 By Pepper Parr
October 25th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
The Minister of Municipalities and Housing has said that “After careful consideration of the feedback we heard through the course of the review, our government stands firm in its commitment to partnering with municipalities without pursuing a top-down approach. We will provide municipalities with the resources to support local decision-making.”
Does that mean any amalgamation of the four municipalities in Halton is off the table? Looks that way – but let’s see how this rolls out in the months ahead.
 The We Love Burlington team made a lot of noise and were surely part of the decision the province made to pull back on the idea of amalgamation. The government added that they are putting serious dollars on the table – they are “providing up to $143 million to municipalities to help them lower costs and improve services for local residents over the long term. Funding will be available to all 444 municipalities so they can find smarter, more efficient ways to operate and focus spending on vital programs and services for Ontarians.
“Municipalities deliver a wide range of services that people rely on every day, like transit, water and wastewater, and parks and recreation.
“Municipalities are the level of government closest to the people, but every community is different – one size doesn’t fit all,” said Steve Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. “This investment in communities will support municipal transformation efforts to make sure they are delivering efficient, effective and modern services that best meet the unique needs of their residents.”
“Earlier this year, the government conducted a review of Ontario’s eight regional governments and Simcoe County. Throughout this extensive review, the government heard that local communities should decide what is best for them in terms of governance, decision-making and service delivery.”
Related news story:
What did We Love Burlington have to say?
By Staff
October 17th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
We Love Burlington – odd name for a local advocacy group.
 Despite the name – they are an effective voice for the community and what they perceive as an attempt by the province to drastically change the the way the residents of not only Burlington but Milton, Oakville and |Halton Hills – all part of the Region of Halton.
The province held a Provincial Review, the report hasn’t been made public yet – the fear is that all the local municipalities will sort of disappear and become parts of what get called the Municipality of Halton with the three local communities becoming departments.
The fear is real – Premier Doug Ford tore the city of Toronto apart electorally when he reduced the size of that city council by 50% – right smack in the middle of an election.
The We Love Burlington people have turned to the people running for the Burlington federal seat for their views. We pass them along to you.
The “lovelies” recently appeared on Your TV with Burlington Mayor Meed Ward. If you can find the episode on that cable channel – it might be worth a listen.
The “lovelies” put their case this way in their most recent Facebook update…
WeLoveBurlington asked the five federal Burlington candidates the following question:
Recognizing that municipalities are the creatures of the provincial government and almost totally under provincial control, what could you do, as Burlington’s federal government representative, to ensure that the City retains a strong identity with a resonant local voice?
We asked this question for several reasons. First, because we feel it is important that our local federal candidates consider and explain what they can do for us on a very close-to-home level. While municipal governance is definitely under provincial control, the federal government still can and should assist municipalities – the government that is closest to the citizens. In fact, we believe our highest level of government (thus actually the most removed from the citizen) still has a duty to exert its authority and influence, where and when needed, to protect all Canadians from the adverse impacts of policies generated by the more proximate levels of government. At the end of all the politics and all the platforms, there is just one taxpayer, frequently confused and even more frequently dismissed. Secondly, we believe that it is a fundamental obligation of all levels of government to co-operate in the interests of the citizen. Too often warring philosophies and battling polemics leave citizens as unwilling and unwitting refugees. So, we ask what can you do to avoid this?
Finally, if the local interests are not a primary consideration for the federal candidates, then why do we have this elaborate electoral system based on population and geography? Would it not be much simpler, cheaper and entertaining to have the leaders of each party fight it out in a caged ring with winner takes all?
These candidates were invited to appear at the October 3 debate hosted by Burlington Green, and this is where we first submitted the question, then followed by emailing all five candidates directly.
We have received answers from the Liberal Party, the Green Party and the NDP party candidates for Burlington. Note these were also the only three candidates to appear at the debate. Their responses are below.
 Karina Gould Karina Gould, Liberal Candidate for Burlington (October 9)
The majority of the issues that I hear about are municipal as municipal government is what people interact with on a daily basis. Our Liberal government recognizes how important of a role municipal government’s play. That is why we are committed to working with municipalities – advocating on local initiatives, working with the City of Burlington to hear their priorities and investing in and building infrastructure.
I have been proud to be a champion for our community these past four years and will always stand up for Burlington.
Since 2015 we have, introduced the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund to help communities prepare for climate change through more resilient infrastructure, invested $2 billion in the Low Carbon Economy Fund through the Canadian Federation of Municipalities; invested $40 million in the Atmospheric Fund for the GTHA which will enable cities to retrofit and build a low carbon future; and doubled the Gas Tax Fund in Budget 2019, providing a one-time injection of $2.2 billion (including $5.5 million for Burlington). We have also invested $20 billion in public transit across the country, including over $2 million in Burlington Transit.
If re-elected we will ensure that unspent infrastructure funds from older, inactive programs are transferred to municipalities through the Gas Tax Fund to continue to support local infrastructure priorities, especially if the province tries to sit on the funds like Ontario’s current government.
If re-elected we will ensure cities are provided with predictable transit funding that they need to plan for the future by investing an additional $3 billion more in stable funding. We will also require all provinces and territories to identify and approve all of their long-term infrastructure priorities within the next two years. Funds that are not designated for specific projects by the end of 2021, we will reinvest directly in communities through a top up of the federal Gas Tax Fund. This will ensure communities are not waiting on delays from provinces.
If re-elected, I will continue to work with the City of Burlington, and local partners, to advocate for the issues that matter most to residents and invest in our community to deliver a better quality of life for people, no matter where they live. I love this community, it is my home and it is where I grew up and am raising my family. I will always stand up for Burlington.
 Gareth Williams Gareth Williams, Green Party Candidate for Burlington (October 13)
I am a proud 20+-year resident of Burlington with a strong record of community involvement, working to build a safer and cleaner future for Burlington families. For over a decade, I have been active with many local grassroots organizations dedicated to protecting the environment and helping the vulnerable, including BurlingtonGreen, Burlington for Accessible, Sustainable Transit (BFAST), and the Halton Environmental Network.
In 2011, I joined the City of Burlington’s Sustainable Development Committee, serving as a member and then Chair over six years to encourage the adoption of tougher sustainability standards for buildings, public transportation, and to set a goal of carbon neutrality for city operations. Most recently, I ran for City Council, and my decision to stand as the Green Party candidate for Burlington comes from the same deep commitment to the city I chose as my home.
The Green Party is well-positioned to support municipalities like Burlington and advocate for their citizens. First of all, we are committed to treating municipalities like equal partners in governance, because the simple fact is that they are, no matter what Doug Ford says. Municipalities are the first level of government Canadians typically deal with, and they have a big impact on our daily lives. Greens believe it’s time to act like communities matter. As a government, we would give municipalities an equal seat at the national policy making table through a Council of Canadian Governments, and we will encourage the adoption of City Charters for greater autonomy. We would create a permanent Municipal Fund (a repurposing and doubling of the current Gas Tax Funds), which will ensure a predictable, reliable stream of funding for municipalities, independent of the provinces. And we will allocate one per cent of GST to housing and other municipal infrastructure on an ongoing basis to provide a consistent baseline of funding.
With climate change one of the most significant threats to our health, prosperity, and stability, both globally and at the community level, the Greens’ comprehensive 20-point Climate Action Plan, Mission: Possible, contains a number of strategies to help cities. Burlington has recently declared a climate emergency. If elected, I will make it a priority to support the City of Burlington in its climate action plan. Through a dedicated energy efficiency retrofit financing program, we will help Burlington residents and businesses reduce costs while contributing to a net zero carbon future.
All of these strategies will help ensure that Burlington gets the federal support needed to keep our city strong and afford it a measure of independence when it comes to planning and decision-making. And importantly, unlike other federal parties, the Green Party does not whip votes. This means that Green MPs have the freedom to put their constituents first. As the MP for Burlington, my first priority will always be to represent my fellow Burlingtonians and speak up for their interests. It would be a privilege to serve the Burlington I love.
 Lenaee Dupuis, Lenaee Dupuis, NDP Party Candidate for Burlington, October 15
I love Burlington as well and want to ensure collaboration with the Mayor and City Council on their initiatives and areas where they believe that they require an additional voice at the table. I believe that by working together we can meet the common goal of remaining the best city in Canada to live in.
I have already met with Mayor Meed Ward to hear about where there may be opportunities to assist or collaborate and I am engaged to continue to do this if I am in the incumbent. Building relationships makes for a better city, and a place that all of us can call home.
WeLoveBurlington Appearance on Your TV
 Marianne Meed Ward with Blair Smith and Lynn Crosby at the Your TV studio On September 19, two members of WLB taped an episode of Burlington Matters with Mayor Marianne Meed Ward, which airs on Yourtv Halton. We very much appreciate Mayor Meed Ward’s continued support and the opportunity to speak about our group and the concerns we have about amalgamation and a potential megacity of Halton. The show aired this past week and is available for viewing: https://yourtv.tv/node/211031
 By Pepper Parr
October 16th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
This is different – very different.
The provincial government is now prepared to accept Infrastructure Proposals from the private sector.
These would be unsolicited proposals.
This is a new framework for receiving and evaluating infrastructure proposals from the private sector. These are proposals to the government that were not requested through an existing procurement.
 Could the Pier have been an Unsolicited Private Sector proposal? This marks the first time there has been a formal process for submitting USPs to the Ontario government. Through this new approach, private-sector ideas with the potential to improve public infrastructure and related services will be considered using a consistent and fair process.
“An unsolicited proposal framework is a leading global practice to leverage the expertise of the private sector to develop innovative infrastructure solutions to benefit the people of Ontario and make government open for business,” said Laurie Scott, Minister of Infrastructure. “It provides a clear path for industry to share proposals we might otherwise not have developed on our own.”
 Could the replacement of the Drury Lane Bridge been a project that would fall under this new provincial program? “We will always work hard for the people, but we must acknowledge that government doesn’t always have all the answers,” continued Minister Scott. “Our new USP framework will ensure we are listening to the people and businesses that build and operate infrastructure in Ontario to find the best ideas and make them a reality.”
The program is open for all infrastructure proposals. This includes proposals for transit lines and stations, highways, health care facilities, housing supply projects, energy generation and storage projects and “digital infrastructure” (such as broadband and cellular network expansion).
The Province will focus on infrastructure projects that provide the greatest benefit to the people of Ontario, are feasible from a technical and commercial perspective, align with the government’s priorities and provide the greatest value for money for any investment of public dollars.
Potential participants can submit proposals and find more information about the program online at: ontario.ca/proposals.
Gregory Smith, President and CEO, InstarAGF Asset Management Inc. claims that “Innovation is vital to improving the quality, value and sustainability of our infrastructure, which underpins our economic prospects and the ability of our communities to thrive. This new online portal will help to connect private expertise, creativity and capital with public infrastructure investment needs while supporting new forms of partnership and engagement, thereby contributing to a more resilient, prosperous future for Ontarians.”
What is there out there that someone thinks Burlington could use – maybe even needs that there isn’t federal or provincial funding in place for ?
Is a community that is just affordable housing possible under this program?
It will be interesting to see what the private sector in Burlington comes up with – and what MPP Jane McKenna might do to help things along.
 Blair Smith and Lynn Crosby
October 7th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
“If you judge from appearances here,’ replied Madame de Chartres, ‘you will be often mistaken; what appears is seldom the truth.”
― Madame de La Fayette, The Princesse de Clèves
Or to paraphrase in modern idiom, “what you see may not be what you get.” Appearances are deceptive, particularly when there is an intent to mask what is planned.
For months now WeLoveBurlington has been warning the citizens of Burlington and Halton of the potential dangers of regional government amalgamation. We have talked about the possible MegaCity of Halton, the flawed process of the regional government review, the history of the reviewers, the comforting ‘party line’ assurances of our elected representatives and the broken consultation record of our current provincial government.
We have attempted to be fair, accurate and non-partisan. We have posted links to numerous articles, several by noted conservative analysts, that all have a common message – municipal amalgamation is seldom successful. Most frequently, it results in higher taxes, greater municipal debt, reduced services, increased cost of government and loss of local voice.
One of our Burlington MPPs has claimed categorically that there will be no amalgamation of any of the municipalities in Halton; another Oakville MPP has cited MegaCity warnings as “false and misleading”. So, where does the truth fall? Let’s examine one possibility – that external appearances may remain much the same but the truth will be a dramatically restructured region under the covers.
Once “the report” is made public in late Fall/early Winter – and we see no reason why it shouldn’t be – what might it contain? Here is one of many possible scenarios. Perhaps the review will leave the existing Halton Council structures much the same – both in name and in number. Burlington, Oakville, Milton and Halton Hills will remain with their existing contingent of councilors and mayors. They will continue to hold meetings, set budgets (within certain parameters) and develop plans responding to constituent needs and operational priorities.
 Is this a case of – what you see is what you get – or are appearances really deceiving? In other words, the local identity will still be the local identity – at least in appearance. But will the program, policy and operational frameworks be the same? Suppose that instead of ‘amalgamation’ we have ‘consolidation’ using a model that is quite common and in extensive use within the provincial government; that of the “cluster” or centre-satellite.
Within this scenario policy, program development and administrative control are exercised at the “centre”; local service operations by the ‘municipality’. So, it is likely that all remaining emergency services (health, fire and police in total) will be consolidated at the regional level. So too will transit have a regional scope rather than local presence with much tighter integration with integrated ticketing (Presto farecard) and centralized scheduling/operations. Purchasing would be done regionally, using developed vendors-of-record or accessing provincial agreements and local fleet management would be a thing of the past.
Could there be economies of scale and efficiencies realized? Possibly, if done well but the increase in the regional bureaucracy will be extensive and the local municipalities will likely maintain much the same staffing. There will also be local Information technology, legal, finance, human resource and Clerk functions but they will report to senior portfolio executives on the Regional level and it will be the latter, sitting as an Executive Committee, who will set policy frameworks, strategic directions and operational program components. In fairness, there could still be benefits achieved that might mitigate the remove of local service provision to a more distant governance structure.
However, it becomes increasingly more problematic as more and more functions, thus power and control, are vested in the regional centre with probable loss of sensitivity to local service issues and environment.
The death knell of local voice, local expression and local direction would be the regional consolidation of municipal land planning, development and management functions. This is the prize that, arguably, is the animus behind the whole review exercise; the jewel teasingly revealed by tentative provincial forays into the protected green-belt and then openly burnished by Bill 108.
WeLoveBurlington has, from the onset, stressed the interconnection between the regional governance review, Bill 108 and the proposed restructuring of land development mediation/arbitration functions – from OMB to LPAT to RPAT?? Indeed, for at least eight years, Burlington has been caught in the vise-grip of provincial intensification targets, bureaucratic indifference, private sector self-interest and an arrogant, entitled Council. Much of the damage has unfortunately been done and is beyond recall but the people’s voice – clearly heard last October 22nd – needs to resonate again and loudly.
Is this outcome conjecture? Yes, but it’s also a reasoned and very possible direction. It would leave only the shell of local authority to mask a consolidated, centralized and distanced governance at the region, a MegaCity in everything but name. Whether ultimately fantasy or foresight, WeLoveBurlington will provide an unbiased and balanced assessment of the change. Even if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we’ll still let citizens know if they’ve actually been given a turkey.
Question for Burlington Federal Candidates
We have submitted the following question to the candidates representing Burlington in the upcoming federal election. We will post any replies that we receive.
Recognizing that municipalities are the creatures of the provincial government and almost totally under provincial control, what could you do, as Burlington’s federal government representative, to ensure that the City retains a strong identity with a resonant local voice?
 Michael Fenn and Robert Seiling did the Provincial Review; Fenn was once the city manager of Burlington. Regional Review Report Received by Minister
The CBC reported last week that the regional review report has been in Minister Steve Clark’s hands since September 20.
The article states: “Clark said he would take his time with the report before he presents the findings to his cabinet colleagues as “confidential advice” and before deciding whether to make the details public.
Related news stories.
Provincial Review: The issue
What the Lovelies had to say.
By Pepper Parr
October 4, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
If you spend any of your time on the kind of development that is taking place in Burlington, you will have heard about this matter before.
Every development application includes material on how the application complies with PPS 2014 – Provincial Policy Statement.
The document is part of the Planning act which governs everything that gets done when it comes to developments.
The PPS gets updated from time to time. That time is upon us now.
In a recent media release the province announced that it is open for feedback and comment from the public.
Here is what the provincial government wants to change in the PPS.
 Increasing housing supply, supporting jobs and streamlining development approvals are top priorities for the government. The Action Plan includes a series of distinct but coordinated initiatives to address housing supply, including a review of the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS) – the foundation for land use planning in the province.
The government is consulting on proposed changes to the Provincial Policy Statement to support the government’s Housing Supply Action Plan and other land use planning related priorities.
About the Provincial Policy Statement
The Provincial Policy Statement is a consolidated statement of the government’s policies on land use planning and is issued under section 3 of the Planning Act. It applies province-wide and sets out the provincial policy direction for:
The efficient use and management of land and infrastructure
Ensuring the provision of sufficient housing to meet changing needs, including affordable housing
Protecting the environment and resources including farmland, natural resources (e.g., wetlands and woodlands) and water
Ensuring opportunities for economic development and job creation
Ensuring the appropriate transportation, water, sewer and other infrastructure is available to accommodate current and future needs
Protecting people, property and community resources by directing development away from natural or human-made hazards – such as flood prone areas
The PPS is the primary provincial land use policy document guiding municipal decision-making. The Planning Act requires that decisions on land use planning matters be “consistent with” the PPS
Municipalities are the primary implementers of the PPS through policies in their local official plans, zoning by-laws and other planning related decisions.
Proposed Policy Changes
The government is proposing policy changes to:
Encourage the development of an increased mix and supply of housing
Protect the environment and public safety
Reduce barriers and costs for development and provide greater predictability
Support rural, northern and Indigenous communities
Support the economy and job creation
1. Increasing Housing Supply and Mix
The proposed draft policies for consultation would:
Increase land supply requirements municipalities must meet:
Increase planning horizon from 20 to 25 years
Increase housing land supply from 10 to 12 years
Allow higher minimum requirement for serviced residential land (5 years) for upper- and single-tier municipalities
Update provincial guidance to support land budgeting (i.e. Projection Methodology)
Increase flexibility for municipalities related to the phasing of development and compact form
Add flexibility to the process for settlement area boundary expansions (e.g. allow minor adjustments subject to specific tests, highlight that study requirements should be proportionate to the size/scale of development)
Require transit-supportive development and prioritize intensification, including potential air rights development, in proximity to transit, including corridors and stations
Support the development of housing to meet current and future housing needs, and add reference to housing options
Support municipalities in achieving affordable housing targets by requiring alignment with Housing and Homelessness Plans
Broaden PPS policies to enhance support for development of long-term care homes
2. Protecting the Environment and Public Safety
The proposed draft policies for consultation would:
Enhance direction to prepare for impacts of a changing climate
Enhance storm water management policies to protect water and support climate resiliency
Promote the on-site local reuse of excess soil
Maintain current policies related to natural and human made hazards which directs development away from hazardous areas including flood-prone areas in order to protect public health and safety, while work by the Special Advisor on Flooding is underway
Maintain current policies that require municipalities in southern Ontario to identify natural heritage systems, and provide flexibility as to how to achieve this outcome
Maintain protections for the Greenbelt
3. Reducing Barriers and Costs
The proposed draft policies for consultation would:
Require municipalities to take action to fast-track development applications for certain proposals (e.g. housing)
Allow mineral aggregate operations to use rehabilitation plans to demonstrate that extraction will have no negative impacts
Align policies and definition of cultural heritage with recent changes to the Ontario Heritage Act
Refocus PPS energy policies to support a broad range of energy types and opportunities for increased energy supply
Direct large ground-mounted solar facilities away from prime agricultural and specialty crop areas
Make minor changes to streamline development approvals and support burden reduction
4. Supporting Rural, Northern and Indigenous Communities
The proposed draft policies for consultation would:
Allow flexibility for communities by clarifying perceived barriers to sewage and water servicing policies for lot creation and development in rural settlement areas
Enhance municipal engagement with Indigenous communities on land use planning to help inform decision-making, build relationships and address issues upfront in the approvals process
Enhance agricultural protections to support critical food production and the agricultural sector as a significant economic driver
5. Supporting Certainty and Economic Growth
The proposed draft policies for consultation would:
Encourage municipalities to facilitate conditions for economic investment, and at the time of official plan review or update, assess locally-identified employment areas to ensure designations are appropriate
Provide municipalities with greater control over employment area conversions to support the forms of development and job creation that suit the local context (current and future)
Provide stronger protection for major facilities such as manufacturing and industrial uses where non-employment uses are planned nearby (i.e. buffering uses from new sensitive uses).
Do the proposed policies effectively support goals related to increasing housing supply, creating and maintaining jobs, and red tape reduction while continuing to protect the environment, farmland, and public health and safety?
Do the proposed policies strike the right balance? Why or why not?
How do these policies take into consideration the views of Ontario communities?
Are there any other policy changes that are needed to support key priorities for housing, job creation, and streamlining of development approvals?
Are there other tools that are needed to help implement the proposed policies?
 Excerpted from CATCH (Citizens at City Hall), a citizen’s report on what takes place at Hamilton’s city hall
Hamilton has submitted its concerns with the changes to the PPS – no word on what will come out of Burlington’s city hall.
Hamilton city staff are challenging yet another massive rewrite of planning rules by the provincial government. Planning staff oppose the province’s proposed elimination of policies to fight climate change and protect sensitive natural areas. They are also questioning “market based” changes that will make it easier for developers to pave over farmland and effectively shift planning approvals “from a municipal-led approach to a developer-led one.”
Municipalities are facing a major revision of the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS), the document which sets out the overriding rules that all land use planning in Ontario “must be consistent with”. The PPS directs policies on housing, infrastructure, transportation, economic development, aggregate extraction, land servicing arrangements and other municipal activities.
The province’s new rules on climate change are limited to preparing for its “potential” impacts. The Hamilton staff response going to councillors this week argues this “suggests uncertainty and does not acknowledge that impacts from climate change are already occurring”. Noting the city declaration of an emergency, they are even blunter about the provincial removal of all directions to prevent climate change.
“There are no policies within the document which speak to the importance of taking measures now to prevent or avoid climate change,” declares the staff report. “Seeing as the fight against climate change is a race against time, and actions need to be taken immediately to prevent irreversible impacts from climate change, it is an omission in the policies to not include direction to fight and prevent climate change at both the provincial and local levels through a variety of actions.”
The report also demands the province remove a new policy that “would allow mineral aggregate extraction to take place in certain natural heritage features where not previously permitted.” It further challenges wording changes that would base quarrying approvals on promises to rehabilitate in the future rather than the current requirement to review them “based on the ecological value and significance” of the affected landscape.
Other changes to the PPS centre development decisions on “market-based need” and “market demand”, terms which staff believe could “result in maintaining a market ‘status quo’ that is primarily based on a perceived desire for low density housing and will do nothing to encourage a shift to an urban form that is based on increased density.” The staff review notes that “market need and market demand are subjective terms” and asks who will define them and how that definition will be determined.
In numerous instances the word “shall” is being replaced by “should” in the PPS. Staff characterize this as policy being changed from “required” to “suggested” which gives developers more opportunity to overturn council decisions during appeals to the provincial planning tribunal.
Municipal comments on the PPS changes can be submitted until October 21.
By Staff
October 2, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
On August 19, 2019, the Amica people along with their financial partner Bruce Partners submitted a revised development proposal which includes 17-storey and 12-storey building elements with a 6-storey lower building podium, transitioning down to a 2-storey element for a portion of the rear of the building. The number of proposed senior’s living units has been decreased from 475 to 419.
 The development is at the intersection of North Shore Blvd and the ramp to the 403. Then on September 23, 2019, the Official Plan amendment and Zoning By-law amendment applications to facilitate the proposed development were appealed to the Local Planning Appeals Tribunal (LPAT).
Amica appealed the applications based upon the lack of a City decision on these applications within the legislated timeframes, as set out by The Planning Act.
The site is within the City’s Interim Control By-law area, and as such, no recommendation reports have been brought forward for development applications in this area until such time as the Interim Control By-law is lifted and policy and zoning are in place.
 Where the development is to be located.  A rendering of the view of the development from the south east corner.  The elevation from the south. One Burlington resident is concerned that the automatic appeal that arises from the city’s lack of decision is really just a fait accompli for the development.
 An early rendering of what the site would have looked like to the people on the adjacent street. “It will eventually pass because LPAT has jurisdiction and the city’s interim bylaw to halt development is nothing but an illusion of trying to do the right thing. If the city does nothing more than not make a decision, they are allowing developers to proceed in absentia.
The only plus in all that at this point is the revised plan is not as brutal to the eye as the first one.
 The revised elevation in the latest version of the Amica development.
By Pepper Parr
September 24th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
Burlington City Council approved a new organizational design which will position the City to meet its strategic goals over the balance of this term of Council and beyond.
 City manager Tim Commisso. Since beginning his appointment as City Manager in July 2019, Tim Commisso, along with Human Resources Director Laura Boyd, have been meeting with staff to get their input into the organization redesign recommended to Council.
This new organizational design, which is effective on September 24, puts more emphasis on strategic management, risk assessment and public accountability; while also positioning us well to attract and retain employees in a growing and competitive marketplace.
The new structure will also enhance and highlight the City’s attention to City-wide customer service and public engagement through business process improvements, corporate-wide training and ongoing transformations such as digital service delivery.
 This shift has got the Mayor’s finger prints all over it. There were people that she wanted to see moved out of city hall – mission accomplished. Further, these changes better enable staff to implement City Council’s four-year work plan entitled “Vision to Focus.” An update on Council’s work plan will be shared in the near future.
Highlights of the organizational design changes include:
The new organizational design has been approved by Council within the current staff complement, no additional staff positions were added.
Overall, we are moving forward with an organizational structure led by Executive Directors which will be responsible for providing ongoing leadership and strategic management to the following:
“Service Groups” comprised of the City’s community focused operational departments.
The two “Service Groups,”
Environment, Infrastructure & Community Services
and
Community Planning, Regulation & Mobility,
also align more closely with the focus areas in Council’s 4-year Work Plan.
“Corporate Strategic Support” functions including Finance, Legal, Human Resources and Information Technology
City Manager Office realigned functions focusing on the corporate priorities of strategy, risk, City-wide customer service and public engagement; this realignment also responds to a Council direction given to the City Manager in February 2019 to review and realign the functions of the City Manager’s Office.
Allan Magi has been appointed Executive Director of Environment, Infrastructure & Community Services. The Roads, Parks & Forestry, Recreation Services, Fire and Capital Works departments will now report to Allan.
 Heather MacDonald has been appointed Executive Director of Community Planning, Regulation & Mobility with the Transportation Services, Transit, Community Planning and Building departments now reporting to Heather.
A new position of Customer Experience Manager-Business Development has been created in the City Manager’s Office and will play a key role in the implementation of the Mayor’s Red Tape Red Carpet recommendations including working directly with BEDC to provide enhanced support to businesses looking to grow and bring new jobs to Burlington.
A new position of Executive Director of Strategy, Risk and Accountability has been created in the City Manager’s Office and will lead the strategic planning/management, business performance and enterprise risk functions for the organization and ensure the implementation of the many initiatives and actions included in Council’s 4-Year Work Plan.
 City of Burlington organizational chart. Will it work – does the bench strength needed exist? The lead of the Customer Experience Manager-Business Development unit was not named nor was the Executive Director of Strategy, Risk and Accountability
With the change to an Executive Director structure, the City has also transitioned away from the Deputy City Manager model; as a result of the redesign, Mary Lou Tanner is no longer with the City. The City of Burlington thanks Mary Lou for her leadership and service to Burlington and wishes her all the best in the future.
By Staff
September 17th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
For the most part there are no free lunches at city hall.
There is a fee attached to every service.
Each year the city reviews its schedule of fees and services; deletes some (rarely) and adds new fees when conditions change.
The list is long – we will not post what was agreed upon at Standing Committee because it might get revised when city council meets on the 23rd,.
The Gazette will publish the fee schedule once it has been approved by council on September 23rd.
The Standing Committee did hear a Staff recommendation to:
A proposed 2% indexation of Planning and Engineering fees taking effect January 1st, 2020 will offset the impact of inflation, while ensuring that the fee structure remains fair and reasonable to the development industry. Some exceptions of increased or new fees include:
Revision fee for a Zoning Certificate:
Change this fee to apply to 3rd and subsequent submissions, which better reflects the cost of staff resources to comprehensively re-review an application. The intention is to encourage applicants to conduct a fulsome review of the Zoning By- law prior to making a submission, thereby making submissions which require less revision.
Revision Fee for OPA:
Changing revision fees so that there is no longer a separate category for Major or Minor revisions. This brings the cost of revisions in line with Official Plan Applications, which no longer have Major or Minor application types.
Preconsultation Fee:
A complex Preconsultation Fee has been proposed for all Official Plan Amendments, Zoning By-law Amendments and Subdivisions. These applications currently have a preconsultation process with no associated fee. The new fee reflects the staff resources required to review the materials and provide comprehensive feedback.
Currently when preconsultation meetings do not result in a future development application, staff costs are not accounted for.
A Standard Preconsultation Fee has been proposed for all Site Plan, Variance (except for Sign Variance) and Consent Applications. There is currently a preconsultation process for Site Plan Applications and an informal service-counter preconsultation process for Variance and Consent Applications. The intention of adding a fee to this existing process is to add a formal process for Variance and Consent Applications, to account for staff time, and to provide greater quality control to applications that are received so that they are able to be processed with greater efficiency.
Both types of Preconsultation Fee (complex and standard) will be credited to a future application(s) within 1 year of a Preconsultation Meeting date, thereby rendering the fee cost neutral to formal applications. If an application is deemed to substantially deviate from the Preconsultation proposal a new Preconsultation fee, may be required, at the sole discretion of the Director of City Building. Additional Preconsultations beyond the first will not be credited to a future application.
Building Code Permits and Inspections
The Building Code Act (BCA), 1992 provides municipalities with the authority to collect fees to fully recover the cost of administration and enforcement of the BCA and the Ontario Building Code (OBC). Regulations made under the BCA/OBC outline the details of what can be included as part of the cost including direct and indirect costs, and provisions for a reserve fund. The basic principle for providing building permit and inspection services is: “Fees for Service”.
Rates and fees within the Section 6.11 of the City of Burlington Building Permit By- law 13-2018, are indexed to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of Ontario as of December 31st and are adjusted annually on February 1st.
It is important to note that the exact amount of prescribed index is to be derived from official figures published by Statistics Canada, a common practice and an industry standard. While the exact CPI amount is not available at the time this report is written, staff will provide this information to Committee as soon as published by Statistics Canada, on or before the Council meeting scheduled for January 2020.
Routine Disclosure allows the public the right of access to information through an informal request rather than a formal request under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA). This process and related fees were implemented in January 2019. It is therefore proposed these fees remain unchanged and no increase is recommended at this time.
Transit
The short-term focus in Transit continues to be system stability and building a foundation for future service changes and growth. In 2019 council provided the following direction to Burlington Transit:
o Provide free transit for adults 65 years of age and older between 9 a.m. and 2:30
p.m. on weekdays starting in June 2019 as a pilot;
o Provide free monthly passes on PRESTO for Burlington residents who qualify for the Subsidized Passes for Low Income Transit (SPLIT) program;
o Burlington Transit will work with Halton Region on ways to improve the Subsidized Passes for Low Income Transit program;
o Burlington Transit will work with school boards to develop a fare strategy for students;
o Burlington Transit will create a working group comprising of one Member of Council, members of the public and Burlington Transit Staff.
Transit staff will be monitoring these changes and strategizing to ensure that they are reasonable and appropriate as well comparable to other municipalities. For the 2020 rates and fees Transit Services will remained unchanged with the exception of:
o Discontinuance of all 10 ticket purchases. (Child, Student, Adult and Senior) effective August 31, 2019
o A 2% increase to Charter Fares to reflect inflationary cost increases.
Traffic Operations existing fees are proposed to increase by 2% to reflect inflationary cost increases.
Parking
Parking rates remain unchanged for 2020, as rates remain competitive.
Roads and Structures – Design and Construction
Tender Fees have generally increased by 4.5% to remain competitive with neighbouring municipalities while covering costs. The permits and curb cuts have increased 5% to help offset the increase in staff time required to deliver this service. The amount of staff time has increased significantly over the years in following up with contractors to complete their work to City standards.
Roadway and Sidewalk Maintenance
Upon completion of a market scan, an increase of 20% in 2020 is proposed for the windrow program to align with industry standards.
With a focus on increasing participation and fostering a sense of belonging for all residents, rates and fees are determined by community needs, customer feedback, participation rates, and market trends. A market analysis is performed each year to determine Burlington’s competitive position while keeping rates affordable to maintain and encourage participation.
Recreation Service
There are a total of 258 rates for programs and memberships for Recreation Services.
Rate increases are as follows:
o 3% average increase for Adults 55+ drop in programs
o 1% average increase for Aquatics recreational programs
o 1% average increase for both indoor and outdoor pool rates
o 1% average increase for Recreation Skate and Shinny Hockey
o 2% average increase for Youth, Teen, Preschool programs
o 2% increase for Tyandaga memberships
o 2% average increase for Gym rentals
o 1% average increase for Room rentals (includes Auditorium, Bandshell & Meeting)
o 6% average increase for Marketing (includes Arena Board, Live & Play and Read-O-Graphs)
New Rates:
o Shinny 10 Pass
o Tournament Application
Discontinued Rates:
o School Break Programs – In a continued effort to streamline rates, this rate was identified as a duplicate and is now combined / connected with other school break program rates.
o Make Time To Play Gymnasium Bookings – This rate discontinued as it is now connected to the Last Minute rate.
o Non-Resident Administration Fee Seniors (Per Program or Membership) – As opposed to having 2 Non-Resident Fees (General Programs and Seniors Programs), the rate has now been combined and called Non-Resident Administration Fee
o User Group Program Insurance Admin Fee – This fee has been discontinued as there has been a change in the fee structure with our current insurance provider.
Youth, Teen and Preschool recreational program rates were restructured to align with business needs and allow for flexibility for the changing market.
Overall, rates were maintained or slightly increased with the average rate increase between 2% and 3% to ensure customer participation and satisfaction.
Organized Sport Service
There are a total of 71 rates for Sport indoor and outdoor space rentals. Rate increases are as follows:
o 1% average increase in arena ice rentals
o 2% average increase for arena floor and storage rentals
o 2% average increase for school board use of city facilities
o 4% average increase for school board
o 2% increase for school board gymnasiums
o 2% increase for artificial turf
o 2% increase for park rentals
o 2% increase for photography and weddings
New Rates:
o Commercial / Non-Resident Arena Ice Rental
o Commercial / Non-Resident Arena Floor Rental
o Tournament Application
Overall, rates were maintained or slightly increased with the average rate increase between 2% and 3% to ensure customer participation and satisfaction.
Parks and Open Space Maintenance
An increase of 2% in 2020 is proposed for the adopt-a-bed program due to increased material and labour costs.
Tree Management
An increase of 2% is proposed for 2020 to cover the cost of staff time to review and process each permit.A new fee for Private tree permits have been added to the service for 2020. The pilot private tree bylaw was initiated in March 2019 and will continue until March 2021.This applies to the Roseland Community only. This fee for 2020 has been set equal to that of a public tree permit to ensure consistency in the process.
Cemetery
For 2020, after conducting a market comparison, Cemetery Service lot fees have been increased by 5.0% to better align with industry and market rates. All other Cemetery Service fees have been increased by 2%. It should be noted that care and maintenance fees for marker installations are prescribed by the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, therefore do not see annual increases.
Overall, these rate adjustments are reflective of increased operating costs for labor, materials and contracted services.
Environment and Energy
Fees for the Community Garden program remain unchanged for 2020.
Arts & Culture Service
There are a total of 49 rates for Music, Teen Tour Band Student Theater and Festivals & Events.Rate increases are as follows:
o 2% increase for Teen Tour Band fees
o 5% increase for Student Theatre shows
o 4% increase for General Theatre Camp
o 5% increase for Specialized Theatre Camp
o 50% increase for Festivals and Events commercial events for marketplace vendors, activity providers and food vendor
o 3% increase for portable stage rental
o 3% increase for Filming Per Day
o 10% increase for Filming Application Fee New Rates:
o Student Theatre Once Upon A Time
o Special Event Application Process
Discontinued Rates:
o Festivals & Events Tent Rentals
o Filming Not For Profit / Student Rate
Overall, rates were maintained or slightly increased with the average rate increase between 2% and 5% to ensure customer participation and satisfaction. The 50% increase for Festivals and Events entries is proposed to reflect market rates.
Fire Emergency Response and Prevention
The Burlington Fire Department conducted a review of other local fire departments rates and fees for revenue generation and cost recovery. All rates that are showing an increase are comparable with other local fire departments and adjusted to align costs to the service provided. Emergency response costs provided by the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) are current to the last rate provided by the MTO, this rate may change in-year based on updated information provided by the MTO. All full cost recovery line items will be billed back to individuals and companies based on the total costs incurred; this will include personnel, supplies, and retention of any third-party services. All fire department rates and fees are to promote fire safety behavior, mitigate costs incurred due to fire code non-compliance and for any services or activities provided outside the primary areas of responsibility and/or done by on behalf of any other municipality (Municipal Act, 2001).
Animal Control
The Animal Control By-law #60-2005 is being amended to reflect an increase in fees. These fees are being adjusted for inflationary increases to keep fees consistent with City administration and enforcement costs. Some fees have traditionally been adjusted annually for inflation while other fees have been more comprehensively reviewed as to costs and market rates for equivalent service(s). This increase ensures that the fee structure is fair and reasonable, while reflecting the amount of effort in processing applications.
A market analysis has shown that the charges for dog and cat adoption fees are below other municipalities. The proposed increase of 4% will make the City’s adoption fees comparable, while still remaining reasonable.
Surrender fees have been increased to better reflect the costs associated with taking in an animal. Most times the animal is in need of veterinary care and a result they spend additional time at the shelter before they are ready for adoption. The City’s surrender fees have been historically low and the increase in the surrender fees will help offset these costs.
Boarding costs for quarantined animals were also increased – shelter staff have risk for injury in dealing with quarantined animals and this should be reflected in the costs. These boarding costs are substantially lower that private sector boarding fees.
Municipal Law Enforcement and Licensing
The primary reason for inflationary increases is to keep fees consistent with City administration and enforcement costs. Some fees have traditionally been adjusted annually for inflation, other than when fees have been more comprehensively reviewed as to costs and market rates for equivalent service(s).
Fee increases vary by each service type and reflects up to a 2% increase in fees, with some fees being rounded off to the nearest whole dollar.
Corporate Legal
There are no rates or fees increases proposed for 2020 however, the charge for Drainage System Appurtenances Agreements is now specified under “All other Agreements”.
Enabling Services
Financial Management
Finance staff has reviewed fees to ensure that the City’s rates are reasonable, appropriate and comparable to other municipalities. As a result, the fees for Bid Request documents have been increased to a uniform $80 including HST for 2020 the same as tender documents for road construction.
Service Burlington
Clerks annually reviews fees across area municipalities to ensure fees are in line with other municipalities. As a result, there is a proposed rate increase of 2.0% across services. These fees are in line with area municipalities.
Geographic Information and Mapping
Where applicable, existing fees are proposed to increase by 2% to reflect inflation.
Sign Production Service
Increases of 2% are proposed for sign sales in 2020 due to increased material and labour costs.
Corporate
Corporate fees reflect items charged across city services. Fees are centralized to ensure consistency in charging across the organization. There are no proposed fee increases to corporate fees for 2020.
The rationale for charging user fees is that those who clearly benefit from a service should be the ones to pay for it. User fees form one of the most significant portions of revenue earned by the City after property tax revenues. In order to mitigate property tax increases, the City of Burlington has been proactive in ensuring that the services provided by the City reflect a high level of cost recovery to the greatest extent possible while balancing affordability and providing access to services.
By Staff
September 17th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
 Town Crier Dave Vollick Mayor Meed Ward just might be thinking about becoming the Town Crier or getting a costume and sharing the job with Dave Vollick who has been doing a fine job for at least five years.
The Town Crier hollers out vital news.
Knowing whom to talk to at city hall when you have a problem is something vital for the person who needs help.
The Gazette has heard complaint after complaint about the city web site providing little in the way of needed information.
Meed Ward went into full Town Crier mode when she published a list of who does what and provided the email address to get in touch with them.
Why didn’t the city administrators do this – did they have to get prodded by the Mayor who may have given up and just done the job herself?
In a statement that came with the list the Mayor said:
“To keep serving you better, and to help get a resolution to your City-related issue as quickly and efficiently as possible, here is a list of City department emails that you can contact in addition to my office at mayor@burlington.ca.
Also included beneath each email address are some of the issues that department looks after.
Don’t expect to get an instant response should you send an email. It would be nice if city council issued a Direction to the city manager to have a policy that every email will get a response before staff leave city hall at the end of each day.
access&privacy@burlington.ca
Freedom of Information requests. Requests can be made online at: www.burlington.ca/en/services-for-you/Freedom-of-Information-Requests.asp
animalcontrol@burlington.ca
Animal Control – dog bites, barking dogs, enforcement of dogs off leash, dog licensing, cat microchipping
Wildlife – coyotes, raccoons, etc.
building@burlington.ca
Bylaw enforcement (noise, nuisance, lot maintenance, property standards, talls grass/weeds)
Building permits – swimming pools, demolition, signs
Licensing – business, liquor and lottery
Bylaws
capitalworks@burlington.ca
Leash free dog parks
Grading and drainage issues
Stormwater management – bridges
Environmental Assessments
Driveway widenings and curb cuts
Flooding – flood assistance
Road reconstruction
Parks and Open Space Projects – park planning, new splash pads and playgrounds, construction of city buildings
Love My Playground
Community Energy Plan
Construction management issues (parking for tradespersons, haul routes for trucks, cranes, material storage, port-a-potties, noise, signage, etc.)
Environment – climate change, air quality, idling
Utility locates
city@burlington.ca
Inbox for general inquires.
claimsadministrator@burlington.ca
Claims against the city for personal or property damage.
Claims can be submitted online at: https://www.burlington.ca/en/your-city/Submit-a-Claim.asp
committees@burlington.ca
Agendas and Minutes – standing committees of council
Citizen advisory committees
contactbt@burlington.ca
Burlington Transit – Handi-Van, PRESTO, bus shelters
crossingguards@burlington.ca
Crossing guards
eventbookings@burlington.ca
Flag raisings
Festivals and events
feeassistance@burlington.ca
Fee assistance for city recreation programs
firedepartment@burlington.ca
Burlington Fire Department
Fire prevention and education, fire response times, fire routes, burn permits, requests for attendance at special events, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, emergency preparedness.
liveandplay@burlington.ca
Recreation programs
General inbox for parks & recreation matters.
parking@burlington.ca
Parking – tickets, on-street parking, parking exemptions, enforcement
planning@burlington.ca
Planning and Development – site plans, zoning clearances/enquiries, heritage properties, committee of adjustment, Official Plan. List of current development applications in each city ward.
propertytax@burlington.ca
Taxes – tax assessments, appeals, pre-authorized payments
rentals@burlington.ca
Facility and Park Rentals – city facility bookings
rpf@burlington.ca
Forestry – requests for new city trees, city tree trimming
Road and sidewalk maintenance – potholes, trip hazards
Snow Removal – from sidewalks and streets
Adopt-a-Flowerbed program
Loose Leaf Collection
Litter and Clean ups
– grass cutting and maintenance
– control of Canada Geese population
– wasp nest removal on city property
– garbage containers in parks-trails-sidewalks
– graffiti and vandalism in parks
– light maintenance at parks and city facilities
– maintenance of parks-beach-playgrounds-sports fields-trails-flower beds-creeks-traffic islands-city cemeteries
tourism@burlington.ca Tourism Burlington – visitor information, city pin requests for large groups travelling, city flag requests
traffic@burlington.ca
Traffic Signals and Street Lights
Speeding – traffic calming and road safety
Transportation – planning, traffic operations, bike racks on sidewalks, street signs
 By Ray Rivers
September 17th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer is promising to slash the lowest of our five income tax brackets from 15% to 13.75%. That would add an estimated $6 billion a year to the annual deficit when fully implemented. Though the change is only at the lowest step rate, it will benefit not just the lower-income class but all the higher-income folks as well, given the progressive nature of our tax system.
 Most people really didn’t know who Andrew Scheer is – in the next month they will get their chance to determine if he should be the next Prime Minister. Mr. Scheer is essentially copying Mr. Trudeau, who cut taxes for the middle class, the second lowest step by 1.5% shortly after becoming PM. Those with lower-incomes spend virtually all of their money, and that new spending helped the country avoid the impending 2015 recession Mr. Harper’s Tories was facilitating with his austerity program.
Except that, unlike Scheer’s plan, Trudeau also raised the marginal tax rate on those earning over $200,000, to 33%, thereby attempting and almost succeeding to achieve revenue neutrality. One needs to ask why Mr. Scheer wouldn’t apply the same formula to his plan, add another step for those earning, say over a million big ones, hitting them with a marginal rate of 40 or even 50 percent – or whatever would allow his tax cut to become revenue neutral?
 Canada had 1.3 million millionaires in 2018 and that’s expected to rise to nearly two million people by 2023. Instead, Scheer’s promised new tax cut is just paying taxpayers with their own money, leaving an annual $6 billion of debt as an unwelcome inheritance for their children.
And how wise is it to slash taxes when Canada’s economy is booming with record low unemployment and solid economic growth? Timing is important. There is a danger that new consumer spending might just overheat the economy, raising the risk of inflation and lead to higher interest rates. Is this really the most prudent fiscal policy for today’s economy or just another populist vote-getter?
 And for those with the lowest incomes, it amounts to a little over a dollar a day by Mr. Scheer’s own calculations. If Scheer’s goal is to help lower-income Canadians, it would have been more effective to cut the regressive HST by one percentage point, or expand a program like national pharmacare which would reduce the burden of health-related costs for most ordinary Canadians.
dividual tax returnWhen Mr. Harper followed through on a campaign promise to reduce the goods and services tax rate from seven to five percent, the net effect was roughly the same $6 billion in lost revenue as Mr. Scheer’s income tax cutting proposal. But this was not only very popular, but also sound progressive social policy, as it left more loose change in the pockets of those who needed it most.
Scheer is determined to eliminate at least one sales tax, the carbon tax. Unfortunately that would hurt more than help lower-income Canadians, since the annual rebate exceeds what most Canadians pay in carbon taxes. Of course Scheer doesn’t ever mention the carbon rebate, which is nothing short of intellectual dishonesty – a lie by omission is still a lie.
And there is a certain irony in another dishonesty when he attacks Trudeau’s original income tax cuts, the ones he is only partially emulating. Specifically he is using figures from a flawed analysis by the partisan Fraser Institute to argue that middle-income earners are now paying $800 a year more.
 Liberals eliminated the transit credit. In their analysis the Fraser institute netted out other changes to the tax system, such as the transit credit, which was eliminated by the Liberals, but completely ignored the Canada Child Benefit which was responsible for lifting almost 900,000 people out of poverty since 2015. Correcting that deficiency showed that there was now over $2000 more in people’s pockets – not bad for a ‘tax-and-spend Liberal’.
And Scheer is promising to bring back those Harper-era tax credits for using public transit – a 15 per cent credit on weekly and monthly transit passes. That would cost over $200 million a year according to the Parliamentary Budget Office. Analysis of this feature had concluded that this was a very costly measure with most of the benefits going to those who could best afford it anyway.
Still, for a government which has made climate action a priority, encouraging transit ridership, however that is accomplished, is a good idea. Kudos to Mr. Scheer for resurfacing this policy. Changing our behaviour and reliance on the automobile is a problem, not only for traffic congestion, but also related to climate change. And by the way, a tax credit to encourage public transit makes a perfect companion to a today’s electric vehicle rebates and the carbon tax.
It is a hard sell for an opposition party going up against a government that has managed the economy as well as the Trudeau government has over the last four years. So Scheer and the other parties are either going ballistic, like the Greens wanting to kill the TMX pipeline, or becoming desperate and committing to problematic policies, like Scheer’s income tax cuts.
 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – making it sound easy. Many voters have been cultured to believe that the biggest job for any government is to wrestle the annual deficit down to zero. Mr. Trudeau had promised to eliminate it over the course of his first term. And Andrew Scheer had also promised to do so within his first two years. But now all bets are off and none of the major leaders are promising to eliminate the deficit over the next next four year electoral term. That is, unless Maxime Bernier is brought into the discussion from the far right-field of dreams.
And there are no alarm bells ringing, at least not like like the ones Ontario premier Ford rang when he ousted the provincial Liberals by exaggerating the size of the provincial deficit by a factor of two. In fact, the real numbers were relatively closer to former Wynne’s final accounts, and even the Auditor General apparently got it wrong. How does $15 billion really become only a little over seven billion dollars?
Today’s important economic health metric is the debt to GDP ratio. So long as it is declining, the economic levers are moving in the right direction. After all, we owe the vast majority of our public debt only to ourselves, and even the servicing costs just come back to us in interest payments, which are again taxed back to an extent. What is most important is how well we grow the economic pie so that we all get a larger share, are better off and minimize unemployment. Oh, and did I mention the environment and our climate?
The NDP, which promised in the last election that it would religiously balance its budgets, has now decided to be guided by the new metrics, as are the Liberals. And the Green Party is still talking about eventually eliminating the deficit but nobody has seriously talked about the debt since the Chretien and Martin governments were defeated back in 2006.
And of course the deficit can always be reduced or eliminated by increasing taxation, as the Greens or the NDP would do while making the rich pay their fair share, however one defines that. But not by cutting taxes for everyone, including the wealthiest Canadians as Mr. Sheers 1.25% income tax cut would end up doing.
 Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Background links:
Scheer’s Tax Cut – Middle Class Tax Cut – Ontario Deficit – Transit Tax Credit –
By Pepper Parr
September 3, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
The City commissioned a Growth Analysis Study to identify an appropriate level of population and employment growth that can be anticipated for the City between now and 2041. The study findings are intended to help inform the growth analysis work being undertaken by Halton Region through the Integrated Growth Management Strategy (IGMS) by providing a finer grain analysis of the growth opportunities within the City of Burlington.
Some of the numbers that are coming out of the reports put the kind of growth the city could be facing in context: an additional 58,321 to 85,863 people and 22,669 to 53,137 jobs between now and full build out. Full build out is assumed to be post 2041 and represents a conceivable end state where land has been fully optimized.
Assume just two people to a dwelling (and that is quite an assumption) we are looking at between 29 and 42 thousand new dwellings.
That certainly put the 2018 election debate in context.
In 2008, the City undertook an Intensification Study to better understand the intensification opportunities in the City which could accommodate growth to 2031. It was recognized at that time that the City’s supply of Greenfield land was diminishing and a more comprehensive approach to planning for intensification was needed.
 Boundaries set out for the Downtown mobility hub. The study focused on key areas within the City’s urban area and included a site by site analysis to identify opportunities for infilling and redevelopment. This study, which laid out a general framework for longer term growth planning in the City, determined a reasonable estimate of residential units, people and jobs, which could be provided through intensification by 2031. The study also concluded that Burlington was expected to exceed the 40% intensification target in the Growth Plan that is applied Region wide.
The study findings were used to inform the growth analysis work that was undertaken by Halton Region through their Sustainable Halton process, which resulted in population and employment growth forecasts to 2031 as well as intensification and density targets for the City and the other municipalities in the Region.
Halton Region’s Official Plan Review and Integrated Growth Management Strategy
Halton Region is currently undertaking a review of their Official Plan, as required by the Planning Act. The Region’s Official Plan Review (ROPR) commenced in April 2014 and is being undertaken in three phases. Phase one was completed in October 2016 with the completion of a Directions Report which identified the key policy areas for review through the ROPR and established a high level work plan to complete the detailed research and policy development to be undertaken in phases two and three of the ROPR.
 One of the key policy areas identified by the Region is the Integrated Growth Management Strategy (IGMS) which is a growth strategy for the Region to the planning horizon year of 2041 that will incorporate the population and employment forecasts for the Region in accordance with Schedule 3 to the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The result of the IGMS work will be an updated growth strategy for the Region and its local municipalities which is based on the integration of land use, infrastructure and financial considerations, that conforms to both Provincial and Regional policy directives.
Phase two work on the IGMS began in the spring of 2018 with a kick-off meeting with the local municipalities. Since then, staff have been actively engaged with the Region on the IGMS work through participation on technical committees, attending meetings and workshops as well as providing background data to support the development of the growth scenarios, which were shared with Regional Council on June 19, 2019.
City of Burlington Growth Analysis Study
Recognizing the growth work being undertaken by the Region through the IGMS as a region-wide provincial conformity exercise, City staff saw the opportunity to engage a consultant to undertake growth analysis work at the local level to inform the process at the Region and provide support to City staff and Council in reviewing and providing feedback to the Region on the IGMS work.
Study Process and Work Plan
In the fall of 2018, the City retained Dillon Consulting with support from Watson and Associates to undertake an analysis of the City’s population and employment growth trends to better understand what an appropriate level of population and employment growth might look like for the City between now and 2041. The study findings are intended to inform and support the process being undertaken at the Region by providing a finer grain analysis of growth opportunities in the City and is not intended to supersede the Region’s process. City staff also recognize that components of the growth analysis study could be used or leveraged for other city projects and initiatives.
The project work plan prepared by Dillon and Watson for the growth analysis study included:
• A review of growth related background data;
• A review of the policy context to gain a better understanding of the long-term growth potential for the City;
• Confirmation of the estimated long-term supply of land within the City for residential and non-residential growth;
• An economic, socio-economic and demographic trends analysis which will also include commentary on local factors and economic drivers which are anticipated to influence future residential and non-residential development trends in the City;
• The development of three city-wide population, housing and employment growth forecasts, including the identification of a preferred growth forecast;
• Identifying potential opportunities and challenges associated with the city’s ability to achieve the preferred growth forecast.
A project kick-off meeting was held in the fall of 2018 which included staff from various internal city departments, acting a project steering committee. Various background data related to land use and development was also provided to the consulting team to assist with their review and analysis. In March 2019, a workshop was held with internal city staff which provided the opportunity for the consulting team to share the findings of their analysis and for staff to provide feedback on a draft of the growth analysis study.
Study Purpose & Components
As indicated, the purpose of the Growth Analysis Study is to identify an appropriate level of population and employment growth that the City can anticipate between now and 2041. The study takes into consideration both supply and demand factors while addressing the following key questions:
 Bronte Meadows – designated Employment Lands, the owners, Paletta International, have been trying for years to have it zoned residential. It was part of a package of land in the GTA that was offered to Amazon when they were looking for a new HQ. • How much land supply is there to accommodate future long-term population and employment growth in the City?
• What are some of the recent broader macro-economic and regional growth trends which will influence growth in Burlington?
• What do the City’s recent economic, demographic and real estate trends tell us about future growth potential?
• What is the potential range of population and employment growth that the City can expect between now and 2041 based on available supply and market trends?
• Given the range of potential growth and multiple opportunities for development, what are the phasing considerations for residential and employment growth?
The analysis in this study relies on a number of different sources including components of the City’s adopted Official Plan, Halton Region Official Plan, the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe as well as provincial guidelines (e.g. MTO Transit Supporting Guidelines). Data related to the City’s active development applications and building permits was also relied upon to complete the analysis.
Adopted New Official Plan
The Dillon – Watson study recognizes the direction received by Council to undertake a scoped review of the building heights and densities contained within the adopted new Official Plan. The methodology used in the analysis builds upon the urban structure and intensification opportunities identified through the City’s growth framework in the adopted new Official Plan. However, building height permissions in the adopted new Official Plan were not used in the analysis. As such, any changes that result from the scoped re-examination of the adopted new Official Plan are anticipated to be within the supply scenarios tested.
 The Mobility Hubs are on a bit of a hold while the Planning department focuses on a number of critical studies that need to be completed before development can get back on track. Mobility Hub Work
The study also recognizes the work that has been undertaken to date on the Mobility Hubs. For the downtown, the Urban Growth Center boundary and density target established in the Growth Plan were used in the supply analysis, while the population and employment ratios were based on the detailed mobility hub work. Similarly, for the GO Station mobility hubs, two density targets were used in the supply analysis; one reflective of the density target identified in the adopted new Official Plan, while the other reflective of the density target established in the Growth Plan. The population and employment ratios used in the analysis were based on the mobility hub draft precinct plans.
Supply Analysis
A review of the City’s active development applications was completed to inform the analysis of the supply of land available for both residential and non-residential growth. These development applications represent a snap shot in time and reflect development applications ranging from those under review by City staff to those currently under construction.
The supply analysis completed as part of this study helped to understand how much additional growth the City could expect based on current policies and plans. A top-down approach was used to estimate supply by applying a density target (people and jobs/ha) along with population and employment ratios to different areas of the City to identify the full build out potential. However, for some areas of the City which are not anticipated to accommodate much of the new growth, a factor was applied to identify full build out potential.
Full build out is assumed to be post 2041 and represents a conceivable end state where land has been fully optimized.
All this takes place while development work in the downtown core is under a one year freeze that has about five months left before a recommendation comes back from the planners. The Interim Control Bylaw (ICBL) was deemed to be necessary when the city found it was overwhelmed with development applications.
 Planner Jamie Tellier and Director of Planning Heather MacDonald during a city council meeting. Planning Director Heather MacDonald was given the green light to single source the consultants she would use to put together the report. MacDonald has been a planner for at least two decades and she knows all the players in that game. She is firm on the report being in the hands of council within the one year time frame she was given; in our last conversation with MacDonald she made it very clear that meeting the delivery date was paramount – and she doesn’t appear to be one who scrimps on quality.
While the ICBL report is being researched and written the “Adopted Official Plan” is getting a very heavy duty re-write and re-think.
And while that re-write and re-think is taking place there is a group working on plans that attract as much public reaction, response, comment – anything anyone wants to say.
Mayor Meed Ward has made it the thickest of the pillars that hold up her election platform.
She wants to hear – she wants to listen.
The five new City Councillors are in for the hardest assignment they have ever been given. Some are faltering under the work load; some live on this kind of deep policy stuff.
There is a public that depends on the thinking they do and the wisdom they bring to the table.
After a decent summer break – they skipped a July Council meeting – they are now back in the trenches. In seven weeks they will celebrate being elected.
Two of the five (Nisan, Kearns) fought off contenders, one other (Stolte) was a certain winner once it was a clear one on one race with a long term incumbent, the other (Sharman) was an incumbent who won because two women let the vote be split. Another (Bentivegna) won by the slimmest of margins against a candidate who really didn’t run all that much of a campaign. The last newbie (Galbraith) came out on top of a very crowded field.
 Were the right choices made – can the team handle the amount of work they have been given? Time will tell. We will know in the not too distant future if the right choices were made.
There is no doubt that at the Mayoralty level the right choice was made given what was on offer. Only time will tell if the Mayor lives up to the promise.
By Pepper Parr
September 3rd, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
It will be a very full week.
On Monday, the 9th, Council starts off with a daylong meeting that has 8 consent items on the agenda.
Then details on the Provincial Audit and Accountability Fund, that’s the program that has the province coming in to help (tell?) the city how to run their operation.
 Detours that transit buses will take when The Gallery starts demolition and construction opposite city hall.  Cement and dump trucks will come down John Street, slip into the construction site and then leave via James street – passing buses along the way. The Standing Committee will be discussing Open air burning permit areas, a Stormwater management update, the badly needed Construction and Mobility Management Policy. The city got caught a little short-handed on this one; two projects that are expected to be putting up hoardings in the near future met with ward 2 residents and talked about how they would handle the trucks and the traffic on Brant Street opposite city hall and on Lakeshore at Martha. Both locations are going to be construction sites for the next 30 months – at the same time Lakeshore Road is to undergo some serious upgrades that will close it down for up to 8 weeks.
The Strategic Asset Management Policy is going to be discussed, and Consideration for free transit for students will also get discussed.
 The LaSalle Marina just might end up with a very different governance model. Discussion will take place this week. Flooding has been a serious problem. The Marina governance and operating model will be presented – this item will take place in the evening – at 6:30 pm.
 Improvements to the Skyway Arena and community centre are in the works. There was a time when citizens didn’t think they were being heard. They are today. Will they be heard when a decision gets made on the massive development plan yards away from the arena The New Skyway Community Centre will also be discussed during the evening of September 9th.
On Tuesday the 10th council meets as a Standing Committee – Planning and Development this time.
There will be two Statutory Public Meetings; these are public meetings held to present planning applications in a public forum as required by the Planning Act.
One is a rezoning application for the hydro corridor north of 1801 Walker’s Line which staff is recommending be refused.
The second is for an official plan amendment and rezoning application for 2085 Pine Street
Statutory public meeting and recommendation of refusal of rezoning application for the hydro corridor north of 1801 Walker’s Line (PB-16-19)
Both items will be discussed at 6:30 p.m.
The Heritage Burlington 2017/2018 annual report and 2019 objectives is being treated as a consent item.
 Several Council members liked what was being done in Waynesboro – they want staff to look into some better ideas. Traffic management strategies will be discussed at the 9:30am meeting along with Relocation of Bingo Connection and Downtown Streetscape Guidelines. Panhandling on streets in the City of Burlington is to be discussed – this matter often brings out emotional responses from those that delegate.
There will be a Staff direction regarding Airbnb’s and then the Red Tape Red Carpet Task Force recommendations.
This item amounts to much more than a discussion about the Task Force the Mayor set up to hear what stakeholders had to say about how efficient city hall was or wasn’t. Buried within the report is the wish of the Mayor to totally revise the way economic development is done in Burlington.
There will be an Amendment to Nuisance and Noise By-law 19-2003 and results from Halton Regional Police Service’s pilot project to stop noisy moving vehicles
 Council didn’t get a chance to opine on the construction of this parking lot at John and Caroline – it just got done. This Council wants greener parking lots. Green parking lot design guidelines for new parking lot at John and Caroline Streets and future builds. The 2018 – 2022 council has a very green agenda and were upset when the John and Caroline parking lot got opened without any serious consideration to making it a “green” space. Capital Works, the department that oversees and administrates the construction work for the city didn’t see that coming.
Wednesday is an Audit Committee meeting – dry as toast for the most part.
Thursday is a tough one. Members of Council were presented with a 152 page report on what the city is facing in terms of population growth and just where that intensification can or is going to take place.
That will be a special report later in the week.
Related news articles:
Pan handling
Construction site management
Skyway Arena and Community Centre
By Ray Rivers
August 29th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
There is only one way to describe the experience of driving back from northern Ontario on a long Ontario weekend.
Overwhelming traffic and grid lock! Much like the rest of the free highways around the province, and the GTA in particular most days.
 Pay a fee and you can ride in that left hand lane. So the economist in me wants to cry out road tolls. That’s right. Not only would the cost of tolls ration demand, but the tolls would also raise much needed cash for governments all drowning in deficit financing. That does mean that rich folks could afford to take the highway more often than the poor – and unless there are reasonable options to driving that will get the equity folks all upset.
In fact everyone seems to get upset. Nobody likes toll roads, even if, like the 407, they are relatively painless – get a transponder and the cost goes on your monthly visa bill. And talk about success, that highway is now worth over $30 billion, ten times the value Mike Harris got for it twenty years ago.
When Toronto’s city council wanted to impose some road tolls to help with city finances the Liberal provincial government feared a public backlash in the upcoming election, so nixed it. As it turns out that would hardly have hurt them in their election fortunes.
 Weekend traffic In fact only the Green Party has had the courage to advocate road tolls. The other parties would no more dare to promise tolls, than they would photo radar or another long gun registry. The Wynne Liberals did, however, initiate tolls for driver-only cars using high occupancy lanes (HOV) – thus making them high occupancy or toll (HOT) lanes.
So what are our federal politicians promising to do about cars and congestion as we head to the polls in October to vote for them? The Harper Conservatives had launched a national multi-government infrastructure program as the centre piece of their effort to pull Canada out of the 2008 recession. That effort has been criticized for leaving too much money on the table – more ‘much-ado’ than actually ‘doing’.
As part of their 2015 election campaign the Trudeau Liberals had promised a massive nearly $200 billion, 10 year infrastructure program – increasing Canada’s infrastructure by roughly 20%. But like the Tories before them, they have found it difficult to spend as planned. The money needs to be initiated through application from the responsible jurisdictions and that takes two or more to tango.
One might recall the squabble between the Premier and the PM over the Bombardier transit car layoffs in Thunder Bay. It turns out that Mr. Ford had dropped the ball and failed to apply for the infrastructure money which might have kept the company and its employees working.
 Tolls would pay for infrastructure – which would create jobs. Infrastructure investment is credited with creating over 547,000 jobs in 2017 alone. And job creation was the primary motivation behind the Liberal infrastructure program. Though fewer jobs were actually created than planned, it all helped move Canada to a four decade low rate of unemployment, and away from impending recession as Trudeau came to power.
Roads are high on the list for funding, getting almost a quarter of all that infrastructure money. Of course we can all see that money at work as we navigate our way through construction season. But you don’t have to be in a corn field in Iowa to know that if you build it they will come – no sooner do we finish a new road then it is congested with cars again.
There are an ever increasing number of trucks on the road and some of the blame goes to the wasteful industrial practice of just-in-time parts delivery, where trucks essentially become warehouses on wheels. Then there is the new trend of on-line shopping with free truck delivery to your door.
 No immigration – no traffic congestion. And where do all the cars come from? On going urban sprawl necessitates car ownership and private vehicle commuting. Maxime Bernier would blame congestion on too much immigration. But nobody is listening to him, preferring to label him and his party as racists and keeping that party at the bottom of the polls.
Between 2011 and 2016, almost 30 per cent of immigrants to this country, some 356,930 people, settled in the Toronto census area. Even if only one in four acquired and drives a car that is still almost a hundred thousand cars we’ve added to Toronto area roads during those Harper/Trudeau years.
Elections are a perfect time for trying out new ideas. Kathleen Wynne promised to build some long needed high speed rail in southern Ontario had she won the last election. It is not clear how many drivers would have left their cars at home and shaved a four-plus-hour commute in rush hour down to 73 minutes – but at least they would have been given the option.
The federal government has played a huge role in facilitating the development of transportation in this country, the railways and highways and even pipelines. Isn’t it time for one of the political leaders to come out swinging with a better idea about resolving our road congestion?
 Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Background links:
National Infrastructure – More Infrastructure – Even More Infrastructure – Free Highways –
Canadian Immigration – Toronto Immigration – High Speed Rail –
By Pepper Parr
August 23, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
Ooops!
A portion of a sentence was left off the paragraph about the pipeline that runs through the centre of the city that was mentioned in the story on the Construction Management procedures that will be in place for the building of the condominium opposite city hall.
In explaining the traffic congestion that was going to take place in the downtown core at the same time two high rise condominiums were to be built we left out the detail about remediation work being done to the pipeline that runs through the city – it carries fuel for aircraft at the Hamilton airport. No specific date on when that work will start.
 Transit traffic will come down Brant and swing onto James and then go south on John.  Cement and dump trucks will come south on John street, drive on to the site and then continue down John to Brant when they have off loaded The public was told that Lakeshore Road will close for a period of time while repair work on the surface is done.
Detail on what the flow of traffic would be during the 30 month construction period that The Gallery, the 23 story condominium that will be built opposite city hall, was released.
Cement trucks and dump trucks will compete with buses and private automobile for room on Brant, John and James Street.
 An aerial rendering of how the condominium will fit into the corner of Brant and James – with city hall across the street. It will be interesting to see how the Santa Claus parade winds its way through that part of the city in December.
By Pepper Parr
August t 22nd, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
 Lisa Kearns waiting for a question from the audience. Lisa Kearns, Councillor for ward 2 was back before her constituents again – it was the second week in a row that she stood before an audience and took them through the intricacies of Construction Management and Traffic control during construction projects..
Last week the meeting was related to the Adi Nautique development at the corner of Lakeshore and Marsha where the audience learned that the construction timeline is about 30 months.
This time it was the Carnacelli development opposite city hall – where the time line is 30 months. The 23 storey development, known commercially as The Gallery also has a new address – because the entrance is going to be on James they are using the municipal address of 2011 James to identify the development – not to confuse people who follow this type of thing.
 The property to the left of the site has been approved for 17 storeys – they have appealed asking for 23 stories to match The Gallery development. The Centro Garden is on the extreme right. The two developments are less than a km apart and will be under construction at about the same time.
Carriage Gate, the developers of the project, announced that they expect to begin demolition sometime immediately after Labour Day.
At about the same tine Lakeshore Road will be closed for a period of between eight and twelve weeks for road improvement work.
The audience was also advised that a pipeline that runs right through the city coming in from the Beachway along Elgin Street and running through the rear of the Mayrose Tayco property at the north end of the Elizabeth Street parking lot is scheduled to have some major remediation done – no specific dates were given.
Chaos is the word that best describes what is going to take place in the city.
The objective is to manage that chaos as professionally as possible. Kearns was in the room explain that everything was going to be fine – there were protocols and procedures in place to handle every situation.
Drawings were displayed showing where the trucks that will haul away the material from the demolished site and where the concrete trucks would be staged while they were waiting to enter the site, disgorge the concrete and move on so that the next truck could come in.
Cement and dump truck movement plan. Transit movement plan. The public will not lose the use of the Brant Street or James Street – the areas where construction is taking place will be covered so that pedestrians are safe.
Kearns assured the audience that she would be on top of it all – her office on the eighth floor of city hall overlooks the site.
Concern about the noise, the dust and the traffic flow were not as important as to where the trades people working on the site were going to park. The Carnacelli interests on the property the Berkeley was built on and the land to the north where there was to be a parking lot and a medical building that would front on Caroline – that space will be used for parking in the early stages. Mark Bales who is overseeing the project did announce that the corporation had arranged to rent about 40 parking spots from the city – which didn’t go down all that well with the area residents or those with retail operations in the immediate area.
 Timeline for the construction and completion of The Gallery opposite city hall. People wanted to know how many trucks would be in the area – they were told seven to nine which was later bumped up to 12. They will be driving in and out of the site from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.
The audience was told that there could be anywhere between seven and seventy workers on the site at any one time.
Kearns has worked with Transportation department people and has, she said, gone as high as the City Manager to resolve some of the issues. The City is in the process of creating a Construction Management Plan that will be in place for future developments.
Kearns said that given the developments that are in line at the Planning department the city is looking at three, five perhaps even seven years of downtown construction.
There then came a point in the meeting when Kearns decided all the questions had been asked and answered and it was time to wrap it up.
The audience got the “bums rush” and those who had questions could hang around.
 By Staff
August 13th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
One of the beauties of an on line newspaper is the opportunity to look at the back and forth in communication between two people.
In what follows we give you a look at how David Barker’s electronic conversation with Burlington MPP Jane McKenna went.
 Barker, a Lakeshore Road resident, takes issue with Jane McKenna’s position on affordable housing. She basically sticks as close as possible to the Ford government position- something Jane has always done. She knew the lines to the Tim Hudak position on significant issues better than Tim Hudak did when he was PC party leader.
Have a listen to how McKenna digs a hole and then looks for ways to dig down even deeper.
David Barker to Jane McKenna June 22nd, 2019
On Sat., Jun. 22, 2019, 11:25 a.m. Barker wrote:
Ms McKenna in your statement directed towards the We Love Burlington group, published in the Burlington Gazette, you state “Our estimates from the Ministry of the Attorney General show that over 100,000 housing units are caught up in legacy cases at the tribunal. That’s 100,000 desperately needed homes that can’t get built – or three years worth of construction in Ontario waiting for approval….” By making this statement, Ms McKenna, you imply that you would expect all 100,000 units that await review by LPAT would gain its approval.
Maybe you did not mean to imply that. But your statement reflects exactly the public’s perception of just what is wrong with LPAT (and before it OMB). The perception is that the unelected, unrepresentative body seems to invariably side with the developer’s position, completely ignoring the municipality’s official plan and the desires of the local residents.
Please can you provide any justification as to why the Province of Ontario should even have an unelected, unrepresentative body to pass judgement on how a municipality manages its development. As far as I am aware no other Canadian Province has such a body. I assume in those other Provinces the developer’s recourse is to a non-political court system. Should that not also be the recourse here in Ontario?
Surely if a municipality has an official plan that has been accepted and approved by its region (and by implication the Province) why should that municipality then be second guessed by an unelected, unrepresentative political body. If a developer’s proposal does not comply with the requirements of the municipality’s (Region/ Province approved) official plan, then surely the developer should not expect municipal plan approval until it does conform.
My understanding is the official plan in effect in Burlington dates back to 2008. That means the official plan has been in effect for ten years NOT twenty five years as you contend. That 2008 official plan, although soon to be superceded by an updated official plan, does in fact remain compliant with regional and Provincial requirements. As such it should be respected by all, including developers, the Province and LPAT.
Ms McKenna you are right to champion the need to increase the supply of affordable housing, both rental and owned. I believe you will find allies for that goal at the Region, at Burlington City Council and in the community. However, the high rise condo developments proposed for downtown Burlington do not in any meaningful way address affordable housing. The price point of the proposed condos are way outside the affordability of first time home buyers. Further the monthly rental cost of those units being bought by investors for the rental market is also likely to be well beyond the budgets of the twenty somethings who look for affordable rental accommodation. So for you, Ms McKenna, to in any way imply that the developers proposals for downtown Burlington high rises address affordable housing is completely disingenuous on your part.
Please, Ms McKenna would you temper your standing up and defending the bullying Ford government, of which you are a part, with more standing up and advocating for the desires and positions of your constituents who elected you to represent them. Those views are clearly and accurately expressed and advocated by the City of Burlington Council.
I dare you to publish on your website this opposing view to your statement. But I doubt you are either brave enough or confident enough to do that.
Barker to McKenna June 30th.
I’m looking forward to your response to my emailed message below.
McKenna to Barker August 7th.
Mr. Barker,
Every community in Ontario is unique. But no matter where you go, one thing is the same – people are looking for housing that meets their needs and their budget.
Here in Burlington, the cost of buying a home is becoming out of reach for many and affordable rentals are too hard to find. In addition, the high cost of housing is making it harder to attract investment and create jobs.
According to 2017 projections by Ontario’s Ministry of Finance, Halton Region will grow by 56.2 percent over the next 22 years – making Halton the fastest-growing area in the GTHA. That’s why we need to get the housing supply right – the right housing, in the right place, at the right time in the most efficient way.
Provincial growth plans have determined land use patterns for over a century. Regional and Municipal Official Plans align to provincial policy and are used in planning local communities.
Ontario is not the only province that handles appeals involving municipal planning decisions with a Tribunal. Like Ontario, Alberta is also home to some of the fastest growing cities in Canada; they also handle municipal planning with a tribunal.
The tribunal exists because people don’t always agree on how their communities should develop or change. Disputes often arise over land use planning issues, such as where industry is located, where roads and transit are built, protecting environmentally sensitive lands and managing overall development. When people are unable to resolve their differences on planning issues or have disputes with their municipal council, the LPAT provides a forum to resolve those disputes.
Recently, Halton Regional Council passed a motion calling on the government to eliminate the LPAT. Unfortunately, this is not an option as it would remove the ability for residents to appeal Council decisions outside the courts. Relying on our over-burdened court system would increase costs, delay decision making and hinder people’s ability to settle planning disputes.
Our government’s recent decision to appoint 11 new adjudicators to the LPAT will speed-up decision making to address the 2 to 3-year backlog of appeals.
As Burlington works to create a new Official Plan, our Mayor and Council continue to receive expert advice from local and provincial planning staff. That’s why I’m confident that by mid-2020, under a new Official Plan, the number of appeals will be reduced, with the LPAT playing an important role in ensuring critical checks and balances are in place.
Best regards,
Jane
Barker gets back to McKenna before the end of the day on August 7th.
Thank you for your email below. Its contents do raise further questions in my mind, which you might be able to answer or comment upon.
I totally agree with you that so much more needs to be done to provide the “affordable” housing that is needed for the less well off in our society. The main hurdle to achieving that goal is that it does not make commercial or economic sense for developers to create affordable housing when ROI is so much better with condos and single family homes. Ontario should look to other jurisdictions outside of Canada where local, regional and central governments provide the affordable housing stocks. It is nonsense and folly to believe the private sector will step up. Doug Ford, the Premier for the People” surely would want to champion a Housing for the People initiative funded through the three levels of government.
I would hazard a guess that of the 100,000 units you have cited as being held up at OMB/LPAT less than 5% would relate to applications for affordable housing developments. Perhaps you have a supportable number for this?
Those applications for multi unit developments in Burlington tied up at OMB/LPAT, I am confident are all for $500,000+ condos or similar price point developments. Not for affordable housing.
Tying the affordable housing issue to the purpose or need for an OMB/LPAT body is not appropriate or valid.
You say, once Burlington, or any other municipality, gets its OP compliant with Provincial requirements the number of instances of appeals being accepted for adjudication by LPAT will be substantially reduced. That being the case why could a dedicated Property Planning Court not be created to deal with the appeals.
Surely it is better to have an independent judiciary act as the arbiter rather than an unelected body of political or patronage appointees, who likely have no connection to the municipality. If a separate Property Planning Court is a no go, then why not have a requirement that the LPAT tribunal members must be resident in the municipality from which the matter emanates.
You cite cost as being an insurmountable hurdle that rules out the use of the courts as a viable place to settle disputes. The cost to appeal a municipality’s decision to LPAT likely puts an appeal out of the financial wherewithal of individual residents. Lawyers, planning consultants and other expert type witnesses are required, all costing a pretty penny. Developers have deep pockets. Individuals do not. A “small claims court” type model for a Property Planning focused court should be the way to go.
You have cited Alberta as another province with an LPAT type system. So perhaps you can elaborate as to how other provinces deal with planning disagreements. What happens in say BC, Quebec, Nova Scotia. Can Ontario not learn anything from those provinces?
You mention Halton recently passed a resolution calling for the end of LPAT. The regional and city council’s were more recently elected to office than were MPPs. Your words come across like those of an overly protective or controlling mother telling her child “no, don’t bother your pretty little head with that, Mommy knows what’s best”.
Might I suggest in the next month or so you host a constituency meeting on this subject so that you can hear directly from your constituents on this subject.
David Barker
Jane gets back to Barker on August 12th
Mr. Barker,
Thank you for your follow up email including your suggestions.
Best regards,
Jane
Barker gets back to Jane – he is like a dog with a bone and he isn’t letting go.
Jane:
You are most welcome.
 Will you be offering your thoughts or comments as to those suggestions:-
* a “small claims” model type court for municipal property planning disputes be set up to replace LPAT.
* an LPAT tribunal be comprised only of citizens resident in the municipality from which the matter emanates.
* you hold a townhall meeting within the next couple of months to have an open discussion on this matter, which is of immensely high interest to your constituents.
* have the Province and municipalities come together to finance, construct, hold and manage a stock of affordable housing.
I look forward to hearing from you.
David Barker
Blair Smith, a citizen’s advocate adds his two cents:
If the Government really wanted to increase affordable housing then it would act as responsible governments do – as stewards of the public trust – and mandate that developers do much, much more to provide housing that applies. If you leave it to the private sector with incentive programs and self-regulating regimens then your last name may be Wynn. Government is intended to fill the gap where private sector and self-interest will not go. Not a difficult concept.
By Ray Rivers
August 6th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
Ever since I can remember environmentalists have been demanding an end to government subsidies for the oil and gas sectors. And ever since I can remember governments have been ignoring the issue, or have been in denial. And those not in denial keep making promises to end the flow of cash to the energy giants, but never actually do.
 Sustainable for who? Canada by everyone’s calculations leads the G7 when it comes to doling out cash to the fossil fuel industry. And while the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) puts the direct value of Canadian generosity to big fossil at $3.3 billion per year, the International Monetary Fund calls it more like $50 billion after all the externalities are included.
Mr. Trudeau, recognizing the inappropriateness of these subsidies, and echoing long standing Liberal policy, promised during the last federal election that he would eliminate this gravy train. Then he made a similar promise when his government purchased the TransMountain (TMX) pipeline. The NDP, like the Liberals, utter wishful thoughts on the matter, but the national reality just won’t let that happen – at least not yet.
Canada’s is a diverse economy, and three or four provinces rely heavily on the oil and gas sector for their standard of living. And demand for petroleum is still strong. So ending the subsidies would appear as an attack on those provinces and the national economy. Besides there is still some small chance that the Liberals or NDP might win some seats in the prairies.
The Greens are probably the only party which could be counted on to end the freeload, though the probability of them becoming government in the near future is pretty slim – so it’s an easy promise to make. Maxime Bernier’s fledgling People’s Party shuns all subsidies and has criticized the most recent federal gift to the oil execs. But then given current polling he has even a lesser chance of forming government than the Greens, let alone keeping his own seat.
 The sign says it all. Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives are the outliers. Despite criticism of Trudeau on the latest handout to the industry, nobody should doubt where Scheer stands. He represents oil producing Saskatchewan, after all, and like his former boss, Alberta’s Harper, can be counted on to do the bidding of the oil giants.
In fact his recent policy paper on climate change and the environment would see even more subsidies go out to fossil fuel firms presumably looking for cleaner ways of burning even more fossil fuels. He stands shoulder to shoulder with big oil, regurgitating their positions on the new fuel standard and environmental assessment. And his opposition to the carbon tax is all about protecting the oil producers.
But if climate change is the most important issue facing humanity this century, then fossil fuels will have to go, and fossil fuel companies will have to shut down eventually. And alternatives need to be available and put on an even footing financially. According to the IISD, globally, the fossil fuel fellows get four times as much in handouts ($400 billon) as does the worldwide renewable energy sector.
Bernier is dead wrong. Subsidies are an essential part of modern government. They are as essential as fair taxation. If government’s role in society is to provide leadership then it must use all of its tools to tip the scales and nudge us in the right direction. For example, the recently announced federal electric vehicle rebate program helps to level the costs of purchasing a non-polluting vehicle.
 The Hamilton skyline on a difficult day. Subsidies to the oil industry are wrong headed and must and will end. Otherwise how do we move society off oil and gas and onto cleaner electric or hydrogen. The federal carbon tax is expected to raise $2.3 billion this year, all of which will be returned to the public. And that is still at least a billion shy of what the Canadian taxpayers are giving to the oil companies, so they can compensate their oil exec’s with fat salaries, bonuses and stock options. And their product is the poison changing our climate.
 Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Background links:
Subsidies for Fossil Fuels – More Subsidies – Canadian Subsidies – Highest Subsidizes in G7 –
 By Staff
August 6th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
A Community Lens report from Community Development Halton sets out just what homelessness is.
What is homelessness? According to the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, homelessness is “the situation of an individual, family, or community, without stable, safe, permanent, appropriate housing, or the immediate prospect means and ability of acquiring it.” The homeless population is hard to count because of their mobility and the cyclical nature of homelessness.
Homelessness isn’t a huge problem in Halton; 271 individuals/head of household experiencing homelessness were identified in 2018 compared to 264 in 2016.
The first coordinated Point-in-Time (PiT) Count of homelessness in Canada took place in 2016 covering 32 communities. The second count that took place in 2018 included 62 communities. Halton Region participated in both Point-in-Time counts.
 Within the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), Halton ranks third after the City of Toronto and Peel Region in terms of the homeless rate (per 100,000 residents).
 In Halton, over half of the homeless individuals stayed in transitional housing (38%) and shelters (27%). Oakville has the highest rate of homelessness (65.5 persons/100,000 residents) followed by Burlington at 40.9 persons/100,000 residents, in terms of rate of homelessness (per 100,000 residents) in 2018.
Many factors are at play that result in an individual or head of a household to experience homelessness. Homelessness is usually the result of the cumulative effects of a number of factors such as family conflict, job loss, or unaffordable housing. Based on the two Point-in-Time surveys (2016 and 2018), family conflict ranks as the top reason(s) for homelessness.
Family conflict includes conflict or poor relationship between parents and children, physical violence, or sexual abuse. Lack of affordable housing is another top reason for homelessness. Job loss and precarious employment can easily lead to homelessness. Less than one-quarter (24%) of the homeless individuals are employed. Another reason for homelessness is those fleeing domestic violence which includes physical, sexual, or psychological harm by a current/former partner or spouse as well as by other family members, or by a partner’s family member.
 Whatever the reason for the homelessness, adequate support needs to be in place ensure that dignity, well-being and a road out of homelessness are in place for anyone who needs the help.
The oft heard phrase “Get a job” is not the answer to the homelessness problem.
Community Lens is prepared by Community Development Halton to disseminate and interpret important community data as it becomes available. For more information please contact CDH at data@cdhalton.ca or 905-632-1975
 By Staff
August 1st, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
 It’s the Civic Holiday this weekend; a number of administrative services will be closed on Monday, Aug. 5, 2019, reopening Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2019.
City Hall will be closed on Monday, Aug. 5, reopening on Tuesday, Aug. 6.
Parks and Recreation Programs and Facilities
Activities and customer service hours at city pools, arenas and community centres vary over the holiday weekend. Please visit burlington.ca/play for a complete listing of program times and burlington.ca/servicehours for hours at customer service locations.
Burlington Transit
Burlington Transit will operate holiday service schedule and the administration office and Specialized Dispatch will be closed on Monday, Aug. 5, reopening on Tuesday, Aug. 6. Visit burlingtontransit.ca for more information.
Animal Shelter and Control
Closed Monday, Aug. 5. Open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. For more information or to report an animal control-related emergency, call 905-335-3030 or visit burlington.ca/animals.
Roads, Parks and Forestry
The administrative office will be closed on Monday, Aug. 5, reopening on Tuesday, Aug. 6. Only urgent services will be provided.
Halton Court Services
Provincial Offences Courts will be closed on Monday, Aug. 5, reopening on Tuesday, Aug. 6.
Parking
Free parking is available in the downtown core at all pay machines located on the street, municipal lots and the parking garage on weekends and holidays.
NOTE: The Waterfront parking lots (east and west) do not provide free parking on statutory holidays.
Do you have family and friends visiting for the holiday weekend? A reminder that there is no parking on city streets overnight between 1 and 6 a.m. Exemptions to allow overnight parking on city streets may be obtained by calling 905-335-7844 or visiting burlington.ca/parking. You can get a permit on line.
Fireworks Safety
A reminder from the Burlington Fire Department: the safest way to enjoy fireworks this Civic Holiday is to let the professionals handle the lighting and fireworks display. If you do have fireworks planned for your celebrations, please follow safety tips at: burlington.ca/fireworks.
 A n aboriginal boy demonstrated using hoops at the Brant Day event at LaSalle Park  The August Civic holiday – best way to spend it.
 By Staff
July 30th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
A devoted Gazette reader popped us a note. “You might want to read this over and perhaps share it.” The article, which is rather long, is on the value (or lack thereof) of public engagement.
Ruben Anderson wrote the piece on August 6, 2018. He mentions an article with the headline – “Most Public Engagement is Worthless” which he said grabbed his attention.
That article launched Anderson’s thoughts.
“I think most public engagement is beyond worthless. I think it actually corrodes the relationships we need in order to build a strong town. Most public engagement, as it is currently conducted, makes our cities worse places.
 Finance department staff explaining a part of a budget during a public forum. “Does this mean that I am saying we should abandon public engagement? Most definitely not. But I think we need to understand behavior, relationships, and expertise a lot better if we are going to do good with our consultation efforts instead of harm. Public engagement needs to be done well, because it would be better to do nothing at all than to corrode the public’s trust in City Hall and in each other.
Let me tell you a story.
I was working for the City of Vancouver’s Sustainability Group and was assigned to a large urban planning process. Consultation was said to be critical, necessary, jugular—and so we dog-and-ponied with our flip charts and sticky notes and dotmocracy.
We asked people the question, “How could Vancouver be more sustainable?”
Solar Panels! they told us. Windmills! Plant trees! Ban plastic bags! Ride bikes!
Golly. Solar panels?
Here I am working in a Sustainability Department and I never thought of solar panels. How could I have missed that? Solar panels! And bikes? Wow. Just wow. What a fool I was! My eyes are opened!
What I am trying to describe here is how terribly insulting this process was to everybody involved.
We had asked a question that could produce nothing but disrespect for the experts who have dedicated their education and careers to reducing environmental impact. Of course we knew about solar panels.
And we had asked a question that the members of the general public were not equipped to answer, because they aren’t experts. There are some good reasons why solar panels are not installed faster—it is almost always a better idea to insulate your home, weatherstrip and draught-proof first. You reduce your own energy demand before you put on solar panels.
 Jennifer Johnson on the left listening to a residents ideas at Lakeside Plaza visioning exercise. When the report and recommendations come out, the public sees nothing that resembles what they asked for—they wanted solar panels and they got weatherstripping. They too feel disrespected. They gave their irreplaceable time, hours from their one and only life, and look what they got.
They had to give something up in order to come to the consultation, and nothing good came of their time because they weren’t asked questions they could meaningfully contribute to answering.
This is not how you build a trusting relationship: a strong foundation on which to work together. This is how you corrode trust.
Another story: the city I now live in, Victoria, BC, recently began installing “all ages and abilities” bike lanes after a significant consultation period. At a couple of the consultations, big maps were laid out so people could draw where they thought bike routes should go.
If you’re having the public draw bike lanes, think about why. What expertise do they have that your bike planners don’t?
 Does the clearly coloured bike lane make it safer? Only if car drivers are aware of why the colouring is in place. To be quite blunt, if your bicycle transportation planner does not have a very clear idea what routes would balance geography, access, cost, safety, behavior change, etc. then they are incompetent and should be fired.
If your planner is not incompetent, then they are probably well-read on the past couple of decades of practical experimentation with bike infrastructure. They probably know the current best thinking on the sorts of places bike lanes should connect and serve. They have probably seen a hundred examples of creative solutions to integrating bikes into cities. They have been paid by the city to learn these things, and probably have done a bunch more research on their own because they are transportation geeks.
So the public was asked to come in and draw routes. The public doesn’t know anything about how many dollars per kilometer each option costs. They don’t know about lane widths, and how wide the city right-of-way is. They know nothing about other things that may be important, like planned changes in sidewalks, utilities, and developments.
We ask people who have none of the education, experience or knowledge needed to make proper decisions to come in and draw routes, and we ask the City staff to sit there and be polite at the ridiculousness that pours out. Can you imagine how the staff feel about giving up their evening with their family, after a day’s work, to go be polite to people who are unaware of virtually all the limiting factors?
And so the public input is ignored, which in this case is the right thing, and the public feels abused, disrespected, undervalued and duped, which also seems like the logical outcome of the consultation.
What Are We Trying to Do?
I really mean this question. What are we trying to do when we do public engagement?
Why are all these people in this room? What are we trying to accomplish? Before we gather people for public consultation, we need to be clear and honest about what we are trying to do. Then, if consultation is the right solution, we can design a process to fill that need.
Are we trying to get ideas?
Our culture loves Ideas! We have Idea Jams! Idea City! TED Talks!
 Bob Wingfield, a long time Burlington resident differing with former ward 4 Councillor Jack Dennison. Lack of ideas is almost never the problem, as I have argued elsewhere. The problems we face are usually a lack of social cohesion or a lack of money—and a lack of money often also indicates a lack of social cohesion; not enough people care about the project to tolerate a tax increase to pay for it.
Even if we did need more ideas, consultation doesn’t work to generate them. I have a degree in Industrial Design, so I actually took classes in generating ideas. As a working designer I had to constantly generate new ideas. I can tell you, there is not much of a worse way to generate ideas than to put a bunch of strangers with competing interests who are untrained in brainstorming techniques into a room for three hours.
Are we trying to build social license?
Superficial exercises like dot-voting often fail to respect and take advantage of the expertise of either professionals or the public, and leave both feeling insulted. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
Maybe. One of the knee-jerk responses every planner is familiar with is “There was no consultation.” So, putting out a plate of stale cookies and setting up a sad dot-voting exercise neuters that response. Maybe there was nothing consultative about it, but the sign in the hall said “Public Consultation This Way,” so I guess there must have been a consultation.
Bringing many people with different goals together behind one project is quite a big task. Clearly a real program to build social license would take a lot more time and care than your average public meeting. Planners know how to hold value-based discussions, but I don’t know that I have ever seen them use that skill in the processes I have been involved in.
If you need to build social license, maybe you should throw street parties; have a barbecue.
Are we trying to acknowledge people?
I have come to think that engagement tries to acknowledge the public’s plaintive cry, “Don’t forget me.” I think people often don’t need to win; they just don’t want to be forgotten. But as I described above, the outcomes of our processes sure look like they were forgotten.
I wonder what it would be like if the design team went through the plan inch by inch, narrating the compromises, costs and failures, the choices they made, and the specific comments from participants. “Albert and Ruth, who live in Fairfield, are concerned that we expand the songbird habitat. We did that by specifying different landscaping from the typical pom-pom tree and grass lawn. The west side is a native plant garden, intended to be wild and seldom entered by people.”
Are we trying to let off steam?
Issues sometimes get contentious, and letting people vent and feel heard seems like a valid goal—it is just that our public meetings often seem to do the opposite. They actually increase tension instead of releasing it. How could we vent most effectively? Could we play dodgeball? I mean literal dodgeball, where we try to smoke the people we disagree with as hard as we can with a fast-moving ball.
I understand that dodgeball does not resolve what we think of as city planning issues—but neither does the current model of public consultation. And the current model often increases tension between parties, whereas at least dodgeball would dissipate some of it. So there is a very real, serious case to be made that dodgeball would produce better outcomes from our consultations than any amount of sticky notes and dotmocracy ever will.
That is a sad commentary.
Misplaced Expertise
It is clear the public is dissatisfied with much public engagement, and do not feel they were actually listened to.
In the Facebook comments on Chuck’s article, Nancy Graham said “A lot of [consultation] is simply for show and to pretend you are being heard when the leaders have already decided the results they want.”
 An unhappy transit user letting Director of Transportation and former Mayor Rick Goldring know what he thinks. Why would leaders do what they want? Sure, maybe for self-interest and personal profit in some cases. But perhaps it’s generally because they think they know better and are trying to make the world a better place. This belief is not unfounded; presumably, they have years of education and on-the-job experience and privileged knowledge of the tricky terrain of this particular troubling issue.
Expertise is unfashionable right now, partly because our society is not very good at understanding who is expert at what, so we give too much power to some people and not enough power to others.
One of the most enduringly popular Strong Towns articles is Chuck’s Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, in which he lambasts his younger self and his former profession in rich detail. He describes how he would arrogantly ruin neighborhoods and destroy streets, thanks to his confidence that his asphalt was for the better. He was the expert.
He was an expert in engineering, who ruined the place. Citizens were promised something better, but what they got was something worse.
And most of our cities have many Chuck 1.0s. Many of us live in cities that were impaled with freeways through the core. We travel on streets that are unsafe by design. The sense of place does not show up in engineering standards manuals.
And yet it would be silly to break out the dotmocracy to specify how to repave a road. It doesn’t matter how you feel about finely crushed rock compacted in the base layer; it matters how it performs with vehicles on it.
Engineers should be expert in the strength of materials and construction methods. They are in no way expert in human behavior, nor are they experts in public opinion. They should not be making political decisions or urban design decisions.
The engineer’s role, which has grown to have so much influence in so many cities, should really be quite technical and fairly powerless. They should have the job of implementing decisions made by others, and within that, their expertise for materials and construction should be completely respected. They are the experts at that.
Sadly, we don’t see residents as experts. This is a critical and corrosive mistake. Of course, they certainly are not experts in how to reduce greenhouse gases, or pave roads, or pick bike routes. They should not be picking beams for a bridge.
But citizens of a city do know how the built environment makes them feel, and how they would like to feel.
They are experts in how increasing taxes will stress them out. They are experts in hidden secrets of their streets and alleys. They are experts in the amenities they want for themselves and their family. They are the only experts.
Their expertise should be respected.
 Beachway residents looking at early maps “We should only consult with residents when they are the ones that can best answer the question at hand. But in those moments, they should be treated as the experts they are.”
One of the most impactful examples of this I have seen comes from when Oregon had single-payer medicine and was trying to ensure tax dollars were spent most effectively. Experts rated every medical procedure and pharmaceutical by its cost and the quality of life it gave, then ranked them from best to worst. Right up at the top was treatment for pneumonia, and at the bottom was life support for babies born without a brain.
And then they added up the medical costs and the current tax revenue, and drew a line on the list where the tax dollars ran out.
Medical experts made the list of treatments. And then residents—experts in the impact of sickness on their family and community, and experts in their personal budget—got to decide what should be covered.
Essentially, the public got to choose how many people would die. Would you like to cover more procedures? Simple, just pay more taxes. Should we spend one million dollars per year keeping an 80 year-old alive? Nope.
And so the line is adjusted.
What Chuck describes in “Confessions of a Recovering Engineer” is that the choice of how many shall die on our roads has been delegated to engineers, who prioritize speed over life. That is wrong. Engineers are not qualified to make that choice. Only the citizens are experts in how many funerals they would like to attend each year, and how much tax they are able or want to pay—and it turns out they prioritize safety over speed.
So far I have talked about engineer experts and resident experts. But in his latest article, Chuck also talked a lot about design, referencing Steve Jobs. In fact, commenter Kevin Adam noted the similarities between Chuck’s article and corporate Design Thinking.
As I mentioned, I have a degree in design and worked as a product designer—so naturally I think design is incredibly important. Designers bring a different expertise to the equation that residents and engineers typically don’t have.
The old joke about the iPhone is that if you asked people what they wanted in a telephone, they would have said, “Longer cords.” That is the product of a worthless consultation.
So to avoid that, Chuck says, “get on with the hard work of iteratively building a successful city. That work is a simple, four-step process:”
Humbly observe where people in the community struggle.
Ask the question: What is the next smallest thing we can do right now to address that struggle?
Do that thing. Do it right now.
Repeat.
Let me reframe this list as a design process.
1. Humbly observe where people in the community struggle.
Almost every word here is pure gold so I am going to break it down.
Humbly…
Arrogant, rock-star designers may be fine for chairs or blenders, but as I have already said, only the residents are experts on living in their city. To get good outcomes, the designer must approach with humility, in service of the city and its people.
…observe…
Asking people what they want is often very ineffective. Most people aren’t trained to imagine seemingly impossible things, like a stylish supercomputer that fits in your pocket.
Good public opinion pollsters have to distill opinions out using oblique questions and the discernment that comes with years of experience. Angus McAllister, CEO of McAllister Opinion Research, said, “Most consultation and opinion research is like eating a Big Mac—empty, unhealthy and dissatisfying.
Humans are poor at noticing the drivers of our own behavior. We often behave for one reason, and then seek an explanation for why we acted that way. Typically we just pick something reasonable-sounding even if it is totally unrelated.
For example, if you ask someone why they come to a certain café, they may respond that it has lots of parking. So, if you remove the parking and they keep coming, you know parking is a post hoc rationalization. In fact, they like the way the light falls on the patio, or the service, or the smell reminds them of their grandparents’ kitchen.
Changing the parking is a design prototype. Nothing happens? Change it back and do something different. It is not just whole projects that need to be iterative; the stages within a project also benefit from iteration.
So good designers have to ask lots of careful questions, but observing behavior is critical. You can ask people what route they walk, but when you observe the paths worn through the grass, you have real data.
…where people in the community struggle.
We hold up Gods of Technology like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, but they are solving their own problems—rich tech bro problems. They don’t care about sidewalks or corner stores; they have driverless cars and drone delivery!
2. Ask the question: What is the next smallest thing we can do right now to address that struggle?
A Strong Towns principle is that it is less risky to make many small bets than one huge gamble. It is also often strategic, because it is much easier to get permission to do a small thing.
From a design perspective, it is easier to manufacture a spoon than it is to build a kitchen mixer with hundreds of parts—but both can whip up a cake.
3. Do that thing. Do it right now.
Actually, before you do the thing, I would like to add one more step.
2b. From a design perspective, it would sure be awesome if you would collect some data first, to test your Theory of Change.
Here are some Theories of Change:
If we paint a bike lane here, more people will ride bikes.
If we narrow this road, cars will drive slower.
If we widen this highway, we will eliminate congestion.
So, when we plan our interventions, we are using a Theory of Change—whether we have stated it or not—and it is important to collect data to test your Theory of Change.
Collecting data can be very tricky. For example, if you stripe a bike lane, you may see more bikes on that road. Are they new cyclists, or did the same old cyclists just change routes? If your goal is more cyclists, that matters.
So, collect data that will actually test your Theory of Change. As far as I am concerned, the number of hits on your website is generally useless data. We want to count real world change.
3. NOW you do the thing.
Do the thing, then observe. What actually happens in the real world? What do people do—not what do they say, what do they do? Do they drive slower, ride more, shop locally, add a basement suite, plant a tree—whatever. What do they do?
This lesson is one of my favorite from design school. What people do is the only measure that matters. My teacher said, “The users tell you what your design is.”
 Did the public have any input in the design of this bench. Did the people who approved the design every sit on the bench? Imagine you have designed an amazing bench—but nobody sits on it. The skateboarders, however, love it.
Well, then you have not designed a bench, you have designed a skate feature. It doesn’t matter what you think you are designing, it matters how people use it.
I hope you find this to be liberating. If you are struggling with a doorknob, or a toaster, or a sound system or your car’s windshield wipers, it is not your fault, it is just bad design. Bask in this insight while you scroll through Gracen Johnson’s sad collection of design failures, #PlacesIDontWantToSit.
So collect the data, and compare it to your Theory of Change. Did it work, or is your theory garbage? If it is garbage, it is a relief you only made a small bet.
4. Repeat.
“Good designers have to ask lots of careful questions, but observing behavior is critical. You can ask people what route they walk, but when you observe the paths worn through the grass, you have real data.”
Collect data and observe the results, because it is a drag to keep repeating the same mistake over and over again. Watch what works, and repeat that.
Now, in this list, consultation just disappears, and I think that is a bit hasty. I think the design experts should humbly observe where the community is struggling—but where do you start observing?
 Blowing off steam – certainly not communicating. This is when you ask the experts. Consultation can map hot spots. Consultation can prioritize which hot spots to address first. If you need to know how it feels to live in a city, where the friction points are, and what is most beloved and cherished, residents are the only experts. Design a consultation to harvest their expertise, and then act on what they give you.
Consultation is a very small part of the overall process, but can be useful and important.
We need to be more aware of different kinds of expertise, and who has it. Each expert—engineer, resident, or designer—only specializes in a narrow field, and we mustn’t ask them to do each other’s jobs.
Otherwise, we disrespect everybody involved, and we corrode goodwill and trust on all sides.
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By Pepper Parr
