Action Plans - can they be turned into concrete plans that can be defended if they are challenged by the development community?

News 100 redBy Pepper Parr

October 24th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

The people in the planning department and those in communications were about to learn if they had put together a program that would bridge the gap between what was planned and what was actually achieved.

Sticky notes

Each of the yellow “notes” were an idea, a comment that would be reviewed by planning staff.

Planner with resident

Planning staff floated through the room ready to answer questions. There were a lot of questions.

It was complex.

The city has an Official Plan, it is required to have an Official Plan and it is required to update that Plan.

In 2018 the city approved an Official Plan and sent it off to the Region.

City plans have to comply with the Regional Official Plan.

That plan got called the “approved” Official Plan.

Then the city held an election and a new council was in place along with a new Mayor who believes she was elected to make some changes.

Development map

Each red dot is a development proposal – the planning department couldn’t keep up with the applications.

Development applications were being submitted to the Planning department at a brutal rate.  Staff could not keep up with the volume but the rules of the planning game are that anything that is submitted to the Planning department has to be considered.

The city needed to put a halt or at least slow down the rate at which development applications were being submitted.

They imposed an Interim Control Bylaw (ICBL) which put a halt to the approval of any new developments within a specific area. That area was defined as the Urban Growth Centre.

The new city council and the new Mayor then directed Staff to re-write the “approved” Official Plan and ensure that there was plenty of opportunity for public input.

Concept sheet

The audience was given choices that the consultants said could be revised, added to or merged with other ideas. There was nothing that couldn’t be out on the table.

That is what got 75 people at an Action Plan meeting last night at the Lions Club Wednesday evening plus another 75 people for an afternoon meeting – to look at what the city had collected in the way of information and ideas at a meeting that took place in August.

Lisa Keerns with ward resident

Lisa Kearns, on the left, the ward Councillor in discussion with a resident.

Table group

Couples worked diligently on the documents they were given and asked challenging questions throughout the evening.

There was criteria, there were principles, there were precincts and there were ideas – they called them concepts that they wanted the public to look at, debate, discuss and provide whatever was on their minds as feedback to the planners and the consultants.

The afternoon and evening sessions of the Action Plan meetings were considerably different. The Gazette did not attend the afternoon session, which we were told worked quite well.

The people at the evening session kept going off script – they had all kinds of questions that were not directly related to what the facilitators were trying to get across.

MacDonald + Enns

Planner Allison Enns with Director of Planning Heather MacDonald on the right.

On two occasions the Director of Planning had to go to the front of the room and quietly explain some of the decisions that were being made.

The evening session wanted to know why the Waterfront Hotel property was not being included in the discussions –same with what has come to be known as the “football”, that property between Lakeshore Road and Old Lakeshore Road that has to 24 storeys plus application in the hands of the planners.

There were very some pretty sound reasons for not including those two pieces of land. It wasn’t at all certain that the audience understood just what those reasons were.

It was a solid two and a half hours of people who care about their city and do not want to see the downtown core become a collection of high rise towers with nothing but wind tunnels at the street level.

Return to the Front page
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

2 comments to Action Plans – can they be turned into concrete plans that can be defended if they are challenged by the development community?

  • Mary Ostapchuk

    I agree. I think that this is just to make people think that their suggestions are being considered. The staff and council will still do what they planned all along! Sorry state of affairs but it’s still the same way it’s always been done.!

  • Penny Hersh

    I received unsolicited phone calls and emails from residents who attended the afternoon session of the Action Lab. This one particular resident walked out after the first half. This resident is knowledgeable and knows their way around city planning and left because the facilitator was presenting misleading information. Others sitting at the table felt the same way, but didn’t express their feelings. The city should not associate Silence with Acceptance, and residents need to be more vocal when attending these Labs.

    For the most part the average resident has no idea about Municipal, Regional, Provincial, or Federal mandates that must be met when it comes to development. Without this information when resident input is asked for it ends up making some residents look foolish because they actually believe that anything they would like to see in the downtown core is actually doable.

    Many of the proposed developments downtown have been either approved by the old council, or are in an LPAT Appeal, which the city will certainly not be able to defend successfully. These developments will be happening. Moving forward the only way to have a chance at saving the downtown from Urban Blight is if the City and Council can convince the Province to allow them to move the downtown urban growth centre. This is doable. This area for intensification was not mandated by the Province to be where it is presently located, it was offered up by previous councils. LET US NOT FORGET THIS.

    It was suggested last evening that the John Street Bus Terminal will be un-designated as an anchor/mobility hub once the Interim Control By-law has ended. Well both the un-designation of this hub and the moving of the downtown urban growth centre have to be done. Doing one without the other will accomplish nothing, and the city is well aware of this. IT WOULD BE NICE FOR THE CITY AND COUNCIL TO START BEING REALISTIC WITH THE RESIDENTS OF BURLINGTON.

    All this supposed public engagement. Survey after survey about garbage can selection, leash free dog zones, playground equipment while interesting results in my opinion to “survey overload.” After a while most people simply hit the delete button. Most of these surveys are done on the internet and eliminates a large demographic of residents.

    Food for Feedback was one of my most favourite engagement ideas. Plan an afternoon of free food and a carnival atmosphere and expect important ideas to come forward. But of course the city can then say they engaged 1,000 people that afternoon ( a number I question). Sound familiar – check off the engagement box.

    I think it is time for residents who know what is really happening to become more vocal and challenge both staff and council to be more transparent. I for one am tired of hearing – ” well we listened to what you would like Burlington to look like, but the Province sees things differently”.

    If our new Official Plan does not meet what is being mandated by the Province, the City will be spending taxpayer dollars defending a plan that is not defendable, and the development in the downtown core will continue to happen.