City adds several months to the time line for approving a new Official Plan.

News 100 yellowBy Staff

December 11th, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

The Planning department had initially planned on having the draft version of the new Official Plan ready for a city council vote at the end of December.  Stakeholders and citizens objected vigorously to the timeline.  The following revision was released today.

The following memo, prepared by the city, provides an update on the Proposed New Official Plan – Process. It was prepared for inclusion in the Council Information Package dated December 8, 2017.

growbold-847x254The memo outlines the next steps of the new Official Plan (OP) project, following the statutory public meeting held as part of the Planning and Development (P&D) Committee meeting held on November 30, 2017.

This was the meeting where the live broadcast of the Standing Committee didn’t make it to the network; technical glitch was the explanation given.

On November 30, staff reports PB-50-17 (Proposed New Official Plan) and PB-81-17 (Downtown Precinct Plan) were reviewed by the P&D Committee. Public delegations were considered during the afternoon and evening sessions of the meeting. A subsequent meeting was held during the afternoon of December 1, providing members of Council the opportunity to ask questions of staff, which focused on the downtown. The meeting agenda and webcast is available on the city’s website here and the minutes are available here.

An outcome of the meeting was the following recommendation:

First – • Refer planning and building department report PB-50-17 regarding proposed new official plan (November 2017) to the Director of Planning and Building; and

Second – • Direct the Director of Planning and Building to consider the feedback received through the statutory public meeting process related to the proposed new official plan (version November, 2017), and to make appropriate revisions prior to bringing forward the recommended proposed revised new official plan for Council adoption; and

Third – • Direct the Director of Planning and Building to advise Council at the earliest opportunity of the nature and scope of recommended revisions, including timelines for delivering the revised new official plan.

Next Steps:
The memo provides a follow up to the third recommendation above and outlines process timelines below:

Staff report PB-50-17 , which was previously considered at the November 30 P&D Committee, will be placed again on future P&D Committee agendas to accommodate questions of staff, enable further discussion on the proposed new OP and obtain any further Council motions to amend the new OP. The statutory public portion of the meeting will remain closed and no delegations will be heard in relation to PB-50-17, however members of the public are welcome to attend and the meeting will be webcast.

These upcoming meetings will focus on various topic areas of the new OP, as detailed below:

• January 8, 2018, 1:00 pm: Rural, Agriculture, Natural Heritage and Mineral Aggregates;
• January 16, 2018, 1:00 pm and 6:30 pm: Employment Conversions; and
• February 6, 2018, 1:00 pm and 6:30 pm: Growth Management and any remaining topics areas with the exception of the downtown. The motion recommending that Council receive and file staff report PB-50-17 will be put forward at this meeting.

Grow bold - front door

The planning team overseeing the Grow Bold initiative were set up in office outside city hall. They had their own offices on Locust Street

An information report related to the downtown will be presented at the January 23, 2018 Planning and Development Committee Meeting. This report will contain additional information requested by Council (e.g. background information regarding the Urban Growth Centre boundary; proposed heights as compared to the existing in-effect Official Plan; and key redevelopment sites). Also, this meeting will provide Council the opportunity to direct staff to revise the proposed new OP.

A second statutory public meeting on any revisions to the proposed new OP will be scheduled for February, 27 2018.

A meeting to recommend adoption of the new proposed Official Plan will be scheduled for a committee meeting during the first week of April, 2018.

This revised schedule gives the public and the stakeholders the time they have been calling for the city to provide.

The completion of the new Official Plan process will stay in the hands of Mary Lou Tanner who has been made the Deputy City Manager.

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7 comments to City adds several months to the time line for approving a new Official Plan.

  • Lynn

    Mayor Goldring is having what he calls his “first Facebook Live” event tonight at 7:00. Questions can be emailed prior or people can join in and send tweets and post on Facebook. Some of these questions could be asked.

  • Jim Barnett

    The current version of the Official Plan is an essay not a plan. It does not have a traffic plan, it does not have a transit plan, it does not have a plan for parking and it does not have a plan for building heights and required architectural considerations. It does not have a plan to correct the terrible traffic conditions on much of Appleby line. Worst of all it provides almost no benchmarks to measure progress to the plan, to signal when corrective action is necessary. As it is written the only people that will be happy are lawyers and planning consultants who will be collecting fees for a long time showing the inadequacies in the current version. Support for ECOB is recommended.

  • Stephen White

    This is a cheap political gimmick at best. If they really were listening to public opinion they would put the issue of the Official Plan on the ballot as a plebiscite question, and delay review and approval until after the next municipal election. All the more reason why Burlington voters need to clean house in October.

  • Judy

    Everyone should start emailing each of the 5 councilors to postpone the OP until after the election.

  • Lynn

    So they are extending it because they heard this from the public but they don’t want to hear from the public again so the meeting will be closed. Wouldn’t it be logical that the public would want to comment on proposed changes?

  • joe gaetan

    Another reason to support ECOB.The revised timeline is one more reason why the revise OP is now an election issue.

  • Did you note “The statutory public portion of the meeting will remain closed and no delegations will be heard in relation to PB-50-17”.

    So much for the annoying public.