By Pepper Parr
May 28th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Jennifer Keesmaat took to the stage last night and stood for more than an hour as she spoke to a very close to packed house audience there to hear what the former City of Toronto Chief Planner had to say about creating a Livable, Walkable community.
Livable and walk-able or ride your bike, – with twenty coffee shops in the immediate area.
She did not disappoint. Labelling the presentation: Dream the Dream, she told the audience that Canada was on the edge of creating a different way of living as communities.
The full presentation will be available on a Facebook page – the Mayor’s office hasn’t said yet just which Face book page will be used.
Getting the event onto the stage of the Performing Arts Centre was not a slam dunk. Some of the Mayor’s Council colleagues were not prepared to give the Mayor all that much in the way of support; they did in the end endorse what Mayor Meed Ward was setting out to do.
Meed Ward labelled the series of speakers as ‘Innovation to Action’ events; a dynamic series aimed at inspiring positive change and practical solutions within our city through innovative approaches and tangible actions.
The number of people gathered in the lobby was on the sparse side – but the main theatre was very close to full.
A part of what was planned included “sales tables” that were set out in the lobby. That part of the event was not packed; those who participated represented both city departments, not for profit groups and some private sector participants.
Far too much time was spent on introductions, do we really have to give members of Council recognition and having them stand up and wave? Speaking of politicians: there were just three members of Council in the audience: Shawna Stolte, Lisa Kearns and Rory Nisan chose not to attend. Hopefully they will watch the webcast – there was a lot to be learned.
Dream the Dream to Keesmatt meant having the conversation, which for her meant learning to use land differently. Will Rogers got it right when he said: “Buy land. They ain’t making any more of the stuff.”
How do you change minds – “have the conversation”
The governments of the country Keesmaat explained own a lot of land and they have to begin to make it available for housing. The big issues for Keesmaat was – what kind of housing and who is it going to be for – which brought her back to “the conversation”.
Keesmatt spoke of two “realms”: the private realm and the public realm and gave examples of how she defined the two.
The public realm would be the large back yard in which she played catch with her father when she grew up in Hamilton. The public realm is the superb park just around the corner from where she now lives in Toronto.
Intensification is going to mean fewer homes with large back yards however that intensification will mean large, well fitted out public parks where Keesmaat suggested there will be groups of people who may not know each other all that well playing softball.
Keesmatt asked: How do you change minds – “have the conversation” and added that younger people don’t want the suburban environment they may have been raised in – they want to be in communities where there are twenty coffee shops within walking distance and all kinds of public amenities where they can gather.
There will be more public realm in the society Jennifer Keesmaat describes.
Keesmaat said the change that is going to have to take place will require all levels of government to be aligned – and pointed out that “we aren’t there yet”. She continued saying “we are at the beginning of doing things a lot differently – the young people don’t want what their parents have.
“There is uncertainty” said Keesmatt, “that is part of social change.
John Lorinc, a Toronto based writer said “… many people associate Keesmaat with a vaguely daring sort of star power and her relentless public advocacy of the sorts of progressive planning policies that have, in recent years, become the coin of the realm in that profession.
“But the real capstone of Keesmaat’s tenure is a far more technical and sprawling project that aims to do nothing less than give the city the capacity to bring some sanity and proactive planning to the raging speculative fever that has gripped the downtown for over a decade.” This is the Keesmatt people in Burlington heard last night.
Keesmaat with a vaguely daring sort of star power and her relentless public advocacy.
It was very difficult to take notes in a darkened theatre and I’m limited as to how much I can remember. But as I listened I wondered how many people from the city planning department are in the audience and how will they react to what Keesmaat had to say?
It would be interesting to do a group interview and hear what they thought – the city communications department doesn’t go along with that kind of journalism.
The audience was made up for the most part of older people – evident from the applause Mayor Meed Ward got when she mentioned that Burlington transit was now free for seniors.
My sense was that Keesmatt created a sense of excitement with the changes that are going to take place. Mayor Meed Ward got it right when she invited her to be the first of her ‘Innovation to Action’ series.
Kudos to her on the first one.
This is just a progressive spin job. Any young person that can afford a home with a back yard where they can spend time with their family and host friends will take that any day of the week over a condo, with massive condo fees and hosting friends over an $8 latte at a coffee shop. Any parent with kids in their 20’s see them enjoying backyards all the time.
This waste of tax payer money needs to stop, or at least give us, the tax payer proper billing in the title.
Well said Mike!
The spending here is out of control! It’s incredibly irresponsible.
In reading a backgrounder of Jennifer I found that she is not just a Planner, but a Developer too. Did she say so to the audience?
However, in this world, you can only truly serve one master. In how you noted how she is referred to, you can see this in the language labelling.
She is looked at as projecting an image of action: vaguely daring star power; progressive planning; coin of the realm; proactive planning to get control of raging speculative inflation fever taking over the Downtown for the last decade (Toronto or Burlington)?.
It’s been the talk of the town, and City Hall recently that it’s already too late for this action. Ford has already enabled this more than a year ago, and keeps enabling it more
Developers are free to appeal anything City decides about development. He also put OLT put in charge of enforcement of what the developer lawyers and expert witnesses tell them what policy rules of the Growth Plan apply to them.
I would say that she is one of a kind able to say these type of things because she is a developer, not a City-employed Planner, subject to firing (you can’t interview them on this, right? )
And the other developers know that these are nice words, without any power to make anything happen. I have seen nothing of the her “good news ” anywhere in any of Burlington development applications.
Nothing visible has changed to bring this optimism about. The developers can say that we did it to our-self if there is no change. It’s the new Planning Act policy frame from Ford.
City planners are generally Mute outside their policy frame in my experience with them. Where are the City Planners, and what do they think about what they heard.
The opposite is the present reality – the “bad news”, accelerating out of the Ford Plan. The provincial policy Orders demanding higher quota housing numbers, clawing back City powers, centralizing Council Power in the Strong Mayor.
More than that, there are large downloads of costs, including Development charges, and other tax and cost burdens to residents, including: very costly, pollution emitting, watershed destroying, and developer enriching roads.
All growth in population and resource consumption is exponential. This includes: fossil fuels, electricity, food production and delivery, roads, health care, hospitals, in multiple waste streams discarded, and on and on.
And then, don’t forget, all of this development needs to be built, which requires these same resources, and fuels, and so on to do this. Look at all the new roads being built. It is so steep that it cannot be sustained.
We haven’t even touched on our impact on climate with all this exponential growth in consumption and waste production, even if we can see effects right now. Present day health care is already in crisis. Do we think that residents will all be walking everywhere, always?
Whatever happened to the Climate Crisis Declaration that City Council officially announced? Intensification be whatever it is, it will do nothing for climate except make it worse.
This path does not lead to livable and walk-able. Are we not too crowded in many ways already? Traffic is already a nightmare, and the Ford Growth Plan is making it worse, but new roads are still being built.
Other places in the world have these exponential growth problems. Is that what we want here? A lot of them want to come here, even although they can walk all they want where they are, but their home countries are not livable.
In her story, I really only saw a continuing development bad news story, and that is a factual, present and in “force and effect” Planning Policy, that intensification is a given with her.
This is simply stated, no discussion, so it is brushed up with an imaginary good news story that makes up for this telling all will be well. This is certainly good news to all in the development and real estate business.
Some reasons given are: The young don’t want suburban houses like what their parents have – i ask, how does she know?
What about when the young have children?
Burlington is not Toronto, where she was Planning head.
But she says, intensification means large, well outfitted parks, 20+ coffee shops within walking distance, and all kinds of public amenities.
I have not seen any of the “conversation” she talks a lot a about, in any of the speculative building applications, OLT appeals, and other relevant actions, that could bring about these OP and Zoning policies for such development.
Where are the large outfitted parks (any large parks)? Developers and the Province put intensification first.
More people, mean more needs for schools, more health care facilities, more food stores able to provide needs of life. There are many things that need more than a prescription that Intensification comes first.
As far as the need for governments to be aligned to agree on this, that by itself does not do anything, except sideline the matter to politicians. Remember, this shows you can never only do one thing.
Editor’s note: Keesmaat was very clear; she said “my company is developing” this project.
Jennifer Keesmatt charges approximately $20,000 + dollars to do these talks. For a one hour appearance. I hope those who attended this event found it worth their while as this is being paid for by your Burlington Property Tax dollars.
More “Mayor’s Speaker Series” events to come!
How much did this cost us taxpayers? Don’t care which budget folder it came from – all of the money in all the folders comes from us.
These generalizations about what “young people want.” I have two young adult children, who are both different from each other in many ways, and actually her generalizations here don’t actually mesh with what either of them supposedly want. It sounds like these young people also weren’t in attendance …
In any event, I think this is about publicity and photo ops as per usual and I don’t expect it will amount to anything tangible at all in Burlington. I’m sure the mayor will get three straight days of social media posts out of it though. Apt that it was at a performance theatre.
I would be interested to know what creative plans she got implemented when she was Toronto planner and how much has now been completed.
If I recall she bought into the visions of Richard Florida!