Ian Rowe has been practicing law in Barrie for 37 years.
Born and raised here, Rowe focussed exclusively in the area of Municipal Law and appeared at nearly 400 Ontario Municipal Board hearings on Land Use and Planning cases.
He's retiring this week to spend more time with his wife and escape Barrie winters down south.
"I'm sure there's gonna be days when I miss it and the kind of thrill I used to get from doing hearings is probably going to be hard to replicate," said Rowe.
Rowe graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1976 and was called to the bar in 1978.
He returned to Barrie to work with his father and eventually to practice at "the big small firm."
Rowe did many things early in his career, but the business became more specialized so for the majority of his practice he conducted Ontario Municipal Board hearings and litigation with respect to land development approvals.
"I've always said this about Barrie when I describe it at OMB hearings: it's close enough to Toronto and it's far enough away," Rowe said. "It has expanded tremendously since I was a teenager, even since I came back to practice. There are a lot of advantages in terms of shopping facilities, restaurant facilities, all those sorts of things. It still maintains a small town feel and I think its a great place to work and raise a family."
Among Rowe's biggest cases was the Walker Quarry hearing in Clearview about three years ago.
"I believe it was the longest quarry hearing in Ontario history. It went 167 hearing days," said Rowe. "It was a massive hearing that was very interesting, involved all kinds of issues with respect to impacts of quarry expansion on the environment and water and various animals."
His first large case in Barrie was the 1992 Store Wars hearing that went 87 days.
Rowe won the case but the mall never did get built.
"It was approved. It was going to go down at Essa Road at the 400. But the retail market changed and people stopped building indoor shopping malls so that one never did go ahead," explained Rowe.
The most recent newsworthy and controversial case in Barrie was the 2014 Burton Avenue trailer park where the property was being rezoned for residential development and involved the removal of the residents of the park.
Rowe's reflections on his career are like flipping the pages of a history book of Barrie's development.
The long-time lawyer has been on the front lines of shaping our city.
"I've really enjoyed practicing. I've been involved in a lot of hearings for the city of Barrie and the surrounding area and hopefully the developments that got approved as a result of my efforts or didn't get approved as a result of my efforts, resulted in a better community."
