Fine tuning a Staff Report with amendments: city building that reflects community input.

By Pepper Parr

January 27th, 2020

BURLINGTON, ON

 

How did city council spend an afternoon and well into the evening hearing what Director of Community Planning Heather MacDonald had to say about the process being used to review the material prepared for the Scoped Review of the Downtown portion of the adopted but not approved Official Plan and get to the point where they received and endorsed the document?

Staff presented its report, explained what they did to get input from the community; council then asked Staff and the consultants that were hired to come up with ideas as to how the downtown could be developed – those ideas then had to be codified – put into language that became the rules used when development applications were being considered by the planners.

Getting input from the community was no small matter. Planner Alison Enns went more than that country mile coming up with ideas that were interesting, innovative and did aide in getting a clearer picture of what the public wanted.

This time Planning Staff did the work – the public could have done more.  Burlington has a small stable of people who delegate and comment – that stable could be a lot larger.

Enns is reported to have spent her Christmas holiday writing and revising so that documents were ready in time.

The Planners were first asking that the report could be received – it could have been deferred.

They then wanted endorsement of the report – which Enns explained wasn’t approving everything in the document but it was telling the planners that they were going in the right direction.

However before the endorsement was recommended by the Standing Committee there were a number of amendments that came from Mayor Meed Ward and ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns who had spent all of the weekend prior to the Thursday meeting going over the recommendations in the SGL report; combing through them precinct by precinct and writing up the changes they wanted to make.

The Staff report they were working with was titled: Taking a Closer Look at the Downtown: Preliminary Preferred Concept“, January 2020.

The first step was to:

Direct the Executive Director of Community Planning, Regulation, and Mobility to consider the following during the development of policy modifications to the adopted Official Plan:

appropriate built form;

enhancement of transition provisions in the Downtown East Mixed-Use Precinct, to ensure an appropriate interface with the areas to both the east and the north;

enhancement of provisions to protect the existing character and streetscape of the Downtown East Mixed-Use Precinct, with particular attention to the pedestrian experience on Elizabeth Street;

appropriate built form in the V2 area of Village Square Precinct, with appropriate performance standards to avoid or mitigate potential impacts from new development on the existing low-rise buildings on Martha Street and existing low-rise buildings west of Pearl Street;

policy or mapping-based solutions to acknowledge, protect, and enhance existing community institutions or other private organizations that provide public services or amenities; and

Recognize the need for a transportation corridor through the Mid-Brant Precinct without presupposing that it must be a road, to allow consideration of the appropriate function of the new transportation corridor during the block planning exercise; and

Direct the Executive Director of Community Planning, Regulation and Mobility to consider, during the development of policy modifications to the adopted Official Plan, enhancement of transition provisions in the Upper Brant Mixed-Use Precinct north of Ghent Avenue to ensure an appropriate interface with the established neighbourhoods to the east; and

In order to send the recommendation to council the Standing Committee first had to pass them.

Direct the Director of Community Planning to prepare detailed modifications to the Adopted Official Plan to implement the recommended concept as discussed in community planning department report PL-02-20 and in the report titled “Taking a Closer Look at the Downtown: Preliminary Preferred Concept“, January, 2020, prepared by SGL Planning & Design
CARRIED

Amendment
Moved byMayor Meed Ward

Endorse the recommended concept in PL-02-20, Appendix A, subject to the following modifications:

Exclude from endorsement, subject to the considerations in 2, the recommended concept for the lands identified as:Village Square Precinct V2 sub area; and

Downtown East Precinct located east of Elizabeth Street and south of Lions Park, and the block bounded by John Street, Maria Street, Elizabeth Street, and James Street; and

Direct the Executive Director of Community Planning, Regulation, and Mobility to consider the following during the development of policy modifications to the Adopted Official Plan:

appropriate built form;

enhancement of transition provisions in the Downtown East Mixed-Use Precinct, to ensure an appropriate interface with the areas to both the east and the north;

enhancement of provisions to protect the existing character and streetscape of the Downtown East Mixed-Use Precinct, with particular attention to the pedestrian experience on Elizabeth Street;

appropriate built form in the V2 area of Village Square Precinct, with appropriate performance standards to avoid or mitigate potential impacts from new development on the existing low-rise buildings on Martha Street and existing low-rise buildings west of Pearl Street;

policy or mapping-based solutions to acknowledge, protect, and enhance existing community institutions or other private organizations that provide public services or amenities.

CARRIED

Amendment
Endorse the recommended concept subject to the following modification:

Recognize the need for a transportation corridor through the Mid-Brant Precinct without presupposing that it must be a road, to allow consideration of the appropriate function of the new transportation corridor during the block planning exercise.
CARRIED

Amendment
Moved byMayor Meed Ward

Direct the Executive Director of Community Planning, Regulation and Mobility to consider, during the development of policy modifications to the adopted Official Plan, enhancement of transition provisions in the Upper Brant Mixed-Use Precinct north of Ghent Avenue to ensure an appropriate interface with the established neighbourhoods to the east.
CARRIED

There was concern over what was going to happen to the heritage structures in the Downtown which resulted in a Heritage study staff direction.  They resolved that as well.

Moved by Mayor Meed Ward

Direct the Director of Community Planning, in consultation with Heritage Burlington, to assess the heritage value and appropriate protections (including possible Heritage Act designations) for the potential built heritage resources and potential cultural heritage landscapes identified by ASI in their September 2019 “Cultural Heritage Resource Assessment of the Downtown Mobility Hub”, with funding source to be determined, and report back to Council with the assessment and associated recommendations by Q4 of 2020.
CARRIED

The concern over the development that was taking place at the Lions Park. staff direction

Moved by Mayor Meed Ward

Direct the Executive Director of Legal Services, working with the Executive Director of Environment, Infrastructure, and Community Services, to report back with options for the future of Lions Park.

With the recommendation motions put on the table, voted upon (all the votes were unanimous) the city was days away from having a bylaw that significantly modified an Official Plan pushed through by the previous council, despite a clear signal from the community that the plan did not meet the desires of a very significant community voice.

Was that group of people a majority? The election results suggest there was a majority – there was certainly a group of people who paid attention and advocated for a change.

Appeals are possible of course and something might come “out of the blue” at the Special Council meeting to take place on the 30th of January, but in the words of Standing Committee Chair Shawna Stolte “we are bringing it home” and those of the Mayor who said “we are close but we are not there yet” the city had an Official Plan that they believed met the immediate future needs of the city, gave the development community enough for them to be able to work with the city and was defensible should it get taken to the a Local Planning Area Tribunal (LPAT)

Some would say when and not should.

There are reports of up to three appeal applications to LPAT for non-decision on the part of the city.