Is there a problem with transparency on the proposal to protect the Mt Nemo plateau?

By Pepper Parr

March 17, 2014

BURLINGTON, ON.

When we first wrote about the Conservation Heritage District we said this was going to get messy.  Once people read the document the city released for discussion at a committee not yet known on a date yet to be determined all hell is going to break loose.

The area covers basically all of the western half of the Escarpment.

There are provisions in parts of the draft by-law that will forbid just about everything during the first year of the bylaws existence.  At the February meeting in Kilbride city planning director Bruce Krushelnicki told the audience that what was being proposed was a bylaw that the city could pass and revoke any time they wished.  The audience wasn’t convinced however, but they did go along with taking a next step which was to do a study.  It seemed like a good idea at the Kilbride meeting; nothing overly complicated.

The decision to take that next step was the result of a show of hands which that evening was overwhelmingly positive even though there were a number of people who didn’t like the idea of the city butting into local affairs.

Staff went away to prepare the report that was to set out what the next step study was going to be and what the public could expect to come out of it.

During a city council meeting on the budget when the city was approving the time needed for a planner to oversee much of this work and the expense involved,  Jack Dennison, councillor for ward 4 made the point that “this wasn’t something we brought to Council” and indeed the idea of creating a Conservation Heritage District did not originally come from the city planners.

It was the result of an application a group of residents had made to the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC) to have as much of the Escarpment as possible protected under a some form of protection.  PERL – Protect the Escarpment and Rural Lands made the application and met with the NEC planners and learned that they really weren’t going to be able to get what they wanted.

A topographical view of the study boundaries.

The Niagara Escarpment Plan which comes from the Niagara Escarpment Commission formed in 1937,  has three categories of protection: Nature Areas; Protection Areas and Rural Areas.  Each of these apparently has a cultural aspect or element to them which is conveyed with wording such as: “encourage the conservation of traditional cultural landscapes” – which is probably what the Aboriginal people were trying to see when the white people moved in.

PERL fought to prevent an expansion of the existing quarry.  The lower orange outline was the area where the expansion was to take place.

PERL was the citizens organization that won the fight against an expansion of the Nelson Quarry.  While it was the city that put forward the lead lawyer and spent $2 million in legal fees on that battle, PERL was given standing at the Joint Tribunal and had a consistent impact on the direction that Tribunal went.

One of these was enough for the people in rural Burlington. Is a bylaw creating a Heritage Conservation District the best way to prevent any quarry application – or is there a larger objective being sought?

PERL eventually pulled their application to the NEC for some form of protection for the Escarpment, particularly the Mt Nemo plateau and went to Councillor Taylor with what they felt was a better approach – do something via the Official Plan Review which was taking place.

They came up with the idea of asking if creating a Conservation Heritage District (CHD) could be part of the Official Plan review.  While that review is ages from being complete and even longer from being approved – the planners seem to be moving along at what is breakneck speed in the planning world to get a bylaw in place that would make a large swath of rural Burlington a Heritage Conservation District and thereby protect the plateau.

PERL hasn’t said a word publicly.  The last date of an entry on their website is November 2012. They have worked quietly with Councillor Taylor who clearly intends to make doing something substantial to protect the plateau his legacy issue; should he win the October election for his ward one would expect that to be his last term of office.  

Once the public becomes fully aware of the planned bylaw there will be some “not so fast” comments as well as some OMB level mutterings.  Paletta International complained in a letter to the city that they knew nothing of this initiative and asked that their lands be removed from the study area.  It doesn’t quite work that way – everything gets studied or nothing gets studied.

The staff recommendation that will get to a Standing Committee at some point in the near future but perhaps as late as June, making it an election issue for some, came out of a process that started back in July of 2013.  At the July 2, 2013 city council meeting Councillors Craven and Taylor brought an amendment to whatever was discussed in the CLOSED session part of the June 18^th meeting.

Fast forward to what is going to go to a city Standing Committee at a yet unknown date this.  Staff is asking that council:

ENDORSE the Terms of Reference for the Heritage Conservation District Study and Plan for the Mount Nemo Plateau, dated March 7, 2014; PROVIDE the Manager of Procurement Services delegated authority to award the contract(s) and issue a Purchase Order to the highest scoring Proponent(s), subject to budget limitations of $200,000;  AUTHORIZE staff to commence a Heritage Conservation District Study process for the Mount Nemo Plateau; DIRECT staff to report back following the completion of the Heritage Conservation District Study process prior to the commencement of a Heritage Conservation District Plan process in accordance with s. 40 of the Ontario Heritage Act;

APPROVE an upset limit of $200,000 for the Heritage Conservation District Study and Plan to be funded from the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund; APPROVE the Mount Nemo Plateau Study By-law, which is set out in an Appendix to the staff report. 

Staff wants the city to RECEIVE the draft Study Area Control By-law which may be passed in the event that a potential threat arises to the integrity or character of the study area.

Added in is a requirement that staff report back to council on the views of the public in Q2 2014 – that’s before the end of June.  Given the winter we have had all the frost might not be out of the ground by then.  And we will be four months away for an election which will likely turn this issue into an election question.  What’s the rush?

Ward 3 councilor John Taylor said on Saturday that he intends to campaign on this issue.  To Taylor’s credit he has been very diligent in working for the interests of the people north of 407 and while he lives south of Upper Middle Road much of his heart is in the rural part of Burlington.

There is more to this development which we will follow up on.  The terms of reference need a look, the cost – they are talking in terms of $200,000 and the level of public participation in this initiative are all critical.

Background links:

Newsflash on the CHD meeting in Kilbride February 10th