By Pepper Parr

April 26, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

By 2031 Halton will have a population 1 million people; its population today is about 550,000.  That is the kind of growth the Region is going to experience -and Burlington is going to get a significant share of that growth.

While Burlington doesn’t yet know exactly how much the city’s population is going to have to grow; the current population of 183,000 is expected to grow beyond 210,000 within 25 years. Some see that as a conservative number.

The urban boundary is set – nothing significant is going to be built north of the 403 – Dundas line except for mall small pockets of development in Lowville and Kilbride.

The rest of the population growth is going to be located south of the 403 Dundas line that separates the rural from the urban.

Study area with the many precincts the planner created.

City hall no longer talks about Burlington being suburban; we are an urban city and our growth is going to have to be up because there isn’t any significant land available to grow out for residential development.

The Downtown visioning exercise that took place at the Lions Hall last week, and on which we reported on in some detail yesterday, was in part to learn what the public feels about different aspects of downtown development.

The city has a Downtown Core commitment that sets out its vision for the core; there is a precinct system that sets out specific neighbours and applies specific zoning for those precincts.  The (BDBA) Burlington Downtown Business Association (what has seen its border move north quit a bit, that has its policies and objectives. and there are policies for what the city wants to see in terms of the street-scape – wider side walks, benches or people to sit on and retail at the ground level

The Planning department has released a draft version of the Official Plan. The Plan that is in place now was first crafted 23 years ago. Efforts to revise that plan were abandoned by the new Director of Planning, Mary Lou Tanner who has been with the city for HOW LONG.

She joined the city at a point where staff were doing a revision of the existing Strategic Plan, a document that is created by each Council that sets out what it wants to do during its term.

The audience paid close attention to the material that was on display.

Somewhere along the way council and the planners decided that instead of a four year plan they would craft a 25 year Strategic Plan and spent a considerable amount of time engaging the public to review the document. Council has Burlington as one of the citys’ with the best level of citizen engagement in the province and uses every opportunity to tout that claim.

Groups of people gathered to ask questions of planning staff or the consultants that were in the room and to exchange opinions as well – and there were a lot of opinions.

There was indeed very significant public engagement but one would be hard pressed to find five out of every thousand residents who can tell you what the four pillars on which the Strategic Plan is based actually are.
City council seems to believe that if they say the city has the best public engagement policy then it must be so.

In this part two article on the event, we have set out a number of the visuals the audience was shown to give people a sense of all the variables the planners are looking at; the audience was then asked: The question the audience was then asked  was :

“What’s here? What’s not? What’s missing? What would you add? How would you make it better?”

The mobility hub is the black dotted line; the pink line demarcates the primary and secondary WORDS

The study area boundary is demarcated by the pink line – the straight green line on the right is where the Elgin promenade will be located – that will link the downtown core to the Centennial trail.  Each graphic builds on the previous one.

The environmentally sensitive areas are added.

Heritage buildings get dropped into the picture.

Existing landmarks and cultural features are added.

The significant site lines to the lake are shown – don’t think people realize just how few corridors with a direct look at the lake there are. We just assume that every street shows the water when it is really just Maple, Brant and Burlington.  Elizabeth isn’t indicated on the graphic.

In a development proposal that will get its public statutory meeting in the very near future the planning consultant they hired advocated using Brant Street as the spine that would be the location for many of the tall buildings that are expected.  The orange marks show where those tall buildings are now.

This is your city – this is what you have to work with. What do you want to see done?  The Planners are looking for feed back from the public; they appear to be open minded and ready to listen.

Getting a close look.

The information they gathered last Thursday evening will be compiled and blended into a second presentation that will take place  June 21st. The public will get to see just how well the planners have listened.

Councillor Marianne Meed Ward listening intently.

It was an active meeting – small crowd given the importance of the event – but it was a rainy night and the room couldn’t have held many more people.

The audience was told that there would be little in the way of changes to the existing employment lands.  Meed Ward explained that developments pop up and get presented to the Planning department and added “you want to be in charge of that”.

By Pepper Parr

April 24th, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

The Mayor opened up the event with a short overview of the changes taking place in the city and how the need to intensify and create an Official Plan that would deliver on the promises made in the Strategic Plan.

The audience of something under 100 people on a very rainy night filled the Lions Hall where people were told that what people enjoy about living downtown is:

1.The Waterfront (29.85%)
2.Restaurants and Cafes (18.62%)
3.Walking (18.11%) …

Research told city planners that the first  transportation choice was Walking (37.78%)

The meeting was to have people take part in a Downtown Mobility Hub Visioning Workshop.

Mobility hubs were defined as:

Neighbourhoods within a 10 minute walking distance of major transit stations that will support new residents and jobs in a transit, pedestrian and cycling focused environment.

With those pieces of data in front of them the audience was asked to use small hand held devices they would record their responses to questions shown on a large screen.

There were interesting with surprising results.

Appreciate that these were ward 2 people for the most part answering questions about the downtown core.

The Planners intend to take this road show into every community that will have a mobility hub.  The workshops will see a return visit to each community once the Planners have had a chance to evaluate the data they collect.

The initiative will take about  six months to cover each of the four mobility hubs.  The next session for the downtown hub is scheduled for June 21st.

The event was framed as a visioning exercise during which ward 2 Councillor Meed Ward explained that developments pop up at the Planning department and they have to process every application that is filed. “You want to be in charge of that process” said Meed Ward.

The strong agree support doesn’t appear to align all that well with the opposition to bicycle lanes on New Street.

No surprises here.

Very mixed views on this question.

Vehicles were not included in the question.

The street names don’t show up on this map – the white box is the mobility hub area.

This view – from what was a ward 2 crowd contrasts with what the Bfast people think. More thinking to be done on transit matters.

Compare this with the question on more affordable housing.

A mixed view here.

This response comes as no surprise.

Following the formal presentation the audience was invited to take part in the four information stations where planning staff were on hand to answer questions. The groups that clustered around the information stations were at times intense – in a positive way. They had a lot of questions and the planning staff took a lot of notes.

Director of Planning Mary Lou Tanner and Anne McIlroy, the consultant the city has hired to guide this process watched and listened intently.

All the charts and data set out got very close inspections.

There are two parts to this feature article on the visioning exercise. The second part which will follow tomorrow reviews the visuals on the elements of the downtown core and what the planners have to work with.

By Pepper Parr

April 19th, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

Will the evening be remembered as one of the historical moment in the cultural life of the city of Burlington – or will it be just another non-profit organization that seemed like a good idea at the time?

Only time will tell but the Arts and Cultural Council of Burlington (ACCOB) was launched in the lobby of the Performing Arts Centre on April 18th, 2017.

The formative Board of the Arts and Cultural Council of Burlington, ACCOB: Left to right: Kim Verrall, Teresa Seaton, Robert Mayor, Rob Missen, Ancilla Ho Young, Donna Grandin, and Tim Park at the microphone.

There was a city council meeting that evening and just about every member of Council was in the lobby of the PAC up to watch the momentous occasion. There were enough of them in the lobby to form a quorum – they could have gathered in a corner and conducted the city’s business on the spot.

There weren’t just members of city council in the room. A local youth choir sang and a lovely young girl from an Orchard community school played her violin flawlessly – giving the audience a rendition of a Vivaldi Concerto. Yoanna Jang was a delight to listen to.

ACCOB vice chair, Ancilla Ho Young

Getting an Arts Council set up is an organizational matter. They now have to determine what their mandate is and how they want to execute on that mandate.

This all started back in 2013 when Trevor Copp stood before city council and said he wanted to be able to work in his home town and not have to toodle along the QEW to earn a living.

The irony of the evening was that Copp could not be on hand – he was out of town doing a show.

There were a number of arts community stalwarts – Teresa Seaton, Tim Park, Rob Missen

Mayor Goldring and former Mayor Walter Mulkewich were on hand – Goldring might have been thinking through how much ACCOB was going to want in the way of funding.

The important point is that the organization has moved beyond an idea – now it is up to them to lobby the city; seek funding and advocate for the Arts.

Will they mount programs of their own?

Will they find people within the city that will support the arts in general?

Will they hold the well-funded Performing Arts Centre the Art Gallery of Burlington and the Museums to account?

Burlington doesn’t have an arts or cultural profile even though the city has produced and been home to some very significant talent. The late Gordy Tapp lived here; the Spoons came out of this city, Walk Off the Earth has roots in the city. Robert Bateman worked from Burlington for some time.

Trevor Copp, the Burlington actor who mobilized the arts into a Collective makes a point on leadership while Executive Director of the Burlington Museum’s operation listens.

There are countless others. What Burlington has not been able to do – yet – is pull the history and the story of Burlington into focus and draw people to the city.

Burlington has relied on the Sound of Music and Ribfest to draw the multitudes – both are looking a little warn and have not managed to achieve a refresh and create a new life for themselves.

In the past Burlington has been a place where things happened. There is a spot along the waterfront, in Spencer Smith Park that is referred to as “pebble beach”. It is a collection of large stones – but, as Councillor Jack Dennison will tell you – if you look closely you might see some of the old pilings that once held up the Brant Inn – which in its day was a jumping spot – the place to be.

Many of the black musicians would take the train to Burlington and play in a place where they could eat, sleep and work in the same building and not be treated as second class citizens.

The city has not managed to build on that illustrious and colourful past.

ACCOB has its work cut out for it – the good news is that there are some very good people on that board – they could make it happen.