Pier to Pier for a necessary 22 km run in preparation for NYC marathon in November.

sportsgold 100x100By Ashley Worobec

August 5th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Had a great week again this week, the pinnacle of which happened on my Sunday long run.

22 km run

Just for the record

This week’s long run was 22km, and my training group did what we call the “Pier run”: this means our route included four piers- the Brant Street pier, both lift bridge piers (one on either side of the canal), and the LaSalle Park marina pier.

It was a gorgeous morning and we started at 7am while most of the City was still asleep on this sunny long weekend. Nutrition is a huge part of a long run like that, and I took in a lot of water, a bit of Gatorade, and a couple of gels while on my run.

My favourite gel is a natural product called Endurance Tap, and it’s only got three ingredients- maple syrup, sea salt, and ginger. They are a Canadian company and I love them so much that I’m a brand ambassador for them. They sit well in my stomach and don’t give me any GI upset that can be common in long-distance running.

When running for so long, your body shunts blood away from your digestive system and prioritizes it into your muscles, so sometimes it’s tough to take in needed nutrition while on the run.

Breakfast

Solid breakfast

I’ve included a picture of the breakfast I ate after this particular run, a variation of which I eat many days each week- eggs for protein, spinach for iron, strawberries for antioxidants, sweet potatoes for carbs, peanut butter for fat, and coffee for coffee!

One other thing to note this week is that I changed my running shoes. I keep track of my mileage, and most recommendations advise changing shoes after 500-800km. I hit 800km on my current pair, and while they still look good on the outside, I know that’s enough mileage that they’ve done their work and taken a beating.

Running shoes

The running shoe that has never let her down.

Since a big focus for me right now is injury prevention, I don’t want to make a silly training error like that that’s so preventable. I always have a couple of pairs of running shoes sitting in my closet, as I buy them when I find them on sale throughout the year, and then they’re there for me when I need them. When I find a shoe that I like, I’ll often buy a few pairs at a time, as running shoe manufacturers often make changes to their shoes with each new yearly edition.

I run in Mizuno shoes; they are narrow and fit my foot well.

Now, to sleep and recover!

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ECoB wants the city to allow more time to ensure the widest deepest public input on Official Plan is achieved.

News 100 yellowBy Pepper Parr

April 4th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

ECoB – the Engaged Citizens of Burlington have been watching how the city has decided to engage and consult on the re-assessment and review of the Official Plan.

To complete the work being done ECoB believes the city will have to allow more time and money to get the job done right.

ECOB logoIn a letter sent to their membership ECoB set out their concerns and asked for feedback from the membership.

It is essential to note that ECoB was treated with shabby disdain by two of the 2014-2018 council members; one of the two lost her seat, the other, Paul Sharman who held the ward 5 seat because the vote was badly split, has yet to find the decency to admit that he was wrong and support the organization going forward.

ECoB has grown from the outstanding success they had with the Mayoralty debates followed by the “conversation” on the Performing Arts Centre at which people got a close look at how their Mayor did when she went up against Oakville Mayor Rob Burton.

Aldershot debate

The Aldershot All Candidate debate filled a church hall to standing room only. The event was sponsored by ECob.

The organization is now focusing on how and to what degree citizens will have input on the Official Plan that is being re-assesed and revised.

What is clear now is that ECoB has earned a seat at the table; a situation the city has recognized.  It is now up to the ECoB members pay attention, keep informed and grow the membership of the organization.

ECoB’s Update on Burlington’s Official Plan Review

“ECoB’s executive and ward committees have been busy in recent months. We will be sending you the first of what will become a monthly newsletter in the next few days.

“But first we wanted to update you on one of the most important things happening at City Hall right now. The Review of Burlington’s Official Plan, which is being reassessed by the City Planning Department following the Region of Halton’s request for certain changes, is now underway. The entire process of review has a very short timeline, and needs to be approved by Council by March 2020.

ECoB engagement“Citizen engagement is the term commonly used for public consultations which offer citizens the opportunity to participate in meaningful ways in the decisions, actions and processes which shape their community.

ECoB pre-engagement

“Pre-Engagement is the consultation undertaken by the Planning Department to seek input from various groups on the best form for Citizen Engagement on the Official Plan Review.

ECoB’s Role in ‘Pre-Engagement’

“The Planning Department has been undertaking a ‘pre-engagement’ exercise in recent weeks in preparation for a new round of Citizen Engagement on the Official Plan. This engagement will relate solely to downtown Burlington.

“The intention of the pre-engagement was to consult with various groups to make sure that the citizen engagement that is carried out for the OP Review is done right.

“Those consulted at this stage included Citizen Advisory Committees, the City ‘Charter Action Team’ (an advisory group tasked with overseeing implementation of the City’s Engagement Charter), ECoB and Hamilton-Halton Home Builders Assoc.

 

  • The Planning Department has provided us with a summary of pre-engagement. Download it here.
  • The Planning Department’s Draft Engagement Plan. Download it here.
  • Download ECoB’s Response to the Pre-Engagement summary and draft plan.

“ECoB welcomed the opportunity to meet with the Planning Department and provide its ideas regarding a good engagement process. It also welcomes the desire by the City to carry out more rigorous engagement processes than have been seen in the past.

ECoB’s Concerns About Weaknesses In Engagement Plan.

“Nevertheless, there remain concerns about the Draft Engagement Plan and the results of the Pre-Engagement exercise. These are set out in detail in the links above.

“These weaknesses are caused by two constraints – time and money.

“While ECoB acknowledges the urgent need to complete the review and for Burlington to have a new Official Plan, we also believe that it is essential that the most rigorous engagement process possible is undertaken. For the City to provide the Planning Department with a budget too limited to carry out adequate engagement is a fundamental mistake, and risks repeating the mistakes which have made the OP Review necessary. Likewise, if an additional month of engagement would guarantee substantially more rigorous results, that month would be a worthwhile delay. As it stands now the primary citizen engagement that will take place will be in a period of approximately 6 weeks: late August and October..

“Above all, the engagement must reach out beyond traditional public meetings and website questionnaires, which are limited by the self-selecting nature of participation. Many groups – commuters, young families, teenagers, new immigrants – will never participate in traditional engagement exercises. The most important part of the process is to form a representative snapshot of public opinion which ensures the results reflect potential differences in age, gender, ethnic background and more. This requires attempts to reach citizens at home and in ways which don’t require them to ‘opt in’ to participation.

“We therefore urge the City Manager and Council to do all they can to provide more resources, and if possible more time, to the Planning Department to complete as rigorous and representative an engagement exercise as possible.

“From both a symbolic and practical perspective, it is essential the city demonstrates the extent of its commitment to rigorous engagement as part of the Official Plan Review.”

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Round two - another assault on rural lands: Nelson Aggregates plans to file a new application - plans to give the city hundreds of acres for parkland.

News 100 redBy Pepper Parr

August 3rd, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

In an announcement made sometime in June, Nelson Aggregates set out its plan to expand its Burlington quarry into the adjacent Burlington Springs Golf Course and a smaller parcel of land to the south.

The announcement added that, “Once operations are complete, Nelson would donate the nearly 1000 acres of rehabilitated land to the public, creating Burlington’s largest park.

Aerial of the site

An aerial view of the site.

site detail

Technical drawings show the south extension – this is the land that was in the 2011 application that was dismissed; and the extension into the golf club property.

“This quarry has played an important role as Burlington’s main source of local gravel for 50 years,” said Quinn Moyer, President of Nelson Aggregates. “We would like to see it provide high-quality, low-cost aggregate for another 30 years and then continue to serve the people of Burlington as the city’s largest park.”

The owner and operators of Nelson Quarry plan to close the facility in about 25 years. They are asking the City of Burlington, the Region of Halton, and their neighbours, to help create the largest park in Burlington, the nearly 1000-acre Mount Nemo City Park.

Over the next 30 years, they intend to expand the quarry operations into adjacent properties that they already own. During that same time, they propose to donate the land they are no longer using to the public.

Over that same period, year-by-year, parcel-by-parcel, Nelson proposes to transfer ownership of all the land to the public for recreational purposes.

werv

The orange line is the boundaries used in the 2011 application that was dismissed – the lower part was the new area Nelson wanted to begin to quarry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was on October 11th, 2012 that a Joint Tribunal dismissed the Nelson Aggregate application to expand the quarry.

With the current approach Nelson appears to want to get permission to expand operations into new lands they have acquired with a promise to turn over various parcels of land to the city for a park they claim will be the city’s largest.

The proposed park would be 5.7 times larger than Burlington’s City View Park, and would be donated to the public in stages following approval. The size and scale of the park would allow for abundant recreational opportunities, from biking and swimming to rock climbing and soccer.

What will the park look like?

It would be more than twice the size of High Park in Toronto, and could have dozens of uses, from rock climbing to beaches.

Map if site and City View park

Were the proposed park ever to materialize it would add to the traffic on the rural roads – watch for the howls from those who chose the peace and quiet of the country side that they don’t want destroyed.

The expansion Nelson is looking for would encompass 180 acres. The bulk of the proposed expansion is in a different location than a 2004 proposal, (there is some confusion around the 2004 date) and a much smaller extraction footprint of 134 acres is proposed to protect the unique local environment.

“We learned a lot from our 2004 application,” Moyer said. “We heard from residents about what is important to them and we have incorporated that into this plan. We look forward to an ongoing dialogue with the community in the coming months.”

Nelson plans to formally submit its proposal in November. Plans for public consultation will be announced.

It was a rather stunning announcement that amounts to Nelson Aggregates looking for a way to get around the decision made in 2011 to not permit an expansion of the quarry that has been extracting aggregates for more than 50 years. They are now looking for a way to continue doing so for another 30 years.

There will be a community meeting at the Conservation Halton offices on Thursday August 8th
The application will ask to be able to expand to the south and the west.

The first phase of the expansion will be to the south of the existing quarry, across the No. 2 Side road.

south extension

Detail on the southern extension.

The proposed area is currently a mix of residential, agricultural and vacant land. This is the land that Nelson wanted to expand into in 2011.

expanding west

Detail on the expansion into the golf club lands.

The westerly expansion would take place beginning in 2025 on the site of the Burlington Springs Golf Course.

Environmental Protection

Env protect area

Ecological enhancements to 19 acres around the South expansion; enough to keep the natives happy?

“We are committed to continuing to treat the areas around the quarry with the utmost care. In addition to large buffer zones between the quarry and sensitive areas, we are proposing ecological enhancements to 19 acres around the South expansion to enhance the natural habitat and protect water sources”, said Mover.

Based on the information available the plan has four phases.

Phase One

Phase 1

Phase 1

Within three years of our plan’s approval, we will transfer 162 acres of rehabilitated land to the public.

With a large lake system, this area at the east end of the existing quarry already has the potential for water sports, hiking, cycling and an expansion of the Bruce Trail system.

Phase Two

Phase 2

Phase 2

“This nearly 200-acre parcel of land to the south of the quarry will be transferred to the public about 10 years after approval of our continued operations. Its large lake could form the basis of a sandy beach that permits many water sports. It could also include significant natural woodlands and wetlands.”

Phase 3

Phase 3

Phase 3

“Ten years after approval, we will transfer the second piece of property to the public. The 100-acre parcel is located to the west of our current operations. It has the potential for 5km of trails, a disk golf course and a clubhouse.”

Phase Four

Phase 4

Phase 4

“The final piece of land in the heart of the current quarry comprises nearly 200 acres. It has the potential for 10km of trails, rock climbing, tobogganing, an amphitheater and more. Once donated, it becomes the keystone piece in Burlington’s largest park.”

The key word throughout the detail on each phase is “after approval”. Nelson wants the approval in exchange for a mined out quarry.

Given the fight that citizens in this city put up the last time an application was made by Nelson one would have thought there would be some mention of the issue by the ward Councillor. There is mention of the meeting on August the 8th at the Conservation Authority office on Britannia Road.

Nothing in the Councillor’s June newsletter; the July newsletter has yet to be published.

No mention of the Jefferson Salamander in this new plan.

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Nish Duraiappah named Chief of Police of Peel Regional Police.

News 100 blueBy Pepper Parr

August 2nd, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Duraiappah HRPS Deputy chief

Deputy Chief Nish Duraiappah – made Peel Region Chief of Police

Deputy Chief Nish Duraiappah has been named Chief of Police of the Peel Regional Police.

The Halton Regional Police Service announced their gratitude for his 24 years of service and commented on his day-to-day approach and the many initiatives that have flourished under his leadership have had such a positive and valued impact on our members, as well as the community he has served.

GG02-2016-0335-030 September 16, 2016 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada His Excellency presents the Member (M.O.M.) insignia of the Order of Merit of the Police Forces to Deputy Chief Nishan J. Duraiappah, M.O.M. His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, presided over an Order of Merit of the Police Forces investiture ceremony at Rideau Hall on Friday, September 16, 2016. During the ceremony, the Governor General, who is chancellor of the Order, bestowed the honour on 1 Commander, 4 Officers and 46 Members. Credit: MCpl Vincent Carbonneau, Rideau Hall, OSGG

His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, then Governor General of Canada, presided over an Order of Merit presented to Nish Duraiappah of the Police Forces investiture ceremony at Rideau Hall.

Halton Regional Police Services Board Chair Rob Burton said: “Deputy Chief Nish Duraiappah has been a valuable member of the team responsible for our success here in Halton. He has also been a key leader in public safety throughout Ontario and Canada. We sincerely wish him all the very best in his new role next door in Peel Region.”

Chief Tanner comments: “Both personally and on behalf of all members of the HRPS I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Deputy Duraiappah on the great accomplishment in being named the next Chief of Police of the Peel Regional Police.

“Nish has been an incredible member and leader within the Halton Regional Police Service throughout his 24 year career and will be greatly missed. But, at the same time, we wish him all the best in his new role and in all future endeavors which will come his way as he continues as a recognized police leader here at home and across Canada.”

Police senior command at HQ

Deputy Chief Nish Duraiappah, centre, at the opening of the new Halton Regional Police Services Board new headquarters.

Tanner looks forward to continuing to work closely with Nish as a neighbouring police chief and partner in building strong community safety and well-being across our two Regions.

Duraiappah will run a police service with more sworn officers and a bigger budget – and problems a lot more severe than those he had to manage in Halton.

He is expected to take his guitar with him.

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Financial Representative Arrested for Fraud Offence

Crime 100By Staff

August 2nd, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON
HRPS crestThe Halton Regional Police Service – 3 District Criminal Investigation Bureau has arrested and charged an Ajax man with fraud stemming from a series of incidents in 2012.

Jamshid (James) Pournader (65) has been charged with one count of Fraud Over $5,000.
The accused is associated with a company JSP Holdings and has acted as a “financial representative” with access to investment services and products.

The victim came forward to police after her bank assisted with a review of her personal finances and investments. The loss to the victim is $212,000.

The public are reminded that financial advisors, mortgage brokers and insurance agents are all licensed and regulated by various provincial organizations. Your investments and purchases should be with a regulated financial institution and investors should regularly review their investments and statements.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Constable Derek Gray of the Burlington Criminal Investigations Bureau – Seniors Liaison Team at 905-825-4747 ext. 2344.

Tips can also be submitted to Crime Stoppers “See Something? Hear Something? Know Something?” Contact “Crime Stoppers” at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS) or through the web at www.haltoncrimestoppers.ca.

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No. 4 Side Road closed Aug. 12 to 23, between Appleby and Walkers Line

notices100x100By Staff

April 2nd, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Burlington’s side roads don’t mean all that much to those who live south of Dundas – unless you are out for a pleasant drive.

If you live in the area know that No. 4 Side Road will be closed Aug. 12 to 23, 2019 between Appleby Line and Walkers Line

It will be a full road closure.

The Capital Works people have to remove and replace deteriorated road-crossing culverts near 4391 No. 4 Side Rd.

Detour Routes: Use the detour route along Appleby Line, Britannia Road and Walkers Line for access to and from No. 4 Side Road.

For more information about this project, please contact
Amy Daca at 905-335-7600, ext. 7576 or Umar Malik at 905-335-7600, ext. 7426

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Community Development reaching out for comments and possibilities as they prepare for a different future.

News 100 blueBy Pepper Parr

August 2nd, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

With a change of leadership in the months ahead, Community Development Halton (CDH) has begun the process of re-examining and re-inventing itself. They want to hear from the community (that is YOU) on which community development services to continue and EXPAND upon.

Edwardh Joey talking to Goodings

Executive Director Joey Edwardh talking with supporters at an annual meeting.

Executive Director Joey Edwardh has resigned after two decades of service.

The Board asks: “If you used any of their services and resources such as boardroom/ meeting room use, volunteer positions promotion, volunteer referrals, featuring your organization, building capacity through volunteerism, research and data analysis, age-friendly initiatives, empowering seniors workshops, educational sessions/workshops, neighbourhood development, social planning, asset mapping, publications such as Our Halton Reports, Community Lens, Community Dispatch, or consulting with their staff, they want to hear your voice to help shape the future of CDH.
CDH Cafe graphic

They are encouraging you and your staff  to make time to come to ONE of the following sessions.

      Milton: Wednesday, August 14, 2019 9:30 am – noon

      Bob Rumball Centre, 7801 Side Rd. 5, Milton

 

Oakville and Burlington: Thursday, August 15, 2019 9:30 am – noon
Halton Regional Centre South Auditorium, 1151 Bronte Rd., Oakville

Halton Hills Friday, August 16, 2019 9:30 am – noon
Hillsview Active Living Centre, 318 Guelph St., Georgetown.

Those from Burlington are to take part in the Oakville event.  They shouldn’t expect a caravan of supporters to make the trek.

The Possibility Café process will be facilitated by Jody Orr from The Chrysalis Group, and Coordinator of the Halton Nonprofit Network.

CDH staff or board members will not be present. This will allow an open and honest conversation among community members, associates, partners, and friends to take place.

Please R.S.V.P. at cdhalton.ca/events.

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Arrested on human trafficking charges - male faces 11 Criminal code counts.

Crime 100By Staff

August 2nd, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

The Halton Regional Police Service – Human Trafficking Unit has arrested a Toronto male for exploiting an adult female for sexual purposes.

On July 31, 2019, Everett Effah (30) was arrested and subsequently charged with the following criminal offences:

•Trafficking in Persons
•Receiving Material Benefit Resulting from Trafficking in Persons
•Receiving Material Benefit from Prostitution
•Exercise Control
•Advertising Sexual Services
•Living off the Avails of Prostitution
•Procure to Become a Prostitute
•Assault
•Assault with a Weapon
•Sexual Assault
•Possession of a Controlled Substance

TraffickingThe investigation began after receiving information brought forward by the victim in this occurrence. Effah is currently being held in custody while awaiting a Bail Hearing.

If found guilty Mr. Effah will have been shown to be a very nasty man. However, he would not be doing what he is doing if he did not have customers.

Anyone who may have additional information pertaining to the offences related to this Accused are asked to contact Detective Dan Ciardullo (905-825-4747 X 5331) of the Halton Regional Police Service – Human Trafficking Unit.

The Halton Regional Police Service is a member of the Halton Collaborative Against Human Trafficking along with several other stakeholders and agencies. This Collaborative is dedicated towards providing services and support to those who have experienced Human Trafficking in Halton and surrounding regions. Local organizations such as “SAVIS” (www.savisofhalton.org) are able to provide first response care and support to victims of human trafficking.

Tips can also be submitted to Crime Stoppers “See Something? Hear Something? Know Something?” Contact “Crime Stoppers” at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS) or through the web at ww.haltoncrimestoppers.ca.

 

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City is looking for some input on Leash-Free parts of the city.

News 100 yellowBy Staff

August 1st, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

The woof woofs need more room to run around.

 

Dogs off leash in Central Park - if you have an opinion - speak up

Dogs off leash in Central Park – if you have an opinion – speak up

The City of Burlington is looking for feedback on the City’s current Leash-Free Area Criteria.

Residents are encouraged to visit getinvolvedburlington.ca/leashfree to review the criteria and provide the City with feedback and suggestions.

The City currently has three public Leash-Free Areas:

• Roly Bird Park (2203 Industrial St.)
• Norton Park (4275 Dundas St.)
• Bayview Park (1800 King Rd.)

With feedback from residents, staff will report back to City Council by the end of this year.

dogs-off-leash-opening

The current Council-approved criteria, described below, is used when the public expresses interest in requesting a new Leash-Free Area.

The survey is looking for resident feedback on the criteria along with any suggestions on the criteria that residents may have.

Current Criteria for Creating a Leash-Free Area

• Parks must be within City of Burlington boundaries
• Leash-Free Area must be at least 0.3 hectares (30 metres x 30 metres)
• All Leash-Free Parks must be enclosed with permanent fencing, which the City will provide as part of the budget process
• An assessment will be made to whether parking will be required at a proposed leash-free site, based on the size of the Leash-Free site, location and any disruption to park function.
• A significant barrier must exist between Leash-Free Areas and children’s playgrounds, splash pads, sports fields, waterfront, cemeteries and residential housing.
• Leash-Free Areas cannot be located beside schools or in the City’s waterfront parks
• Area must be accessible to the public for year-round use
“Leash-Free Areas are great amenities in our parks. They encourage play and socialization for all. We also know there are challenges when developing new Leash-Free Areas, and with the general operation of them.

The city asking you what you think – they want some help shaping the Leash-Free future.”

Ideas, opinions what works and what doesn’t work as well as what could work..  Is the current criteria the right criteria?

Speak up!

 

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A Flood Watch becomes very real when there is a heavy rainfall - and Burlington knows what a heavy rainfall is all about.

notices100x100By Staff

August 1st, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Wonderful weather.

Flood watchBut the water level in Lake Ontario is still higher than normal – receding yes – but all it will take is one handful of a rain storm and we will be back to the water levels that are a concern,
Conservation Halton has issued its most recent Water Watch Report.

Storm water - creeks

These are the major creeks that run through Burlington – their flooding in 2014 caused millions of dollars in damage and huge havoc to thousands of households.

The latest information provided by the International Lake Ontario – St. Lawrence River Board (ILOSLRB) indicates that Lake Ontario reached a mean daily water level of 75.72 m on July 30th, declining just under 1cm per day during the preceding week. The latest water level is 20 cm below this year’s peak level (recorded on June 15th), but remains 77 cm above average and continues to be a record level for this time of year. Record high outflows (equivalent to the peak releases during June to August of 2017) continue to be released to lower the lake level and provide some relief to shoreline stakeholders, while also considering the effects of higher flows on interests in the St. Lawrence River.

Lake Ontario levels are expected to continue to slowly decline in the coming days, with the forecasted drier conditions combined with the continuation of record-high outflows. Notwithstanding, water levels will remain elevated for the next several weeks and well into the summer months as record inflows from Lake Erie are expected to continue.

All shoreline areas should be considered dangerous during this time. Localized flooding combined with the potential for waves to overtop break walls and other shoreline structures continue to make these locations extremely dangerous. Conservation Halton is asking all residents to exercise caution around Lake Ontario shoreline areas and to alert children in your care of these imminent dangers.

This Flood Watch – Lake Ontario Shoreline message will remain in effect until August 15th. Conservation Halton will continue to monitor Lake Ontario wind conditions and lake levels closely and will either terminate this message or issue further updates as necessary.

 

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More than any child could want in the way of fun events at the Joseph Brant Day at LaSalle Park.

eventsgreen 100x100By Staff

August 1st, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

In this portrait Joseph Brant is seen wearing the gorget given to him by King George III. That gorget is the most important piece in the collection at the Joseph Brant Museum.

In this portrait Joseph Brant is seen wearing the gorget given to him by King George III. That gorget is the most important piece in the collection at the Joseph Brant Museum.

They call it the Civic Holiday at city hall – for the Museums of Burlington, the event at LaSalle Park has been known as the Joseph Brant Day in recognition of the contribution Brant made to the establishment of the city.

Events begin at 11:00 am and run through to 4:00 pm at LaSalle Park, FREE parking is available at Aldershot High School, 50 Fairwood Place West, Burlington.

Since 1980, Joseph Brant Day has been held at LaSalle Park on the Civic Holiday Monday in August. For over 30 years, the Museums of Burlington has presented this event that celebrates our local heritage, multiculturalism and community.

A new attraction this year will be the Children’s STEAM Zone, where kids will have fun being a Scientist, Technologist, Explorer, Athlete, and Mathematician with interactive activities. The Zone will connect with the newly renovated Joseph Brant Museum, and promote the Children’s Discovery Gallery “The Burlington STEAM Zone.”

Some event highlights include:

Brant Day - Food truck line -2

One of the biggest gatherings of Food Truck operators the city gets to see – all at LaSalle Park.

– Family-friendly entertainment
– Food truck rally
– Zorbit Sports bubble soccer
– Spin and win prizes
– Trampoline fun with Springfree Trampoline
– Water relay races with Bradbury Estate Realty
– La Salle Park Splash Pad (admission rates apply)
– Community displays
– Vendor market
– Quench cart (bring a refillable water bottle)

 

Celebrating Burlington’s Multi-Culturalism
Main Stage Entertainment:

Brant day pillow case race

A pillow case race at a past Brant Day.

11:00 am – Opening ceremonies
11:30 am – Eagle Flight Singers and Dancers
12:30 pm – Halton Dance Network
1:30 pm – Chinese Performing Arts Society
2:30 pm – Caribbean Steel Drummer
3:15 pm – Bare Blue Sea Band

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What will not be open on the Civic holiday.

News 100 yellowBy Staff

August 1st, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

closedIt’s the Civic Holiday this weekend; a number of administrative services will be closed on Monday, Aug. 5, 2019, reopening Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2019.

City Hall will be closed on Monday, Aug. 5, reopening on Tuesday, Aug. 6.

Parks and Recreation Programs and Facilities
Activities and customer service hours at city pools, arenas and community centres vary over the holiday weekend. Please visit burlington.ca/play for a complete listing of program times and burlington.ca/servicehours for hours at customer service locations.

Burlington Transit
Burlington Transit will operate holiday service schedule and the administration office and Specialized Dispatch will be closed on Monday, Aug. 5, reopening on Tuesday, Aug. 6. Visit burlingtontransit.ca for more information.

Animal Shelter and Control
Closed Monday, Aug. 5. Open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. For more information or to report an animal control-related emergency, call 905-335-3030 or visit burlington.ca/animals.

Roads, Parks and Forestry
The administrative office will be closed on Monday, Aug. 5, reopening on Tuesday, Aug. 6. Only urgent services will be provided.

Halton Court Services
Provincial Offences Courts will be closed on Monday, Aug. 5, reopening on Tuesday, Aug. 6.

Parking
Free parking is available in the downtown core at all pay machines located on the street, municipal lots and the parking garage on weekends and holidays.

NOTE: The Waterfront parking lots (east and west) do not provide free parking on statutory holidays.

Do you have family and friends visiting for the holiday weekend? A reminder that there is no parking on city streets overnight between 1 and 6 a.m. Exemptions to allow overnight parking on city streets may be obtained by calling 905-335-7844 or visiting burlington.ca/parking.  You can get a permit on line.

Fireworks Safety
A reminder from the Burlington Fire Department: the safest way to enjoy fireworks this Civic Holiday is to let the professionals handle the lighting and fireworks display. If you do have fireworks planned for your celebrations, please follow safety tips at: burlington.ca/fireworks.Woman running on mini beach

A 7 year old aboriginal boy demonstrated using hoops at the Brant Day event at LaSalle Park

A n aboriginal boy demonstrated using hoops at the Brant Day event at LaSalle Park

Kids + water = fun and noise - all part of the Halton Children's Water Festival. A full day of fun at a cost of $5 per student.

The August Civic holiday – best way to spend it.

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ONE BURLINGTON - an occasion when different faiths, cultures and community organizations share ideas, food and entertainment.

eventspink 100x100By Staff

August 1st, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

The Good News: The annual One Burlington celebration is on again this year. The bad news is that it does conflict with the Joseph Brant event at LaSalle Park.

One faith dancer

The costumes are bright, the energy from the dancer is incredible.

ONE BURLINGTON is in Burlington’s Central Park on Civic Holiday Monday August 5; Noon to 4pm at the Central Park band shell on New Street at Drury Lane

One faith beards standing

Their faith, their culture and their dress are parts of this community that we know very little about. The event is an opportunity to meet them and to hear what they have to say – and give them an opportunity to meet us.

ONE BURLINGTON consists of representatives from the many faith communities serving the Burlington area. The impetus for the first event in the summer of 2017 was the Quebec City mosque shootings in January that year. They also held an event in 2018.

The shootings in the Pittsburgh synagogue in in 2018 and in the Christchurch, New Zealand mosques in in March this year show that faith-related violence remains a major concern.

One faith Islamic sign

People from a number of different faith and cultural organizations will be taking part in the event.

Their purpose is to celebrate faith and culture by hosting an annual celebration to encourage people from diverse faiths to get to know each other better and thus discourage hate-related violence.

The theme this year is “Embracing Diversity”. It will be an embracing occasion with dancers on the stage – you will see and hear music you won’t see anywhere else in the city.

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If the Economic Development Corporation is wrapped up - what does that do to TechPlace and the hefty lease they signed?

SwP thumbnail graphicBy Pepper Parr

July 30th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

What started out as a comment made at the annual Chamber of Commerce State of the City address given by newly elected Mayor Marianne Meed Ward may become a rather impressive Trojan Horse.

Red tape red carpet

Was this initiative a brilliant Trojan Horse?

The Mayor made mention of a committee she was setting up – to be called the Red Tape – Red Carpet (RTRC) initiative during which she, along with her colleague ward 1 city Councillor Kelven Galbraith, were to listen to various groups in the city about their concerns with city hall and the help they needed to grow their businesses.

Lurking in the background was a consistent complaint on the part of the developers and a number of businesses that had found it was very difficult to get anything through city hall in a reasonable amount of time

The RTRC team met with

Rural Business Focus Group, Development and Real Estate Industry Focus Group, Large Business and Manufacturers Focus Group, City Staff and Partner Organization Focus Group, Small Business Focus Group and heard what expected – the departments don’t talk to each other- the agencies (Fire, Education, Region, Conservation) are brought into the picture one at a time.

While Meed Ward was meeting with the various groups – all of which were closed to media – a consistent trait we have noticed from a Mayor who touts her 22 years as a journalist with a high regard for the role the media plays, the Burlington Economic Development Corporation was in the process of looking for a new Executive Director. Anita Cassidy has been serving as the Acting Executive Director for more than a year.

Her predecessor, Frank McKeown, who was at one point Mayor Goldring’s Chief of Staff and went on to run the BEDC, fully understood what the job was – keep the business we have and find new ones – he was just never able to land a really big one.

McKeown thought he was going to be able to put together a partnership with a German consulting group that wanted to get into the North American market. McKeown had his eye on a partnership with McMaster’s DeGroote School of Business and the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering – it didn’t work out – the Germans chose Hamilton instead,

Frank McKeown and Mayor Meed Ward never broke bread together – they had strong differences of opinion on what economic development was all about.

Frank McKeough, former Chief of Staff to MAyor Rick Goldring asked about how politicians can handle complex issues when voters tend not to be informed and don't have the background needed to arrive at decisions.

Frank McKeown, asking about how politicians can handle complex issues when voters tend not to be informed and don’t have the background needed to arrive at decisions.

Some think that McKeown resigned as head of BEDC when he could see that Meed Ward was going to be the next Mayor. McKeown always did have a good eye for figuring out which was the wind was blowing and whose sails it was going to fill.

While he ran BEDC, McKeown created TechPlace – a location where small start-ups could move in for a period of time and find their footing and then move out of TechPlace and set up shop in Burlington and grow as a new business opportunity for the city.

During this mix of events Mayor Meed Ward got invited to take part in a “Tale of Two Cities” with Oakville Mayor Rob Burton who explained to a good audience at the Performing Arts Centre that economic development should be an in house operation.

There are dozens of business people with tonnes of experience in drawing new business to a municipality that will tell you it is nuts to put that kind of an operation in city hall. Views are clearly divided on that issue.

At roughly the same time Burlington learns that L3Wescam is going to move out of the space they are in on the North Service Road to a new site in Waterdown. The Mayor was caught off guard and had to scramble to put a decent spin on the news.

L3WEscam Burlington location

L3Wescam will be leaving these premises for a new purpose built location in Waterdown.

It isn’t clear if Hamilton had gotten to L3Wescam and found them a deal they couldn’t refuse; they did that with International Harvester who were all set to move their parts distribution operation from Burlington to Mississauga – then they got a great deal from Hamilton and a time frame that worked for them.

The new Mayor had ideas of her own – she had begun toying with the idea of creating an MDC – Municipal Development Corporation that would be an in-house operation. In the material she prepared she went so far as to describe the job the Chief Development Officer of such an organization would be doing.

“Establish a position at City Hall to act as our Chief of Business Development, serving as a primary outreach for attracting new businesses to Burlington, overseeing and expediting applications through the system and reporting progress and obstacles regularly to City Council and the City Manager

During the July 15th Council meeting- the last one until September the Mayor asked her colleagues to support her idea and move it forward – the support she needed wasn’t there – council deferred the matter to the September meeting when the consultant’s report on the future of BEDC was in hand.

Anita Cassidy

Anita Cassidy finds herself facing an uncertain future over decisions she didn’t make.

One wonders what Anita Cassidy was thinking as she watched this parade of events pass her by.

The city, which provides most of the BEDC budget is current having a study done on what their role should be. As Mayor, Meed Ward sits on the BEDC Board.

Economic Development is critical to the growth of a municipality – some do it very effectively – Welland Ontario is a great example. Others slip and slide around and lose opportunities that they didn’t even see.

The business of attracting a corporation to move to town is really a networking game – you need someone who knows the players, plays a decent game of golf and has a great story to tell.

Burlington has the elements of a great story – parts of which are buried because their value is not perceived.

What isn’t clear yet is whether or not Mayor Meed Ward has the capacity to listen and to surround herself with people who she trusts and will rely upon when it comes to the complex process of how decisions are made. The jury is out on that one – and when it does return it might well be a hung jury.

There is one final irritant – a fly in the soup if you will.

Tech Place has just under five years left on a lease that has a sliding scale of rent increases. In the final full year of the lease rent will be a combination of net rent and additional rent for a total of $301,877 in the 6th year. That is a big nut to crack in anyone’s language.

TechPlace is a program of the BEDC, it has a staff of 1.5 people and an average annual contribution from BEDC’s core budget of approximately $220,000 per year.

Gross rent over the 6-year contract varies from $24,000 in year 1 to an annual cost of $301,000 in the final year.
There is basically nothing in the way of a revenue stream and while there are some bright spots in the Tech Place story it isn’t enough to cover the rent or justify the expense.

In material from BEDC we learn that “TechPlace is a one-stop destination for new and growing technology companies. TechPlace was established to support Burlington’s Strategic Plan 2015 – 2040 that calls for “Innovative, entrepreneurial businesses have settled or developed in Burlington. The city has helped create the technological support, business supports, infrastructure and educational environment to attract start-ups and growing businesses” and to “Create and invest in a system that supports the start-up and growth of businesses, innovation hubs and entrepreneurship.

“Following best in class ecosystem research and stakeholder engagement conducted in 2017 a clear need to have a physical space to build a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem in Burlington was identified to create connectivity, vibrancy and tell our entrepreneurial story. Burlington Economic Development Corporation became the change champion and opened TechPlace to accomplish the City of Burlington Strategic Plan in a way that was aligned with community need and stakeholder input.”

Angelo B

Angelo Bentivegna wanted more information on that Tech Place lease.

This is the kind of language developers trot out when defending applications.  No one appears to have asked the hard question: How are we going to pay rent of $300,000 in the last year?  Ward 6 Councillor Angelo Bentivegna kept asking questions about that lease – bless him for that – no one else was.

“TechPlace is focused on supporting the scale up and growth of high potential companies through its Launch Pad program and a host of wrap around services delivered through partners such as Haltech, Angel One, Mentorworks, Mohawk College, McMaster University and Halton Region Global Business Centre.

“In addition, BEDC has created a “Soft Landing” program to use as a unique business attraction tool that allows companies considering a location in the west GTA to establish a footprint in Burlington and begin operations while BEDC supports their long term business relocation to Burlington through its traditional business support services.”
There is some pretty fancy language in the BEDC material – the results, while interesting, are not going to do much in the way of changing the makeup of the commercial sector in the city.

Tech place logoSince TechPlace launched in 2017 it has hosted over 10,000 visitors, 200 events, attracted 13 LaunchPad companies, creating a strong business attraction brand and value proposition for Burlington. Results since inception are:

Total LaunchPads -13
Total LaunchPads from outside of Burlington – 10 of 13 Graduates – 7
Graduates that stayed in Burlington – 5 of 7

The BEDC material adds: “There have been a number of recent changes to the local start-up support ecosystem including the launch of Nuvo Network and the review of the Regional Innovation Centre model by the provincial government including Haltech.

“This creates opportunities for reviewing TechPlace’s operating model and determining whether BEDC delivering TechPlace activities directly or spinning off the activities to a partner can create the same benefits for Burlington with a different operating and financial model.”

“As part of the overall BEDC review, it is worth reviewing the efficiency, effectiveness and optimal structure and mandate of TechPlace to determine the pros and cons of retaining it as part of BEDC or spinning it off to an independent provider. The review would include a cost-benefit analysis of the current investment in TechPlace and what it produces in business attraction, versus other strategies for business attraction (e.g., dedicated staff) that don’t rely as heavily on physical space.”

This amounts to Corporate Spin on a situation that is unraveling quickly.

Is the BEDC signalling that Tech Place has not panned out the way they had hoped and that it is time to bail out?

Ward 1 Councillor Kelven Galbraith was taken on a tour of the McMaster Innovation Park and had this to say: “It was amazing to see the business success stories that have emerged from the park and the continued investment into their facilities and operations.

‘The City of Burlington and Burlington Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) looks forward to a great business relationship with the McMaster Innovation Park in the future”. That train may have already left the station.

Meed ward looking askance

Mayor Meed Ward has a strategy and a long term objective – don’t get in the way.

The Mayor wasn’t all that interested in waiting for the result of the BEDC review – she had a job description in her hand for the person who is going to bring some life to attracting new enterprises to the city – all she needed was three of the six votes from her colleagues – they weren’t forthcoming.

Tech Place was seen by former Mayor Rick Goldring as one of his success stories – he really wanted it to work.

Wanting just isn’t enough – is it? The city just might have to suck up that rent cost and look for someone who will take over the lease.

Sean Saulnier over at NUVO One isn’t likely to be the white horse the city needs.

The financial reckoning will take place and a new story line will be spun out of city hall. Burlington learned to leave well enough alone when the New Street Diet proved to be a dismal failure. Are we about to repeat that performance?

Don’t expect to see much in the way of transparency in what happens next – and give up on the idea of holding anyone accountable.

Salt with Pepper is the musings, reflections and opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette, an online newspaper that was formed in 2010 and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.

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NYC marathon run is 100 days away - the training is relentless.

sportsgold 100x100By Ashley Worobec

July 30th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Friday, July 26th marked 100 days until the NYC marathon.

100 days might not sound like much, but it still means more than another three months of solid training.

The goal for me throughout this training is to focus on proper recovery and injury prevention, so I’m doing a lot to support those goals.

I try to get to a yoga class once per week, or do some yoga and mobility work in my backyard. Running inherently tightens everything up, and I feel like my muscles and joints move better if I continue to focus on mobility – it only takes a few minutes to see the benefits, and I really advocate this under-utilized component of athleticism to all of my patients.

Push ups lawnThe general rule is that dynamic stretching (stretching that involves movement, like walking lunges, marching and leg swings) is best to be done before activity, whereas static stretching (stretch and hold movements, like the downward dog seen in my photo) is best to be done after activity.

SleepI am also really trying to focus on sleep, and that 9 hours you see on my Garmin reading happened the night after a 20km run (my longest run to date in this training plan).

Sleep is when our body rebuilds itself, and since marathon training is so catabolic (breaks down muscle), sleep helps to rebuild that damage and repair stressed tissues.

My long run will build up again this weekend to 22km, and then I’ll have a recovery week of a 16km long run- this method of a few weeks of mileage buildup, followed by a recovery week where mileage is decreased, is called “periodization of training,” and it is used across many training domains, including running and weight-lifting.

RECOVERY is key, you cannot expect your body to just do more and more and more without giving it a break periodically.

Another important component of my training right now is building leg strength and power, and this is done with hill running (trills, or trail hills, as noted below).

Although the NYC Marathon route is not known for it’s hills, the number of bridges (and therefore bridge ascents) that we have to cross is deceiving, and there is 10km of ascent throughout the 42.2km route!

Hill training, and the benefit of leg strength, is very important if I’m going to make it up those bridges.

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Is Most Public Engagement Worthless ? Some interesting views on how we engage the public.

News 100 yellowBy Staff

July 30th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

A devoted Gazette reader popped us a note. “You might want to read this over and perhaps share it.” The article, which is rather long, is on the value (or lack thereof) of public engagement.

Ruben Anderson wrote the piece on August 6, 2018. He mentions an article with the headline – “Most Public Engagement is Worthless” which he said grabbed his attention.

That article launched Anderson’s thoughts.

“I think most public engagement is beyond worthless. I think it actually corrodes the relationships we need in order to build a strong town. Most public engagement, as it is currently conducted, makes our cities worse places.

werv

Finance department staff explaining a part of a budget during a public forum.

“Does this mean that I am saying we should abandon public engagement? Most definitely not. But I think we need to understand behavior, relationships, and expertise a lot better if we are going to do good with our consultation efforts instead of harm. Public engagement needs to be done well, because it would be better to do nothing at all than to corrode the public’s trust in City Hall and in each other.

Let me tell you a story.

I was working for the City of Vancouver’s Sustainability Group and was assigned to a large urban planning process. Consultation was said to be critical, necessary, jugular—and so we dog-and-ponied with our flip charts and sticky notes and dotmocracy.

We asked people the question, “How could Vancouver be more sustainable?”

Solar Panels! they told us. Windmills! Plant trees! Ban plastic bags! Ride bikes!

Golly. Solar panels?

Here I am working in a Sustainability Department and I never thought of solar panels. How could I have missed that? Solar panels! And bikes? Wow. Just wow. What a fool I was! My eyes are opened!

What I am trying to describe here is how terribly insulting this process was to everybody involved.

We had asked a question that could produce nothing but disrespect for the experts who have dedicated their education and careers to reducing environmental impact. Of course we knew about solar panels.

And we had asked a question that the members of the general public were not equipped to answer, because they aren’t experts. There are some good reasons why solar panels are not installed faster—it is almost always a better idea to insulate your home, weatherstrip and draught-proof first. You reduce your own energy demand before you put on solar panels.

Jennifer Johnson on the rleft listening to a residents ideas at Lakeside Plaza visioning

Jennifer Johnson on the left listening to a residents ideas at Lakeside Plaza visioning exercise.

When the report and recommendations come out, the public sees nothing that resembles what they asked for—they wanted solar panels and they got weatherstripping. They too feel disrespected. They gave their irreplaceable time, hours from their one and only life, and look what they got.

They had to give something up in order to come to the consultation, and nothing good came of their time because they weren’t asked questions they could meaningfully contribute to answering.

This is not how you build a trusting relationship: a strong foundation on which to work together. This is how you corrode trust.

Another story: the city I now live in, Victoria, BC, recently began installing “all ages and abilities” bike lanes after a significant consultation period. At a couple of the consultations, big maps were laid out so people could draw where they thought bike routes should go.

If you’re having the public draw bike lanes, think about why. What expertise do they have that your bike planners don’t?

green-bike-lanes

Does the clearly coloured bike lane make it safer? Only if car drivers are aware of why the colouring is in place.

To be quite blunt, if your bicycle transportation planner does not have a very clear idea what routes would balance geography, access, cost, safety, behavior change, etc. then they are incompetent and should be fired.

If your planner is not incompetent, then they are probably well-read on the past couple of decades of practical experimentation with bike infrastructure. They probably know the current best thinking on the sorts of places bike lanes should connect and serve. They have probably seen a hundred examples of creative solutions to integrating bikes into cities. They have been paid by the city to learn these things, and probably have done a bunch more research on their own because they are transportation geeks.

So the public was asked to come in and draw routes. The public doesn’t know anything about how many dollars per kilometer each option costs. They don’t know about lane widths, and how wide the city right-of-way is. They know nothing about other things that may be important, like planned changes in sidewalks, utilities, and developments.

We ask people who have none of the education, experience or knowledge needed to make proper decisions to come in and draw routes, and we ask the City staff to sit there and be polite at the ridiculousness that pours out. Can you imagine how the staff feel about giving up their evening with their family, after a day’s work, to go be polite to people who are unaware of virtually all the limiting factors?

And so the public input is ignored, which in this case is the right thing, and the public feels abused, disrespected, undervalued and duped, which also seems like the logical outcome of the consultation.

What Are We Trying to Do?

I really mean this question. What are we trying to do when we do public engagement?

Why are all these people in this room? What are we trying to accomplish? Before we gather people for public consultation, we need to be clear and honest about what we are trying to do. Then, if consultation is the right solution, we can design a process to fill that need.

Are we trying to get ideas?

Our culture loves Ideas! We have Idea Jams! Idea City! TED Talks!

Bob Wingfield, a long time Burlington resident

Bob Wingfield, a long time Burlington resident differing with former ward 4 Councillor Jack Dennison.

Lack of ideas is almost never the problem, as I have argued elsewhere. The problems we face are usually a lack of social cohesion or a lack of money—and a lack of money often also indicates a lack of social cohesion; not enough people care about the project to tolerate a tax increase to pay for it.

Even if we did need more ideas, consultation doesn’t work to generate them. I have a degree in Industrial Design, so I actually took classes in generating ideas. As a working designer I had to constantly generate new ideas. I can tell you, there is not much of a worse way to generate ideas than to put a bunch of strangers with competing interests who are untrained in brainstorming techniques into a room for three hours.

Are we trying to build social license?

Superficial exercises like dot-voting often fail to respect and take advantage of the expertise of either professionals or the public, and leave both feeling insulted. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Maybe. One of the knee-jerk responses every planner is familiar with is “There was no consultation.” So, putting out a plate of stale cookies and setting up a sad dot-voting exercise neuters that response. Maybe there was nothing consultative about it, but the sign in the hall said “Public Consultation This Way,” so I guess there must have been a consultation.

Bringing many people with different goals together behind one project is quite a big task. Clearly a real program to build social license would take a lot more time and care than your average public meeting. Planners know how to hold value-based discussions, but I don’t know that I have ever seen them use that skill in the processes I have been involved in.

If you need to build social license, maybe you should throw street parties; have a barbecue.

Are we trying to acknowledge people?

I have come to think that engagement tries to acknowledge the public’s plaintive cry, “Don’t forget me.” I think people often don’t need to win; they just don’t want to be forgotten. But as I described above, the outcomes of our processes sure look like they were forgotten.

I wonder what it would be like if the design team went through the plan inch by inch, narrating the compromises, costs and failures, the choices they made, and the specific comments from participants. “Albert and Ruth, who live in Fairfield, are concerned that we expand the songbird habitat. We did that by specifying different landscaping from the typical pom-pom tree and grass lawn. The west side is a native plant garden, intended to be wild and seldom entered by people.”

Are we trying to let off steam?

Issues sometimes get contentious, and letting people vent and feel heard seems like a valid goal—it is just that our public meetings often seem to do the opposite. They actually increase tension instead of releasing it. How could we vent most effectively? Could we play dodgeball? I mean literal dodgeball, where we try to smoke the people we disagree with as hard as we can with a fast-moving ball.

I understand that dodgeball does not resolve what we think of as city planning issues—but neither does the current model of public consultation. And the current model often increases tension between parties, whereas at least dodgeball would dissipate some of it. So there is a very real, serious case to be made that dodgeball would produce better outcomes from our consultations than any amount of sticky notes and dotmocracy ever will.

That is a sad commentary.

Misplaced Expertise

It is clear the public is dissatisfied with much public engagement, and do not feel they were actually listened to.

In the Facebook comments on Chuck’s article, Nancy Graham said “A lot of [consultation] is simply for show and to pretend you are being heard when the leaders have already decided the results they want.”

Transit - unhappy customer

An unhappy transit user letting Director of Transportation and former Mayor Rick Goldring know what he thinks.

Why would leaders do what they want? Sure, maybe for self-interest and personal profit in some cases. But perhaps it’s generally because they think they know better and are trying to make the world a better place. This belief is not unfounded; presumably, they have years of education and on-the-job experience and privileged knowledge of the tricky terrain of this particular troubling issue.

Expertise is unfashionable right now, partly because our society is not very good at understanding who is expert at what, so we give too much power to some people and not enough power to others.

One of the most enduringly popular Strong Towns articles is Chuck’s Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, in which he lambasts his younger self and his former profession in rich detail. He describes how he would arrogantly ruin neighborhoods and destroy streets, thanks to his confidence that his asphalt was for the better. He was the expert.

He was an expert in engineering, who ruined the place. Citizens were promised something better, but what they got was something worse.

And most of our cities have many Chuck 1.0s. Many of us live in cities that were impaled with freeways through the core. We travel on streets that are unsafe by design. The sense of place does not show up in engineering standards manuals.

And yet it would be silly to break out the dotmocracy to specify how to repave a road. It doesn’t matter how you feel about finely crushed rock compacted in the base layer; it matters how it performs with vehicles on it.

Engineers should be expert in the strength of materials and construction methods. They are in no way expert in human behavior, nor are they experts in public opinion. They should not be making political decisions or urban design decisions.

The engineer’s role, which has grown to have so much influence in so many cities, should really be quite technical and fairly powerless. They should have the job of implementing decisions made by others, and within that, their expertise for materials and construction should be completely respected. They are the experts at that.

Sadly, we don’t see residents as experts. This is a critical and corrosive mistake. Of course, they certainly are not experts in how to reduce greenhouse gases, or pave roads, or pick bike routes. They should not be picking beams for a bridge.

But citizens of a city do know how the built environment makes them feel, and how they would like to feel.

They are experts in how increasing taxes will stress them out. They are experts in hidden secrets of their streets and alleys. They are experts in the amenities they want for themselves and their family. They are the only experts.

Their expertise should be respected.

Beachway residents looking at early maps

Beachway residents looking at early maps

“We should only consult with residents when they are the ones that can best answer the question at hand. But in those moments, they should be treated as the experts they are.”

One of the most impactful examples of this I have seen comes from when Oregon had single-payer medicine and was trying to ensure tax dollars were spent most effectively. Experts rated every medical procedure and pharmaceutical by its cost and the quality of life it gave, then ranked them from best to worst. Right up at the top was treatment for pneumonia, and at the bottom was life support for babies born without a brain.

And then they added up the medical costs and the current tax revenue, and drew a line on the list where the tax dollars ran out.

Medical experts made the list of treatments. And then residents—experts in the impact of sickness on their family and community, and experts in their personal budget—got to decide what should be covered.

Essentially, the public got to choose how many people would die. Would you like to cover more procedures? Simple, just pay more taxes. Should we spend one million dollars per year keeping an 80 year-old alive? Nope.

And so the line is adjusted.

What Chuck describes in “Confessions of a Recovering Engineer” is that the choice of how many shall die on our roads has been delegated to engineers, who prioritize speed over life. That is wrong. Engineers are not qualified to make that choice. Only the citizens are experts in how many funerals they would like to attend each year, and how much tax they are able or want to pay—and it turns out they prioritize safety over speed.

So far I have talked about engineer experts and resident experts. But in his latest article, Chuck also talked a lot about design, referencing Steve Jobs. In fact, commenter Kevin Adam noted the similarities between Chuck’s article and corporate Design Thinking.

As I mentioned, I have a degree in design and worked as a product designer—so naturally I think design is incredibly important. Designers bring a different expertise to the equation that residents and engineers typically don’t have.

The old joke about the iPhone is that if you asked people what they wanted in a telephone, they would have said, “Longer cords.” That is the product of a worthless consultation.

So to avoid that, Chuck says, “get on with the hard work of iteratively building a successful city. That work is a simple, four-step process:”

Humbly observe where people in the community struggle.

Ask the question: What is the next smallest thing we can do right now to address that struggle?

Do that thing. Do it right now.

Repeat.

Let me reframe this list as a design process.

1. Humbly observe where people in the community struggle.

Almost every word here is pure gold so I am going to break it down.

Humbly…

Arrogant, rock-star designers may be fine for chairs or blenders, but as I have already said, only the residents are experts on living in their city. To get good outcomes, the designer must approach with humility, in service of the city and its people.

…observe…

Asking people what they want is often very ineffective. Most people aren’t trained to imagine seemingly impossible things, like a stylish supercomputer that fits in your pocket.

Good public opinion pollsters have to distill opinions out using oblique questions and the discernment that comes with years of experience. Angus McAllister, CEO of McAllister Opinion Research, said, “Most consultation and opinion research is like eating a Big Mac—empty, unhealthy and dissatisfying.

Humans are poor at noticing the drivers of our own behavior. We often behave for one reason, and then seek an explanation for why we acted that way. Typically we just pick something reasonable-sounding even if it is totally unrelated.

For example, if you ask someone why they come to a certain café, they may respond that it has lots of parking. So, if you remove the parking and they keep coming, you know parking is a post hoc rationalization. In fact, they like the way the light falls on the patio, or the service, or the smell reminds them of their grandparents’ kitchen.

Changing the parking is a design prototype. Nothing happens? Change it back and do something different. It is not just whole projects that need to be iterative; the stages within a project also benefit from iteration.

So good designers have to ask lots of careful questions, but observing behavior is critical. You can ask people what route they walk, but when you observe the paths worn through the grass, you have real data.

…where people in the community struggle.

We hold up Gods of Technology like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, but they are solving their own problems—rich tech bro problems. They don’t care about sidewalks or corner stores; they have driverless cars and drone delivery!

2. Ask the question: What is the next smallest thing we can do right now to address that struggle?

A Strong Towns principle is that it is less risky to make many small bets than one huge gamble. It is also often strategic, because it is much easier to get permission to do a small thing.

From a design perspective, it is easier to manufacture a spoon than it is to build a kitchen mixer with hundreds of parts—but both can whip up a cake.

3. Do that thing. Do it right now.

Actually, before you do the thing, I would like to add one more step.

2b. From a design perspective, it would sure be awesome if you would collect some data first, to test your Theory of Change.

Here are some Theories of Change:

If we paint a bike lane here, more people will ride bikes.

If we narrow this road, cars will drive slower.

If we widen this highway, we will eliminate congestion.

So, when we plan our interventions, we are using a Theory of Change—whether we have stated it or not—and it is important to collect data to test your Theory of Change.

Collecting data can be very tricky. For example, if you stripe a bike lane, you may see more bikes on that road. Are they new cyclists, or did the same old cyclists just change routes? If your goal is more cyclists, that matters.

So, collect data that will actually test your Theory of Change. As far as I am concerned, the number of hits on your website is generally useless data. We want to count real world change.

3. NOW you do the thing.

Do the thing, then observe. What actually happens in the real world? What do people do—not what do they say, what do they do? Do they drive slower, ride more, shop locally, add a basement suite, plant a tree—whatever. What do they do?

This lesson is one of my favorite from design school. What people do is the only measure that matters. My teacher said, “The users tell you what your design is.”

Pathway - city bench

Did the public have any input in the design of this bench. Did the people who approved the design every sit on the bench?

Imagine you have designed an amazing bench—but nobody sits on it. The skateboarders, however, love it.

Well, then you have not designed a bench, you have designed a skate feature. It doesn’t matter what you think you are designing, it matters how people use it.

I hope you find this to be liberating. If you are struggling with a doorknob, or a toaster, or a sound system or your car’s windshield wipers, it is not your fault, it is just bad design. Bask in this insight while you scroll through Gracen Johnson’s sad collection of design failures, #PlacesIDontWantToSit.

So collect the data, and compare it to your Theory of Change. Did it work, or is your theory garbage? If it is garbage, it is a relief you only made a small bet.

4. Repeat.

“Good designers have to ask lots of careful questions, but observing behavior is critical. You can ask people what route they walk, but when you observe the paths worn through the grass, you have real data.”

Collect data and observe the results, because it is a drag to keep repeating the same mistake over and over again. Watch what works, and repeat that.

Now, in this list, consultation just disappears, and I think that is a bit hasty. I think the design experts should humbly observe where the community is struggling—but where do you start observing?

Unhappy parent

Blowing off steam – certainly not communicating.

This is when you ask the experts. Consultation can map hot spots. Consultation can prioritize which hot spots to address first. If you need to know how it feels to live in a city, where the friction points are, and what is most beloved and cherished, residents are the only experts. Design a consultation to harvest their expertise, and then act on what they give you.

Consultation is a very small part of the overall process, but can be useful and important.

We need to be more aware of different kinds of expertise, and who has it. Each expert—engineer, resident, or designer—only specializes in a narrow field, and we mustn’t ask them to do each other’s jobs.

Otherwise, we disrespect everybody involved, and we corrode goodwill and trust on all sides.

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Planning staff are bending backwards to produce critical reports that will shape the direction of the city for decades.

News 100 blueBy Pepper Parr

July 29th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

Despite a year of significant upheaval in the Planning department – staff are now working on several critical reports with tight time frames – and developing ways to include the public in the process on an ongoing basis and not when it is all wrapped up.

Planning staff are well into the Work Plan for the scoped re-examination of the Adopted Official Plan.

It is a mammoth task that has to be done right if Mayor Marianne Meed Ward is to meet the mandate the public gave her in October.

Blair Smith talking to planner Heaher MacDonald

City planner, Heather MacDonald , on the right, in conversation with Blair Smith

The Planning and Development Committee set out what the Department of City Building is expected to get done during the summer.

Along with the re-examination of the Adopted Official Plan the City Building Department has to figure out just what they want to allow in the way of development in the city core – now that there is a freeze on all development in the core.

Direct the Director of City Building to proceed with the work identified

Direct the Director of City Building to propose refinements to the Neighbourhood Centre’s Policy to simplify and clarify the intent of the policies, generally described in section 4.2.3; and

Direct the Director of City Building to modify the terms of reference upon confirmation of impacts related to Bill 108 and other Provincial changes to the land use planning and development system, if required.

All this began when city council adopted a new Official Plan. That plan was sent to the Region which is the approval authority for the Official Plan.

On December 4, 2018, the day after the new city council was sworn in, the Region of Halton provided a notice to the City advising that the adopted Official Plan does not conform with the Regional Official Plan in a number of respects. The effect of the notice extends the Region’s review process indefinitely, until such time as the Region determines that the non-conformity is rectified. The supporting information identified that:

The City of Burlington can make additional modifications before the plan is approved by the Region where there is appropriate planning justification and public consultation. Any modifications would need to be assessed for conformity against the Regional Official Plan and Provincial Plans and policy statements.

Meed ward election night 1

The night the election was won.

That statement gave the new Mayor a free hand to look at everything in the plan that had been adopted by the previous council despite considerable opposition to the plan from a large portion of the public.

In February, 2019 Council provided a staff direction to re-examine the policies of the adopted Official Plan:

Direct the Director of City Building to immediately commence a process to re- examine the policies of the Official Plan adopted April 26, 2018 in their entirety related to matters of height and intensity and conformity with provincial density targets.

A Council workshop was held on March 18, 2019 to obtain further Council feedback on this direction, which has resulted in the scope of work.

To prepare for the Council Workshop, a series of meetings with Councillors were undertaken. The result of these meetings was a list of issues relevant to each Councillor, which informed the preparation for the Council Workshop.

A number of key themes emerged from the workshop discussion. It was clear that Council agrees that the work identified should be completed by the end of Q1 2020.  That is eight months away.

Through discussion at the workshop it was agreed that the adopted Official Plan brings in new policies and forward looking approaches to land use planning and growth. In general, Council supports the majority of the policies within the adopted Official Plan.

Two key areas emerged as requiring further consideration: the Downtown Precinct Plan and the Neighbourhood Centre policies.

Downtown precincts

A precinct is not limited to a single given area: it is rather a description of what can be done in an area within the named precinct.

It was acknowledged at the workshop that the Official Plan is not intended to provide detailed land use policies for specific sites. As a result there is a role for more detailed land use planning processes. These processes can include both detailed, city-led area specific planning exercises such as area-specific plans, or site-specific development applications for Official Plan and/or Zoning Bylaw Amendments.

Coming up with an Official Plan that could be defended has never been a slam dunk for Burlington. Almost everything they do gets challenged – costing the city a bundle in legal fees and months of work time dealing with the appeals.

To this end, staff and consultants will need to work together to prepare modifications to policies, based on technical information and public and stakeholder input, which demonstrate the functionality and feasibility of a recommended scenario in conformity with the Regional Official Plan and Provincial Plans and policy statements.

It was no surprise to anyone that throughout all the questions and discussions at the workshop was the role community would play – this council was elected to ensure that the community was at the table.

The results had to be reflective of the community’s vision for the future of Burlington;

– Be that residents believe that the Official Plan represents their values for the future of the City;
– Be supported by an effective public engagement process; and
– Be supported by the public.

Staff agree that the work to re-examine the Official Plan must be supported by a public engagement process and a decision-making process that all stakeholders can understand and agree to in principle. As identified generally by Council, this need for public satisfaction of the plan must be married with the desire to develop a plan that is defensible from a land use planning perspective.

In order to achieve success the project team must transparently:

– educate and communicate the givens – the plan must conform to provincial policy.
– identify the questions that are in scope and out of scope;
– collect, analyze and respond to the feedback;
– use the best tools possible to communicate alternatives, short and long-term impacts and their associated benefits and drawbacks;
– describe and continually communicate about decision making processes; and,
– identify process challenges along the way.

It was this need to ensure that the public was informed while the changes were being made and not have a finished plan introduced to an unsuspecting and unaware public that brought out the need for the creation of a communications plan that had input from the public – people sitting at the table with the planners.  A major new step for Burlington.

Bill 108

Bill 108 was not only contentious because of the content but also because of the speed with which is was introduced and made law.

Hovering in the background is the impact of Bill 108 which some have described as a Developers Dream Bill.  WeloveBurlington provided an excellent over-view of the Bill and its probable impact. Add to this the Provincial Review which is looking at what form the Regional governments will take going forward.

The Strategic Plan, which has up until now been a list of high level values that everyone subscribes to with there being not very much in the way of detail.

Burlington took a different approach – they took the Strategic Plan “vision” and made it the front end of a series of objectives known as V2F – Vision to Focus. There is a detailed list of where in the Strategic Plan this council thinks the focus should be place.

V2F has been labelled “living document”; one that will undergo changes daily if necessary.

V2F timeline

It was another new move on how council was going to proceed and keep the public in the loop. Problem now is for the public to keep up.

While all this is going on council has to deal with a number of related high priority initiatives that are identified in the Official Plan and the Strategic Plan such as the Mobility Hub Area Specific Plans and the Housing Strategy.

Tucked in there is the budget this council wants to have in your hands before Christmas.

These Housing and Mobility Hub initiatives have been postponed given Council’s focus on the re-examination of the Official Plan and the Interim Control Bylaw Land Use Study as well as the work addressing areas of non-conformity of the adopted Official Plan with the Regional Official Plan and given the uncertainty related to the Region’s Official Plan Review.

The March Council Workshop identified two key areas of the Adopted Official Plan that must be included in the scoped re-examination of the adopted Official Plan to guide the next year of work:

a modified precinct plan for the Downtown Urban Centre;
and a review of the Neighbourhood Centre’s policy.

In order to get a solid grip on just what the scope of work was Planning department staff had to be fully conversant with what came out of the March Council workshop; the Motions related to the Downtown Urban Centre that were not passed during the adoption process; the non-Official Plan related Council directions identifying issues to be considered through the Downtown Area Specific Plan; the Commercial Strategy Study recommendations related to the Downtown, with specific attention to small scale retail in the downtown; and the details of Interim Control Bylaw Land Use Study.

This is no small matter.

The Downtown Precinct Plan in the adopted Official Plan was based upon a vision at full build out. Council wanted staff to look at a shorter planning horizon which resulted in a modified precinct plan for the Downtown Urban Centre that would have a planning horizon of 2031, in conformity with provincial policy.

The population and employment forecasts contained in the applicable upper- or single-tier official plan, that is approved and in effect as of July 1, 2017, will apply to all planning matters in that municipality, including lower-tier planning matters where applicable.

The background technical work prepared to date for the Downtown area-specific plan, to be finalized through this study, will confirm development constraints and provide clarity on infrastructure capacity and required improvements.

The shift of the scope of this work to the 2031 planning horizon means that there are not likely to be significant infrastructure issues identified through this planning exercise.

The next planning horizon is 2041.

The planners would just like to get what they have in front of them done within the very tight timelines.

The outcome of this work will not constitute an area-specific plan, instead the outcome will be modified policies which will go beyond the high level Official Plan policies that are included in the current adopted Official Plan (April 2018). The modified policies will be developed to ensure that the City can conform with the Growth Plan policy to accommodate 200 people and jobs per hectare combined within the Urban Growth Centre boundary by considering the findings of technical work and public, agency, and stakeholder feedback.

What is going to get a very close review are all precincts within the Downtown Urban Centre where significant concerns regarding height and density were raised by the current Council;

– All precincts impacted by motions not passed when considered by the previous Council in the development and finalization of the adopted Official Plan;

– Specific policies identified to be modified based on the technical work;
– Small scale retail in the Downtown;

– Built form transition to adjacent residential areas;

– Heritage conservation and cultural heritage resources;

– Flexible streets

The Proposed Terms of Reference do not address:

– Shifting the Urban Growth Centre from the downtown to Burlington GO. The Urban Growth Centre location is established in the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and the Region of Halton Official Plan. Any policies proposed for the Official Plan must conform with both;

– Major Transit Station Area and Mobility Hub role and function in the downtown as they will be considered in the Interim Control By-Law Land Use study and recommendations will inform this study;

– Transportation or infrastructure assessments to support people and jobs beyond 2031.

– Undertaking a Neighbourhood Character Area study for the St. Luke’s and Emerald precincts. Matters of zoning in the St. Luke’s and Emerald precincts will be considered at the time of the Zoning By-law Review;

– The Old Lakeshore Road Precinct. This area requires a more detailed area specific planning process as identified by adopted Official Plan policy. For more details see Appendix B;

– The Waterfront Hotel Site. This site is subject to a process outlined by a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the City and landowner. For more details see Appendix B;

– Revisions to the Downtown Public Service Precinct. It is expected that the development criteria and other policies of the adopted Official Plan provide sufficient guidance for development in the precinct; and,

– Developing parking rates for the Downtown. Parking rates for intensification areas such as the Downtown are to be addressed through the preparation of site-specific zoning.

Interest was expressed in having the Neighbourhood Centre policies in the adopted Official Plan reviewed.

The role of policy in supporting the redevelopment of Neighbourhood Centres is to establish a detailed policy framework to guide the consideration of site specific development applications. Consistent with the Strategic Plan, the policy framework encourages redevelopment of plazas.

Staff has considered the discussion at the Council Workshop and acknowledge that there is an opportunity to simplify and provide further clarity related to the intent of the Neighbourhood Commercial policies and their relationship to the Strategic Plan. This will be led by staff and would be implemented as part of the proposed modifications to the adopted Official Plan. This work will include:

– Identifying opportunities to clarify and describe the intent of the policy;

– Simplifying language; and

– Clarifying the relationship of the land use policies with the growth framework.

The scope of work proposed has a one-year time frame which was identified as a critical success factor. As discussed at the Council Workshop held on March 18th, another consequence of proposing work that would extend the time frame beyond March 2020 is primarily to shift out the initiation of work for a number of planning studies or initiatives by 12 – 18 months.

When all this was being worked out Bill 108 was not yet the law of the land. Now it is. The Province has also released a new Growth Plan and Provincially Significant Employment Zones Mapping.

Funding of $600,000 from the Policy initiatives reserve fund was approved as part of the 2019 budget for Official Plan related initiatives.

While all this work is taking place a group has been meeting with citizen groups to determine how all this complex information can be put before the public on an ongoing basis. The Gazette wrote about that work in an article last week.

Related news story:

Engagement with the public on a much different and highly desirable scale is taking place during the summer.

You have lost control

Weloveburlington on Bill 108

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The lovelies write the Minister; it wasn't a love letter.

opinionred 100x100By Lynn Crosby, David Myers, Deborah Ruse, 0Blair Smith, Josie Wagstaffe

July 28th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Last May the province dumped a new piece of legislation on the public that has serious and significant impact on the way the province provides housing.

I wrote the Provincial Planning Policy Branch doing the review of the Planning act and made the following comments:

Reference: 019-0016
Bill 108 – (Schedule 12) – the proposed More Homes, More Choice Act: Amendments to the Planning Act

Dear Minister,

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on the proposed Bill 108.

We love logoWe are the WeLoveBurlington Advocacy Group. We are distinctly ‘grass roots’ and non-partisan. We advocate on a broad range of issues that affect the City of Burlington and its citizens.

At the outset, we would like to note several directions and tendencies of the current provincial government that have given us cause for ongoing concern and which we see unfortunately reflected in Bill 108.

First, a general rush to precipitous action with insufficient consultation with affected parties, interest groups and citizens generally. We understand that Bill 108 and its consequences are entirely within the powers and prerogatives of the provincial government. However, we firmly believe that appropriate and timely consultation with the electorate is a fundamental principle of the democratic process. Such has not occurred here.

Second, a tendency to download program funding and operational responsibilities with little consideration of their ultimate financial or operational impacts. Indeed, in many cases these potential effects are both unidentified and unclear resulting in a needlessly dynamic policy context and unfunded budgetary pressures. The result will predictably be reduced services, higher tax burdens and larger municipal debt.

Third, a tendency to disrupt and overload the existing framework of municipal services by imposing a quantum of change that is beyond the limited capacity of the municipality to accommodate. Bill 108 is simply the latest example of a series of provincially imposed changes to local municipal program delivery that were unplanned, unanticipated and threaten to render dysfunctional an already over-extended system.

In reviewing the proposed Bill we have multiple concerns but have limited our comments, given the very brief amount of time allowed for response and comment, to those that follow.

Threats to Bio-Diversity
The consequences of global heating and the need for preservation of bio-diversity are of the utmost importance to our province and our country in the 21st century. Unfortunately, instead of increasing the strength of our protections for these crucial needs, Schedule 5 of Bill 108 makes it easier for plants and wildlife habitat to be destroyed. If enacted as proposed, Bill 108 would lead to significant delays and uncertainty regarding listing of species at risk, provide for more exceptions and mechanisms for escaping the prohibitions, severely limit the government’s actions to protect and recover species at risk, and remove requirements for the Minister to consult with species experts. The amendments would also allow proponents to harm some species at risk in exchange for benefiting others (through landscape agreements) and create a mechanism where proponents can pay a regulatory charge in lieu of meeting conditions on a permit designed to protect and recover species or its habitat. The new term “pay to slay” that is finding traction with constituents is an apt if somewhat grotesque label.

Schedule 5 will accelerate the decline of species. This is not a trade-off voting constituents are willing to support.

Schedule 5 should be eliminated from this Bill in its entirety.

Shorter Timelines for Review of Applications
Setting shorter timelines for the review of development applications directly impacts the ability of municipal planning staff to deal with the comprehensive nature of applications, consult with the public, or seek collaboration with applicants. Instead of allowing for the community and parties to work together, shortened timelines will increase adversity. There are impractical timelines for staff and Council for even the most simple, straightforward applications. The result will be even more appeals for non-decisions, thereby defeating the desire to increase housing faster.

Return to de novo Hearings
While the LPAT remains, it will no longer evaluate appeals based on compliance with official plans and consistency with provincial plans/policies. Bill 108 returns it to the more adversarial OMB process and, as such, a return to de novo hearings. This is very disappointing for residents and municipal governments, as it takes final planning decisions out of elected councils’ hands. Historically, the use of a de novo approach to appeals has resulted in drawn out hearings, lags in decisions and a backlog of cases. The return to this process has no positive effect to speed up housing development. This aspect of Bill 108 has been characterized as a return to the substance (if not the fact) of the former Ontario Municipal Review Board. We agree and consider it a fundamental flaw of the proposed legislation.

Parkland and Development Charges
A long-standing tenet of land use in Ontario, as established by the province and undertaken by municipalities, is for the building of complete communities – places where homes, jobs, schools, community services, parks and recreation facilities are easily accessible. As intensification and vertical housing become more prevalent, particularly in cities such as Burlington that are targeted for intensification, access becomes even more important.

For decades, the province has allowed municipalities to require parkland based on number of units being built, creating a direct relationship to the number of people living in a new development. If cities choose to keep a limited version of the parkland dedication by-law, they lose the ability to collect land or cash based on units built and are limited to require 5% of the land area of the new development. A 5% requirement on a small site being used for a high-rise development does not deliver a “park” space for residents that will contribute to livability in any manner.

Our parks are critical pieces of infrastructure that not only help to alleviate the effects of global heating but also play a pivotal role in creating places where people actually want to live. Further, Bill 108 compels cities to spend 60% of the money they collect each year, thus making it harder for cities to save up funds for larger park projects and land purchases.

Not only does Bill 108 severely curtail the ability for cities to require developers to provide parkland onsite, it also removes the ability for those same cities to use development charges to collect money for parks and other soft infrastructure. The proposed new development charges amalgamate many of the tools cities have used for things such as affordable housing and turned them into either/or situations. These restrictions are exacerbated by a yet-to-be identified cap the government will announce at a later date.

No Answers to Affordable Housing
Bill 108 does not provide for any mechanisms to ensure that reduced development costs are passed through to future home buyers and renters.

In large part the development industry is permitted to build the product it most wants, wherever it desires and sell it at whatever price it chooses.

Allowing municipalities to utilize inclusionary zoning as one of a suite of tools to address and increase the supply and integration of affordable housing through private development represents a more effective manner with which to create affordable housing. By doing so, municipalities maintain the flexibility to utilize the tools most appropriate to the local context.

In Summary
Bill 108 does not represent the government action voting constituents want from provincial leaders. The City of Burlington and municipalities like it across Ontario have well planned strategies for growth with specific areas identified for intensification and new development.

Reasonable timelines are in place to ensure professional review and assessment of development applications while providing constituents with a voice. The City of Burlington currently has in place an Interim Control Bylaw that has imposed a hiatus on development applications for one (potentially two) years. The bylaw was enacted as a necessary mechanism to cope with both the volume and the complexity of current development applications. This would override it and introduce virtual chaos into the evaluation and approval process.

We love B Prov Rev

Lynn Crosby, Deborah Ruse, Blair Smith, Josie Wagstaffe

We strongly urge you to pause Bill 108 in its entirety and work in tandem with the City of Burlington, the Halton Area Planning Partnership and like bodies across Ontario to attain plans and policies that reflect clarity, consideration and certainty in managing growth, delivering suitable development for our population and building infrastructure that works in favour of the people and the environment.

If the current government is truly “a government of the people” receiving its direction from ‘the people’, then it needs to both listen to their voice and permit them the time to articulate it.

Sincerely, Lynn Crosby, David Myers, Deborah Ruse, 0Blair Smith, Josie Wagstaffe

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Federal funding available for energy upgrades in the small business sector.

News 100 greenBy Staff

July 29th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Oakville Burlington North MP Pam Damoff asks: “Are you or someone you know a small business owner looking to making your business more energy efficient? If so, I am writing with good news.

“Last week, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, announced that small- and medium-sized businesses in Ontario can now apply to the SME Project stream of the Climate Action Incentive Fund.

Fed energy funding graphic“Small and medium-sized businesses in our province will be eligible to receive funding of up to 25 percent of the cost of projects that will make their businesses more productive and competitive as they reduce energy use, save money, and cut greenhouse gas pollution. $72.4 million has been earmarked for Ontario for 2019-20 through the Climate Action Incentive Fund.

“A wide range of projects are eligible, including building retrofits, improved industrial processes, fuel switching, and the production of renewable energy for the use of applicants. Proposals will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis, and regional considerations and prioritization for the most impacted small- and medium-sized businesses will be taken into account.

Applicants can consult the applicant guide to prepare their proposal and submit it through the online application tool. Applicants will be notified of the decision after approximately 25 business days upon receipt of their application.

“Over the next five years, small and medium-sized businesses in Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Saskatchewan will have access to $1.45 billion to support actions such as increasing the energy efficiency of their operations.

“Applications were opened on July 17th, 2019 and will remain open for 90 days from it’s launch or until funding is exhausted. All small- and medium-sized businesses who employ less than 500 people are eligible to receive funding through this program.

Pam Damoff

Oakville Burlington North MP Pam Damoff

“In addition to this funding announcement, the Government will soon launch a new call for proposals for smaller projects from small businesses across the country, under the Low Carbon Economy Fund Partnerships stream. Approximately $10 million will be available to help those businesses make investments to improve energy efficiency, reduce pollution, and save money. I will be sure to update you again when this new stream comes online.”

This is a federal program. Damoff was the first to get something out – if you live in a different riding – find the MP there – they won’t be hard to find – they are all now in election mode – and get some help from their office staff.

Do keep in mind that every MP now has two offices. Their constituency office and their campaign office..

Burlington is MP Karin Gould, also a Cabinet Minister and Lisa Raitt, the MP for Milton, which includes some of the northern part of the city of Burlington.

 

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Thinking behind the five year plan is sound - is it affordable?

background 100By Pepper Parr

July 28th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

This is a seven part series on transit and how Burlington plans to get to the point where the public will take public transit to get to where they want to go in the city because it is cheaper, faster, more convenient and seen as the smart thing to do.

Part 4.

Customer Experience
Burlington Transit already offers real-time trip information and an acceptable level of comfort, accessibility and shelter. However, more in-depth real-time operational information and proactive communication would give passengers certainty and a sense of reliability. Improved accessibility and increasing the provision of shelters help to remove barriers to transit use, making it an option for more members of the community. Finally, enhanced digital connectivity builds on one of transit’s competitive advantages – the ability to dedicate attention to digital devices to get work done and stay connected while travelling.

Customer experience enhancements can encourage new customers to transit and, importantly, keep existing customers on the system.

Strategy 3A: Improve Communications

Beyond real-time trip information, communications regarding planned and unplanned disruptions is the next most important information that passengers need to improve their comfort in using the service.

Burlington Transit currently publishes their planned disruptions on their website, but there is little integration of this information with trip planning services. An analysis of Burlington Transit’s staffing levels and discussions with key staff members have indicated that there are less on-road operations supervisors than necessary to provide full coverage of all services.

While operational recovery from disruptions is paramount, affected passengers need to be made aware of the problem, its outlook and their alternatives as soon as possible. To ensure that customers are aware of the actual operating environment on the routes and services they need to take, a service standard should be set to publish unplanned disruptions on the Burlington Transit website and provide the information to the open data (Google Transit) API within 15 minutes of them occurring. This will require additional operations staff to address disruptions and better communication with Customer Service.

These initiatives align with Burlington Transit’s Strategic Direction #2 (Be Forward-Thinking in how services are planned and delivered), particularly Objective 2.1 (Technology) as they work to harness existing and new technologies to deliver a better customer experience.

Recommendations:
• Establish a new service standard to ensure that all disruptions and unplanned events are
published on Burlington Transit’s website, to the open data (Google Transit) disruptions API and social feeds within 15 minutes of them occurring.
• Hire operations administrative dispatch clerks to support on-road operations supervisors and enhance communications with Customer Service.
• Investigate partnerships with third-party trip planning apps to provide riding assistance to new customers.

Strategy 3B: Improve Comfort and Accessibility at the Stop

This is all transit riders are going to have for shelter in the cold weather once the terminal building is taken down.

Many of the shelters were in very poor condition – that has begun to change. Piping in music would be nice.

To continue to progress towards a more accessible system, Burlington Transit is finalizing a 2019 Accessibility Plan, which forms part of the City of Burlington’s Multi-Year Accessibility Plan 2019-2024. The Accessibility Plan outlines actions to remove barriers and improve accessibility. Many items in this business plan echo initiatives in the accessibility plan, including improved frequency, improved communications and improved links with neighbouring municipalities. The plan also includes a bus stop upgrade program and the additional of real-time information screens at the Burlington GO Station and the Downtown Terminal. In addition, Burlington Transit has recently formalized new bus stop design standards (see Strategy 3C), which define dimensions, access, orientation and other requirements for accessible transit stops and shelters.

Recommendations:
• Continue to implement key actions in the 2019-2020 Accessibility Plan.
• Develop updates to the Accessibility Plan for each year subsequent year during the business plan period.
• Expand the bus stop upgrade program to include accessible shelters (see Strategy 3C).

Strategy 3C: Shelters

A customer’s perception of the transit experience starts before they board a vehicle. One of the first interactions with the system on the day of travel is waiting for the service at a stop. Shelters provide customers with a place to take refuge during inclement weather (rain, snow and strong winds) or shade during hot summer days. They also provide a source of information about the service and a sense of permanency of a transit system, particularly on routes that provide direct, frequent and rapid service.

Bus shelter NEW

Larger, brighter and cleaner transit shelters. Report suggests Transit work with Parks and Recreation on placement – that would be breaking down a silo.

As Burlington Transit continues to expand its service and build on the grid-network, the expansion of shelters should be considered as a key part of improving the customer experience prior to boarding the bus. This could involve a number of key actions:

1. Improve Existing Shelters
2. Develop Shelter Placement Criteria
3. Work with the Burlington Parks and Recreation Department to Increase Natural Shelters at Stops

Shelter improvements work towards Burlington Transit’s Strategic Direction #1 (Be Customer-Focused in every aspect of how service is delivered), particularly Objective 1.6 (Accessibility) as can improve the customer experience and accessibility at the qualifying stops.

Recommendations:
• Continue to conduct bus shelter condition assessments for all existing stops with shelters.
• Create a shelter policy, dictating how stops qualify for shelters and how to prioritize the roll-out of new shelters.
• Work with Burlington Parks and Recreation Department to increase natural shelters at stops.

Strategy 3D: Digital Connectivity

One of the benefits to taking transit is that riders are free to engage in activities that are not possible when driving. Staying connected is increasingly important and it is common to see transit passengers using smartphones and tablets during their journeys. To improve the experience of customers using electronic devices during their travels, Burlington Transit could consider providing charging facilities and wifi. This allows customers to use their time more productively while on longer transit routes, access social media and music streaming services and use their mobile devices to access trip planning tools and be informed in real-time of disruptions in the system.

bus-wifi-network-1

WiFi on buses can be done quite easily. Do it soon.

In the shorter term, implementing USB power outlets on buses and wifi at facilities are relatively simple and effective ways to encourage passenger connectivity when using transit. The implementation of these amenities should be on a pilot basis and focused on routes and facilities with higher ridership, to maximize their usefulness and the amount of feedback received.

Connectivity improvements align with Burlington Transit’s Strategic Direction #2 (Be Forward-Thinking in how services are planned and delivered), particularly Objective 2.1 (Technology) as they work to harness existing and new technologies to deliver a better customer experience.

Recommendation:
• Include USB charging points on all new bus deliveries. Charging ports should be located strategically throughout buses, which could be assigned to a single longer-distance route or used throughout the network. Customer feedback and uptake by route and time of day should be collected to optimize the number and location of charging points on future deliveries.
• Implement a wifi pilot at major stations and transfer points (excluding GO Transit stations).

It has been a long long time since the words “customer experience” were uttered in Burlington when talking about transit.

The background report on what could and should be included in the five year plan is sound.  Now to get a city council that will take the plunge – do it early in the term and let the public get used to what is coming their way.

 

Part 1: Transits five year plan has what some might call an over abundance-of wishful thinking

Part 2: Strategies and recommendations to create the needed structure and delivery model.

Part 3: Making all the parts fit.

 

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