The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) was an independent administrative board, operated as an adjudicative tribunal, in the province of Ontario, Canada. It heard applications and appeals on municipal and planning disputes, as well as other matters specified in provincial legislation. The tribunal reported to the Ministry of the Attorney General from 2012 until its shuttering. The Board had been criticized for its broad powers and authority to override the Planning Act decisions of municipal councils. The Ontario Municipal Board was replaced by the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal on April 3, 2018, which was intended to have more limited powers and a reduced scope. The Local Planning Appeal Tribunal was in turn replaced by the Ontario Land Tribunal on June 1, 2021. History The OMB was established in 1906 as the Ontario Railway and Municipal Board "to oversee municipalities' accounts and to supervise the then rapidly growing rail transportation system between and within municipalities." In so doing, it took over responsibility of these functions from the former Railway Committee of the Executive Council and Office of the Provincial Municipal Auditor. It was amalgamated with the Bureau of Municipal Affairs and given its current name in 1932. In 2010, under the Adjudicative Tribunals Accountability, Governance and Appointments Act, 2009, the OMB was designated as part of a cluster known as "Environment and Land Tribunals Ontario", which also includes the Assessment Review Board, boards of negotiation under the Expropriations Act, the Conservation Review Board and the Environmental Review Tribunal. Scope of jurisdiction The OMB was constituted under the Ontario Municipal Board Act, which conferred "exclusive jurisdiction in all cases and in respect of all matters in which jurisdiction is conferred on it by this Act or by any other general or special Act". Until 2009, its decisions could be appealed by petition to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, but such petitions were abolished by the Good Government Act, 2009, after which decisions of the OMB were final, subject only to appeals to the Divisional Court on a question of law with that Court's leave. While the Act declared that the Board "has all the powers of a court of record", in 1938 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council held that it is not a superior court, but in pith and substance an administrative body. Appeals to the OMB were described as "a process requiring the OMB to exercise its public interest mandate", and