I wish to register my concern about the inadequate time given to citizens to respond to the staff report on the proposed Wal-Mart expansion.
The mail-out notification of the Council Meeting is dated June 16th, 2008. It advises that the Staff report would be available on June 27th and that written comments should be submitted no later than 4:00 pm on July 2nd to meet the agenda distribution deadline. Since June 27th was a Friday and Tuesday, July 1st is a statutory holiday, this effectively gives citizens two working days to submit a written response to a 50-page staff report and 17 pages of attached documents. In reality, many people have taken Monday, June 30th as a holiday, meaning that they left city on Friday, June 27th and will be away until Wednesday, July 2nd, the day of the deadline.
The statutory Public Meeting on the expansion was held on June 5, 2007. Full-time, paid, professional City Staff have had more than a year to prepare their report in response to citizen concerns. Now citizen lay people who volunteer their time to comment on planning matters over and above existing daily commitments have been given exactly 5 days to submit their written comments. Given that the staff report has been a year in the making, I fail to understand why it was not made available to the community further in advance. This time frame makes a mockery of both planning and democratic process.
I question whether lawyers, consultants or planners who regularly work on these matters would agree to this time frame in terms of their ability to maintain the professional integrity of their submissions. Certainly Council would never dream of imposing such work deadlines on City Staff. Similar consideration needs to be given to citizen participants who have to wade through technical documents without the benefit of professional expertise.
I recognize that notification has already been sent out and that Council has a backlog of applications, however, this situation is simply unacceptable.
I would like to bring to your attention the following excerpts from the Canadian Institute of Planners Statement of Values.
Statement of Values. #7. To foster public participation. Canadian Institute of Planners members believe in meaningful public participation by all individuals and groups and seek to articulate the needs of those whose interests have not been represented.Code of Practice
1.0 The Planner’s Responsibility to the Public Interest
Members have a primary responsibility to define and serve the interests of the public. This requires the use of theories and techniques of planning that inform and structure debate, facilitate communication and foster understanding. Accordingly, a CIP member shall:
1.1 practice in a manner that respects the diversity, needs, values and aspirations of the public and encourages discussion on these matters;
1.4 identify and promote opportunities for meaningful participation in the planning process to all interested parties.A time frame which leaves citizens two working days to furnish a written response to a 50-page planning document, prepared over 12 months, does not foster understanding, does not encourage discussion and does not constitute an opportunity for meaningful participation in the planning process. The Canadian Institute of Planners recognizes that the work of their members “has cumulative and long-term implications”. Moreover, the details to be discussed at Council take on added importance since the spectre of the OMB continues to hang over the deliberations.
While I recognize the wheels are already in motion on this matter, I strongly feel that it would not be ethical to proceed to debate and decision-making under these circumstances. While rescheduling this matter to another meeting agenda would be difficult, I do not believe it would be impossible. Since the Monday, July 7th Planning Meeting is not held under the Planning Act, all delegates will need to register and could be easily informed of any changes to the schedule.
Regardless of how you might anticipate eventually voting on this planning matter, I ask that you would collectively consider a solution which would allow for truly meaningful response from and participation by Guelph citizens. SW
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Re: 0 Woodlawn Road West: Proposed Zoning Amendment to permit commercial buildings (ZC 0701)
I am unable to appear before council to address this issue on July 7, 2008, as I will be involved with business matters. The following statement summarizes my position on the issue.
HISTORY
At a council meeting on May 26, 2003, Ros Houser, a legal representative of 6&7 Developments, stated on record that their application planned for the construction of only one store, a 135,000 sq. ft. Wal-Mart. This statement was intended to counter arguments by the opposition that a zoning change would result in the development of a commercial node including many more stores. At that meeting, Councillor Laidlaw asked Ms. Houser to identify one such “stand-alone” Wal-Mart store in North America and she could not.
At the following OMB hearings, opposition arguments citing greater development at that site were dismissed on the grounds that the application proposed only one 135,000 sq. ft. Wal-Mart store.
Opposition arguments presented at the time can be summarized as follows:
a) planning that respects and upholds city budgets, city resources, and city council’s mandate to procure services to Guelph citizens will allocate commercial development adjacent to existing and developing population. Building services at a distance from the population base increases driving, gasoline use, carbon emissions, road and utilities construction and maintenance. Such an inefficient scheme wastes time and tax dollars. The proposed 6&7 development in the North is nowhere near the existing population centres in the East, West, and South.
b) Following the same logic, commercial areas in the East, West, and South should be the first, along with the Downtown core, to be developed further in order to meet the existing needs of Guelph citizens in these areas.
c) Greater development at the 6&7 site will waste finances and resources (as stated in point a) and deny neighbourhood services to the existing population (as stated in point b). Such a plan would be a double loss.
In order to achieve their goal, however, 6&7 Developments repeated that greater development was not in their plans and that the clear and obvious planning requirements stated above would not be violated.
Madame Mayor and City Councillors, I propose that 6&7 Developments had no intention of keeping their word as stated by Ms. Houser on May 26, 2003, and have not acted in good faith.
During the Multi-faith legal challenge against the by-law change–before the original Wal-Mart store was built–representatives of that group had the opportunity to see the plans for a greater development. The recent application is simply the realization of these originally covert plans.
Guelph City Council is not responsible to 6&7 Developments, it is responsible to the citizens of Guelph. 6&7 won their application for one store. I believe that for now, that is what they deserve to work with. If further development is requested, the original opposition arguments must be applied.
ADDITIONAL ARGUMENTS
The two most serious problems facing societies and communities are available energy supplies and climate change. Global trade and long-distance transportation increase fossil fuel use, intensify climate change and cause costly economic, social, agricultural, and environmental damage.
The massive problems caused by distance travel and trade cannot only be solved at the national level. These massive problems must be solved by sensible planning and policy at the local municipal level where citizens turn the wheel of the problem by driving too far for items that are shipped too far. We need to produce, work, and shop close to where we live. Such a policy saves money, time, and resources.
We need to turn these ideas into reality, and the first place to start is to focus on the proposed zoning amendment ZC 0701 at 0 Woodlawn Road West.
The proposed development includes everything that is wrong for this community–and the planet:
a) it is at a considerable distance from Guelph’s major population centres
b) being at a distance, it requires citizens to drive, burn fossil fuels and intensify climate change
c) being at a distance, it forces citizens to squander their finances on ever-more-expensive fuel
d) being at a distance, it draws citizens away from commercial services in their own neighbourhoods, undermining the viability of these more cost-of-living-efficient and energy-efficient local amenities
e) being at a distance, it requires the city to finance the building and maintenance of unnecessary utilities and infrastructure
f) this commercial development provides and promotes products in the energy-consumptive, economy-eroding global trade chainDistance is the problem and this proposed development is the epitome of distance–both globally and locally.
As the cost of oil–and everything else associated with it–increases, nations and communities will have to move away from expensive global economies and towards more cost efficient local and regional economies. Communities that support and encourage a neighbourhood-centred lifestyle with local work, production, and retail will be more likely to weather the changes. This is the essence of good, future-oriented planning. The time for city-periphery, car-centred, oil-based, and global-dependant retail is past.
THE SOLUTION
1) Decline the proposed zoning amendment ZC 0701 at 0 Woodlawn Road West.
2) Give priority to city core commercial development, and the expansion, where suitable, to commercial development closer to existing suburban neighbourhoods in the south, west, and east.
3) Create and implement a broad-based plan to develop local culture, production, agriculture, and lifestyle.
ST