kerr Street West application was declared complete on May 1, 2026, and the statutory public meeting was held on May 20, 2026. Section 22(7) of the Planning Act gives Council and staff only 120 days from acceptance of a complete application before the applicant can appeal for non-decision — a clock that would have expired in late August. Hence the July meeting.

FACT — The criteria for what constitutes a “complete application” are set by the Province of Ontario, and taken from our official plan. A town’s ability to simply delay what a complete application have recently been changed through various legislative updates and large omnibus bills.

“However, now that this is being followed by further major high-rise development proposals scheduled for August 26, and then the approximately 970-unit Brookside proposal, including four high-rise buildings, scheduled for September 16, I believe the situation is becoming increasingly clear.”

FACT — The only person to whom a “situation” is clear is Mr. LeMerchant.

FACT — Cobourg publishes Council agendas seven days in advance. Mr. LeMerchant published this on August 12, describing the contents of an August 26 agenda that did not yet exist. He is not reporting a pattern. He is predicting one, and then suggesting it is somehow obvious.

FACT — In May 2025, Council was asked to choose between three options for the Brookside designation. The professional recommendation, in both open and closed session, was Option 3 — the best chance of saving the historic property while preserving a workable relationship with the developers and protecting timelines. I was outvoted 6–1 by Council.

FACT — I warned Council, on the public record, in May 2025, of exactly what Mr. LeMerchant now credits me with causing: that ignoring the experts would make the building harder to save, sour the relationship with the developers, and put pressure on staff through the volume and timing of these applications.

FACT — For publicly stating that we should listen to all the experts who were all saying the same thing, I was admonished by multiple members of Council, including the Deputy Mayor, who said she did not appreciate my presumptuous comments painting a picture of doom and gloom. Yet here we are — doomy, and oh so gloomy — and the very people who urged Council to ignore the experts are now trying to blame the one person who did not do what they wanted. Deputy Mayor, I was not making predictions, nor being presumptuous. I was reading all of the reports, listening to all of the experts in open and closed session, and repeating to Council, one last time, what every paid professional said in total harmony would happen if Council chose to ignore the Option 3 they had worked to make possible.

FACT — That single May 2025 decision — pushed for and applauded in chambers by a small, vocal, well-organized and influential group of heritage advocates who did not know what members of Council should have — was the decision that foreclosed all further negotiation with the Brookside developers and set the collision course with the OLT, forcing these major decisions to arrive during an election cycle.

FACT — In July 2025, less than three months after six members of Council decided to ignore her professional recommendation and negate even the opportunity to pursue Option 3 — an option that was both creative and ingenious — Director of Planning Crystal Laanstra resigned from her role in Cobourg to take on the same role and title in neighbouring Prince Edward County.

“These are not routine planning matters. Collectively, these proposals have the potential to fundamentally alter the character, density and future development pattern of Cobourg.”

AGREE — This is why, since day one of my term, and as required by provincial legislation, each development proposal receives a complete application review, a statutory public meeting, a professional planning report, and a recorded Council decision with reasons and public input.

“There is another very important issue that makes the timing and manner in which these developments are being advanced even more concerning: Cobourg does not have an updated Official Plan within which these major decisions are being considered.”

AGREE — It is concerning that Cobourg lost twelve years between 2010 and 2022, and that nothing was done in those waning years. Mr. LeMerchant would be acutely aware of exactly why Cobourg’s Official Plan was not updated during those twelve years. What matters is that they passed before I was elected Mayor.

FACT — Mr. Challenger became Director of Development in August 2025. Several months later, he proposed to all of Council a plan, a timeline, and a specific order of operations to bring the department to a position where it could meet the newly imposed provincial timelines. All of Council voted to authorize that plan, order and timeline.

FACT — The Cobourg Development Department is currently processing all applications within the provincially prescribed timelines, ensuring that no applicant can go to the OLT on a non-decision.

FACT — It is an outright falsehood to imply that these applications are being judged against nothing, and Mr. LeMerchant — as a developer and an aspiring Mayor — should know that.

FACT — Section 3(5) of the Planning Act states that every decision must be consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement 2024 and must conform to the Northumberland County Official Plan. There is, and must always be, a full policy framework in place. That is provincial law.

“The Town’s present Official Plan originates from a planning framework that is now approximately 15 years old. Yet rather than first undertaking the comprehensive Official Plan review necessary to determine how and where Cobourg should accommodate future growth, density, height, infrastructure, transportation, environmental protection, heritage and community character, these extraordinarily consequential development proposals are being considered individually and piecemeal.”

AGREE — That is why the Town’s recently rebuilt Development Department issued tender 24-PLN-2026, “Town of Cobourg Official Plan Review and Update,” on April 13, 2026 — more than four months before the date of his letter, and precisely at the three-quarter mark of Mr. Challenger’s probationary period, in accordance with the plan Council approved.

FACT — Council has already done the very thing Mr. LeMerchant appears to be chiding us for not doing.

“Collectively — and arguably even individually given the size and scale of some of these proposals — they raise fundamental questions that should properly be considered through an updated Official Plan for the Town.”

FACT — An Official Plan Amendment application is the mechanism the Planning Act provides for exactly this situation. Every proposal he lists includes one, precisely because the current plan does not permit it.

FACT — The process he says is missing is the process being followed. The Official Plan update was launched four months ago. A complete falsehood is being presented.

“The question should first be: What is the long-term planning vision for Cobourg? Only then should individual development applications of this magnitude be evaluated against that vision.”

FACT — There is no legal power in Ontario to stop processing applications while a municipality writes a new plan. No moratorium, no pause. Attempting one sends the developer straight to the OLT, under recently changed provincial legislation.

FACT — Provincial Bill 185 went the other way in 2024, making pre-application consultation voluntary at the applicant’s discretion and allowing applicants to take complete-application disputes to the Tribunal at any time.

“Instead, the comprehensive Official Plan issue has effectively been left in abeyance while individual projects capable of substantially reshaping the Town are being advanced for approval one at a time.”

FACT — “Abeyance” means suspended or dormant. A public procurement for the first comprehensive Official Plan process in multiple terms, issued on April 13, 2026, is neither.

“This risks allowing individual development applications to establish Cobourg’s future planning direction rather than having an updated Official Plan, developed through a comprehensive and transparent public process, establish the framework against which those applications are evaluated.”

FACT — On July 22, Council refused the 660 Kerr Street West application outright. The same night, Council deferred 202 Second Street into 2027 — past the election, into the next term. Two applications; neither one approved.

FACT — Mr. LeMerchant is warning us about a risk that failed to materialize more than three weeks ago.

“The Mayor has significant authority over the Town administration under Ontario’s strong-mayor framework. This includes powers relating to senior municipal management and, in prescribed circumstances, the ability to direct municipal staff. With that authority comes responsibility and accountability for how the administration is being directed.”

CORRECT — It does not, however, extend to dictating a single professional planning recommendation on any specific application. No such power exists anywhere in the statute.

FACT — Under Part VI.1 of the Municipal Act and O. Reg. 530/22, that power allows a mayor to direct staff in writing to undertake research, provide advice on policies and programs, or implement decisions. Any exercise of a strong mayor power must be published publicly.

“Against that background, I do not believe it is credible to suggest that this concentration of major development proposals — together with staff recommendations supporting their approval — is being rushed forward immediately before a municipal election without the Mayor’s knowledge and complicity.”

FACT — Applicants file when they choose, and the Planning Act non-decision appeal forces Council to decide on the applicant’s clock, not the Mayor’s.

FACT — Section 275 of the Municipal Act restricts Council’s powers after nomination day, so applicants across Ontario race to beat it. Every election cycle.

FACT — In 2023, the year immediately preceding the last election, this Town collected $7.46 million in development charges. In 2024 we collected $647,000, and in 2025, $670,000.

FACT — Strong mayor powers cover the CAO, the organizational chart and the budget. They do not, and cannot, allow anyone to write a certified professional planner’s recommendation — and those recommendations are signed and public.

“The evidence is the pattern we are witnessing.”

FACT — A pattern is not evidence; it is a theory in search of one. And the pattern he describes did not happen and is not happening: one project refused, one project deferred.

“Two major proposals were advanced at the July 22 omnibus meeting. Further major high-rise proposals are scheduled for August 26. The approximately 970-unit Brookside proposal, including a cluster of high-rise buildings, is scheduled for September 16.”

FACT — Brookside, under its current owners, has been in the public domain since before May 2025, and its future has been a subject of debate for years prior.

FACT — I was alone in voting in favour of the extension the experts advised. The other six members of Council voted against that logic and reasoning in what I can only assume was a desire to appease a misinformed, yet well organized, well meaning and clearly very influential group of heritage advocates.

“The critical issue is not simply how the Mayor ultimately votes on these applications. The more consequential issue is the position being formally established by the Town’s professional planning staff.”

FULL STOP — This is where his letter stops being about me, and where he begins to attack Town staff.

FACT — A planning report is a professional opinion delivered under the Planning Act by people bound by professional standards. For his theory to work, Cobourg’s planners must have subordinated their professional judgment and integrity.

“Staff endorsement and recommendations for approval can become extremely important if an application subsequently goes before the Ontario Land Tribunal. If Council refuses an application that its own professional planning staff have recommended for approval, that favourable staff recommendation and the supporting municipal planning record do not disappear. They can become significant evidence before the OLT and make it substantially more difficult and costly for the municipality to defend a different position.”

FACT — These are the exact concerns I raised regarding the Brookside development a year ago.

FACT — OLT hearings are heard de novo. The Tribunal does not review Council’s decision; it hears the planning question anew and substitutes its own judgment on the evidence put before it. A staff report is therefore one planning opinion, and the municipality is free to contradict it with its own expert evidence. What wins at the Tribunal is the quality of that evidence, not who wrote the recommendation.

FACT — Section 2.1 of the Planning Act expressly requires the Tribunal to have regard to Council’s decision and the material Council considered — material produced across a recent meeting of more than eleven hours.

“This creates, in my view, a very troubling disconnect between political appearance and practical consequence. The Mayor can publicly vote against a development and receive political credit for opposing it, while at the same time the Town administration under his leadership delivers something potentially far more consequential to the developer: a professional municipal planning recommendation supporting approval.”

FACT — I have one vote out of seven, and I have been outvoted 6–1 on numerous issues throughout this term, including on Brookside, in public.

FACT — This is a personal attack, and a closed loop. If I vote no, I am wrong. Vote yes, wrong. Defer, wrong. Abstain, wrong. Under Mr. LeMerchant’s reasoning, there is no vote I could cast that would satisfy him.

FACT — Should Mr. LeMerchant become Mayor, he too will have only four choices as a member of Council: yes, no, abstain, or refer.

“The project is then positioned for an appeal to the OLT with the Town’s own planning staff already on record supporting it.”

FACT — Every refused application in Ontario is immediately positioned for an appeal. That is what the Planning Act allows.

“This is why the timing is so concerning. Development proposals that could fundamentally change Cobourg are being advanced to the point of formal staff recommendations immediately before residents elect a new Council — and they are being advanced in the absence of an updated Official Plan establishing a comprehensive vision for the Town’s future.”

FACT — The timing was set in 2019, before my time as Mayor, when Bill 108 cut the Official Plan Amendment decision window from 210 days to 120, and zoning amendments from 150 days to 90.

FACT — Bill 185 followed in 2024, and Bill 17 in 2025 — consecutive years of provincial legislative change, each one removing a tool from this Town’s hands. There is no election exemption in the Planning Act. The Province deleted the closest thing to a pause button well before I took office, and severely limited what remained.

“Once those recommendations and municipal planning positions have been established, they will carry forward beyond the election. A newly elected Council may therefore inherit not simply undecided development applications, but an established municipal planning record supporting their approval.”

FACT — The incoming Council will inherit 202 Second Street because this Council deferred it to 2027 — which is exactly what he says he wants.

“Reversing or defending against those positions could then become extremely difficult and potentially very expensive for Cobourg taxpayers.”

FACT — In 2023, this Town collected $7.46 million in development charges. In 2024 we collected $647,000, and in 2025, $670,000 — roughly one-tenth.

FACT — You can accuse me of a great many things. Ramming development through Cobourg is not one of them. Measured by housing starts per term, I am the least development-friendly Mayor in Cobourg’s history.

“Why are so many major and potentially transformative development proposals being rushed forward with staff recommendations for approval immediately before a municipal election?”

FACT — There are two or three major developments. Not “so many.”

FACT — Because sections 22(7) and 34(11) of the Planning Act do not pause for elections, and because the expert advice given to avoid this very situation was ignored by this Council.

“And: Why are developments of this magnitude being considered piecemeal before Cobourg has completed an updated Official Plan establishing where, how and at what scale the Town wants to grow?”

FACT — Addressed above.

“There is no compelling reason that I can see why decisions of this magnitude need to be pushed through in the final months before an election rather than allowing the incoming Council — and the residents who elect it — a meaningful opportunity to establish a comprehensive planning vision for the future of their Town.”

FACT — There is one, it is compelling, and it is in the statute. A non-decision within the provincially legislated timelines is itself grounds for a developer to go to the OLT. I would hope that a mayoral candidate with both building and development on his résumé would be well aware of that.

“These decisions will shape Cobourg for generations.”

AGREE — They will. Which is exactly why they should be made by someone who knows the current rules.

FACT — New Amherst secured its approvals from this Town in July 1997 — in a Cobourg where a municipality had 210 days to decide, where anyone could appeal to the OMB, and where a Council could defer, make special allowances, and largely do as it wished with development. That world is long gone.

“Given the Mayor’s authority and responsibility over the municipal administration, I do not believe he can reasonably separate himself from responsibility for this process.”

FACT — This statement is stupefying, because by its logic no Mayor in Ontario can. I look forward to Mr. LeMerchant immediately abdicating all of his responsibilities should he become Mayor of Cobourg.

“Nor do I believe it is credible that this sequence of major applications and recommendations is occurring without his knowledge and complicity. This should be very concerning for the residents and taxpayers of Cobourg.”

[End of the Max email.]
In Closing

FACT — Mr. LeMerchant has provided, on a friend’s blog on the two blogs in Town, a document replete with false information, a great deal of outdated information, and a host of personal slights.

I ASK — Mr. LeMerchant, please provide proof of your accusations, rather than a list of personal antipathies and suppositions.

FACT — In roughly twelve hundred words, Mr. LeMerchant has produced no document, no directive number, no report number, and no named wrongful act. Only what he believes.

FACT — On August 11, I formally delegated every strong mayor power that can lawfully be delegated, to the CAO and to Council.

FACT — Cobourg residents deserve a candidate who can tell the difference between an accusation and a suspicion, and who knows what the laws of this Province currently say about development.

Lucas Cleveland Mayor of Cobourg
Lucas Cleveland