City of Ottawa Planning Department

[McC]

I think the article's fair; it's not a fabulous position that the City has put itself in, remembering that it is the appearance of a conflict of interest that must be avoided. I imagine there are more than a couple of un(der)employed planners in the region that the city could have brought in on short term contract with much less risk of failing the old "sniff test" (though I do hate that expression).

[McC]

then there's this:
http:///www.blogs.ottawacitizen.com/...venient-error/

[adam-machiavelli]

This is more common than you think . I know a planner who works for CIMA+ but works in a City office doing consulting work for the City.

[waterloowarrior]

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/...es-management/

This afternoon, the city’s GM of planning John Moser emailed councillors about some re-shuffling at the planning department. It’s still too early to say whom is out, but some folks seem to have new jobs. And it seems as if at least one person is gone from the department.

Here are some relevant bits:

The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of changes within the Planning and Growth Management Department. As part of continuous service improvement to One Stop Service, organizational changes have been made to the Development Review Process (DRP) Branches.

In order to better support key Term of Council priorities, organizational changes have been made to the Policy Development and Urban Design Branch.

To align internal facing services, a new Business Services Branch has been created.

There are no changes to the Building Code Services or Transportation Planning Branches.

These changes are effective immediately, and:

• Are tied directly to delivery of Term of Council priorities;
• Are consistent with ongoing work to develop the DRP ‘One Stop Service’ as a client focused delivery service ;
• Realign suburban, urban and rural DRP units by wards to reflect application activity, and respond to acknowledged workload imbalance;
• Balance engineering and planning skill set within DRP units; and
• Provide dedicated support to lead the Zoning Studies, the Neighbourhood Connections office and to Intensification priorities.

With this memorandum, I am announcing an updated organizational model with a new management structure. The following changes have been made:

The elimination of two Development Review Program Manager positions;

The reassignment of one Development Review Program Manager position to support Zoning Studies, the Neighbourhood Connections office and to lead the efforts of the Intensification Working Group;

The realignment of the Right of Way By-laws, Permits and Inspections unit from Development Review Suburban Services to Development Review, Rural Services;

The elimination of one Manager position;

The creation of;

The position of Chief, Development Review Services;
A Planner III position from existing complement to provide each development review unit with one senior Planner position; and
An additional Environmental Planner position to enhance the current complement.
And here’s the updated list of the new management team at planning:

John L. Moser
General Manager/ Directeur général
(613) 580 2424 Ext. 28869

Lise Marier
Executive Assistant/ Adjoint exécutif
(613) 580 2424 Ext. 18888

Building Code Services Branch/
Direction des services du Code du bátiment


Arlene Grégoire
Director and Chief Building Official/
Directeur and Chef des services des bátiments
(613) 580 2424 Ext. 41425

Business Services Branch/
Direction, Services des affaires

Peggy Schenk
(A)Manager/ gestionnaire par intérim
(613) 580 2424 Ext. 27915

Development Review, Rural Services Branch/ Direction de l’examen des projets d’aménagement – Services ruraux

Derrick Moodie
Manager/Gestionnaire
(613) 580 2424 Ext.25779

Development Review, Suburban Services Branch/Direction de l’examen des projets d’aménagement – Services suburbains

Fel Petti
Manager/Gestionnaire
(613) 580 2424 Ext. 22226

Development Review, Urban Services/
Direction de l’examen des projets d’aménagement – Services urbains

John Smit
Manager/Gestionnaire
(613) 580 2424 Ext. 13866

Policy Development and Urban Design Branch/ Direction de l’élaboration de politiques et de l’esthétique urbaine

Lee Ann Snedden
Manager/ Gestionnaire
(613) 580 2424 Ext. 25779

Transportation Planning Branch/
Direction de la plannification stratégique des transports

Vivi Chi
Manager/Gestionnaire
(613) 580 2424 Ext. 21877

[Proof Sheet]

The title speaks for itself

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Ci...270/story.html

Wait until Lowell Green and the like get a hold of this.

[McC]

well, after this week, I've got a few choice words for how the city "consults" that I'd be happy to share...

[waterloowarrior]

How about putting Planning Act public meetings in the evenings. Less convenient for professionals but way better for most citizens. Citizens shouldn't have to book time off work to fully participate in the planning process.

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

How about putting Planning Act public meetings in the evenings. Less convenient for professionals but way better for most citizens. Citizens shouldn't have to book time off work to fully participate in the planning process.

Quit with those radical ideas..next you're going to be suggesting that City Planners answer phone calls when they are at their desks, write planning reports that the average citizen can comprehend and actually not farm out the difficult tasks to consultants in terms of public participation and long term policy work.

In all seriousness, evening meetings would be better for most people as then both sides of an issue can retire to a nearby hostelry and ensure that the real planning and horse trading can occur (cue Reevely conspiracy theory blog article).

[waterloowarrior]

There does seem to be a lot of sensitivity in Ottawa... but I think a lot of planning problems could be solved over a couple of pints

I think unfortunately another perception is that the whole consultation process is a sham since the planning staff just rubber stamp everything. The reality is, what you see at a planning committee public meeting is only a small percentage of the actual proposals and ideas out there. The rest have been filtered out long before through the pre-consultation process or when the planner informed the applicant that they needed about $20,000 for their OPA to allow a cow statue on the roof... the real fountain of ideas can be found at the Committee of Adjustment aka Night Court

[Dr.Z]

The problem with public consultations in Ontario is that 4/5 times the complaints go back to first principles, like no development. People just don't understand that (oddly) municipal planning is governed by provincial statute and policy.

You gotta wonder what the authors of the Planning Act were thinking when they wrote the public meeting section. Why ask what the public thinks when you whack them over the head with a set of rules that can't be contravened?

[waterloowarrior]

Joanne Chianello: Consultation for consultation’s sake insults the public
BY JOANNE CHIANELLO, OTTAWA CITIZEN MARCH 27, 2013 8:04 PM

OTTAWA — The city must have a very scant understanding of irony.

How else, then, to explain the fact that barely 12 hours after our municipal leaders finished their first public consultation on public consultations, the planning committee held a 14-hour marathon meeting during which regular people spent hours waiting to have their say on an issue that were important to them?

The city is ostensibly worried about the perception that it only consults the public for show. That’s why, starting this week, the city has launched a four-part consultation on how it can, um, consult better. The first of these was Monday from 7 to 9 p.m.

At 9:30 Tuesday morning, the Champlain Room at City Hall was jammed. There were plenty of lawyers and consultants and developer types on hand, for sure, but there were also lots of regular folks who felt that an agenda item was so important they were willing to take time away from their jobs and otherwise busy lives to speak to the matter.

And it’s good to know residents are so impassioned about what’s going to happen in their neighbourhoods.

But how are we to believe the city is sincere in its stated desire to hear from us when a meeting lasts 14 hours? That’s right — planning committee ended at 11:30 p.m.



Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Jo...#ixzz2OnRCMdsx

[waterloowarrior]

Joanne Chianello column
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/ot...630/story.html

here's a link to the page where people have posted their ideas
http://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/public...ideas-campaign

[waterloowarrior]

Citizen article
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/busines...431/story.html

New rules to ensure city listens to public input on planning, development

Scathing report says residents feel ignored at open houses and public consultations

BY DAVID REEVELY, OTTAWA CITIZEN DECEMBER 2, 2013

OTTAWA — A damning report laying out the many ways Ottawans feel their city government ignores them has officials rushing to improve how they engage the public in important decisions.

“What it’s about is, how do you move from being that collection of small little villages and move to being a city and having a conversation and consultations as a city?” said Aaron Burry, the senior city manager in charge. “Smaller-tier municipalities had councils that were involved in every single little issue. ... We have to get better about having the conversations that are important to people without it being process-laden.”

It’s a common storyline, especially when it comes to things like rezonings: A builder proposes something. The city goes over the plans and organizes a public meeting or two to talk about them. Dozens, maybe hundreds of people show up to object. The city’s urban planners listen politely and then, a few weeks later, recommend accepting the plans pretty much unchanged, and city council’s planning committee agrees.

The story has variations but typically it takes a major outside power — think of the National Capital Commission demanding expensive changes to the planned light-rail line along the Ottawa River — to knock the city off its plans. And people have noticed, according to a report from Pace Public Affairs, which the city commissioned in an effort to do better.

Pace put together focus groups and asked for people’s thoughts online. A summary presented to city council’s finance committee is scathing enough but it still only scratches the surface. The full report, which wasn’t supposed to be released publicly, is even more critical:

“For the most part, participants indicated that they do not believe they currently had the ability to influence the outcomes of a City of Ottawa-led public engagement activity, resulting in growing cynicism and a lack of trust in the municipal process,” it says. “There was also a strong perception that the City was not a very effective communicator when it comes to public engagement, whether this meant the promotion of an engagement activity, or explaining its objectives, how the input will be used, and the parameters of the discussion.”

It’s often not clear what the city hopes to get out of a consultation, whether there’ll be more opportunities to speak up as a plan moves along, or why particular bits of advice aren’t acted on, the report says.

“Many expressed a high level of dissatisfaction with past engagement activities because they had the impression that the City had pre-determined the outcomes and that public input, although solicited, was disregarded,” the report says.

“I think in some instances, and certainly some of the feedback we’ve gotten, is there’s not necessarily an understanding of, at what point in the journey are we when we get to this consultation?” said Burry. Sometimes it’s as simple as labelling something a “consultation” when it’s really an information session to explain something that’s already been decided, maybe after four previous rounds of discussions.

Burry said some of the best moments in the discussions about consultations came when people from the city’s planning department took part. They heard how offended people are when their concerns about what a new building will do to their neighbourhood are dismissed with one line at the end of an official report. They promised to do better.

Signs alerting people to rezoning proposals need to be written in plainer language, Burry said. “People sometimes bring me a sign that’s gone up on the neighbour’s lawn and say, ‘What does this mean?’ I say, ‘I’ve been at the city 15 years and, well, I think I know but I’m not sure. I think your neighbour wants to put a deck on the side of his house.’ But you need several degrees to figure that out.”

City officials don’t even have a decent list of all the rooms they can book in libraries and community centres and other city buildings in different parts of town, there’s no roster of city employees who have experience leading public discussions, and there’s no training program for teaching newbies how to get better at it. These things are supposed to be fixed by the end of next summer.

Then comes the tougher stuff, such as organizing consultations in which all the relevant information (including the constraints the city’s operating under, such as legal or budget limits) is explained clearly and in which public comments are taken seriously.

“Staff shall ensure that public engagement is meaningful, by clearly explaining what impact the public’s feedback will have on the decisions being considered as part of the engagement process. Staff shall provide residents with information on how their feedback will be used, at the end of the public engagement process,” the city promises.

The finance committee is to vote on the new strategy Tuesday.

[email protected]

ottawacitizen.com/greaterottawa

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

staff reports
http://app05.ottawa.ca/sirepub/agdoc...&itemid=302405

and here's the full report
http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2013/...tions-process/

[waterloowarrior]

Here is her column with an excerpt regarding the planning dept
http://www.dianeholmes.ca/pgm-the-so...rd-experience/

Planning and Growth Management Department

That leaves the City. The Planning and Growth Management department has several branches but the important branches here are the Policy Development and Urban Design Branch and the Development Review Services Branch.

The Policy Development and Urban Design Branch

The Policy Development and Urban Design Branch is responsible for creating such things as the Community Development Plans and the City Official Plans. Many residents spend a good deal of their volunteer time working with City Planners on these documents. Residents expect these plans to guide future development in their neighbourhoods. During the creation of the Centretown Community Design Plan, which took approximately four years to complete, the Centretown Community Association’s comments were ignored until in the final days the group teamed up with the developers and then lo and behold they were listened to.

Development Review Services Branch

The Development Review Services Branch is responsible for processing development applications. It has become increasingly apparent that this branch no longer represents the citizens, or neighbourhoods in the Ward. Rather, this branch represents the interests of the development industry. Applications are pushed through. Input from the public is generally disregarded because this branch considers residents’ comments to be NIMBY comments.

Perhaps this is not surprising given that two-thirds of the Planning and Growth Management Department’s funding comes from development fees. The Branch provides support to any application with little-to-no recognition or consideration of the neighbourhood wants or needs. This is happening throughout the Ward where applications are submitted before the developer and the community have had a chance to sit down and discuss the proposal. At present the process is confrontational and combative, almost always resulting in the City approving the application. Too many City trees in the right of way in front of your building? No problem, we’ll remove them. You want to add 10 extra stories on your building? Fine by us. You don’t want to provide visitor parking? Use on street public parking instead! You want to build your underground parking structure abutting the public sidewalk so that there is no space for street trees? Sounds great! Whether it is a 40 storey condo building or 10 unit conversion, for the Development Review Services branch it is developers first, residents last. Many of these decision are made in the confidential ‘pre-consultation’ meeting between the planners and the developers before the application is sent out for public consultation, making the community cynical about the effectiveness of their comments in a process that appears to be predetermined.

The Development Review Services Branch needs to change. We need a branch that will not only listen to the community, but consult with the public as soon as an application is received. Neighbourhoods agree with the goals of intensification, however development and intensification has to meet neighbourhood standards. The Official Plan states that “Ottawa’s communities be built on the basics: good housing, ample green-space, a sense of history and culture…It also proposes to create more liveable communities by focusing more on community design and by engaging in collaborative community building.” To date, there is a lack of City investment to create good housing, ample green-space, and a sense of history and culture.

We need a department that will respect the needs of the Community. Community consultation needs to happen from the beginning of the project and follow through the entire process. Community development also needs to include amenities such as, to name a few, Complete Streets for safer pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, parks and green space, affordable housing, and investments in the Main library branch. It is time that the Development Review Services branch stop considering development companies to be their clients and start considering the public to be their clients.

Here's Reevely's take with a follow-up inteview

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2014/...medium=twitter

Update: Talked to Holmes about it. She said she’d like a system where developers are required to consult community associations before filing applications — essentially to add another pre-consultation stage. This would avoid all kinds of disputes and arguments, she said, that are caused by the planning department’s purporting to speak for residents when the planners actually have no idea what the residents want. People are in favour of intensification, Holmes said, but nobody likes anything presented to them as a fait accompli.

and regarding Section 37

Developers pay into parkland funds and sometimes pay for additional density under Section 37 of the Planning Act, but the amounts are often pittances and with S. 37 in particular, the details are pretty much always worked out between builders and the city’s planners and only presented to everyone else once it’s effectively too late to do anything about them. “Then it’s a matter of rearguard action by myself and the community to try to fight for what the community wants to see.”

[Urbanarchit]

We need a department that will respect the needs of the Community. Community consultation needs to happen from the beginning of the project and follow through the entire process. Community development also needs to include amenities such as, to name a few, Complete Streets for safer pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, parks and green space, affordable housing, and investments in the Main library branch. It is time that the Development Review Services branch stop considering development companies to be their clients and start considering the public to be their client

The use of "needs" is very politically-charged, and one I don't always agree with.

Communities need affordable housing for people who aren't well-off, good public transit, good cycling infrastructure, safe and pleasant spaces to walk, green spaces and gathering spaces. We need more housing, more places for work, more places for recreation, including shopping and restaurants, etc. Schools are necessary, hospital or health facilities, etc.

But one thing that is not a "need" is reduced height limits for shorter buildings, among other things. Many of the comments and concerns the community makes are often times not the most informed, but rather are fear-mongering by trying to think of multiple reasons to oppose something, regardless of whether it's true. This may be due to increased traffic (in a package about the Scott Street CDP, someone said people living in condos are wealthier and more likely to drive). Others have said tall buildings will collapse during an earthquake, something that was mentioned at a meeting about 1040 Somerset.

Many of the things that I find community associations bring up are more wants, but not needs. And arguing that a building's height or style is ugly or out-of-context with the area, especially in the downtown, or this desire to protect culture in Centretown (you can't protect or preserve culture as it's constantly evolving) is silly.

I'm just wondering if instead she should be advocating that people listen more to the wisdom of urban planners, because I'm quite sure much of what Diane Holmes has said and seems to believe is at odds with contemporary urban theories.

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Here is her column with an excerpt regarding the planning dept
http://www.dianeholmes.ca/pgm-the-so...rd-experience/




Here's Reevely's take with a follow-up inteview

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2014/...medium=twitter



and regarding Section 37

A nasty bitter posting as far as I am concerned. If she is so concerned about planning matters, why doesn't she sit on planning committee.? Her record of appearing at planning committee to fight against an application in her ward is woeful as she has few friends on council..she just is not very good at compromise and building win/win situations with those that don't totally toe her line.

Her withering looks to city staff and the development community don't help in any way.

The thing about this is that planning staff, either individually or collectively can't respond to this. She is appealing to the grumblers in her community who think that the fix is always in on planning decisions. The only way staff can respond is to respond via social media to her posting and to do it anonymously.

If she thought she got no co-operation before from staff, she'll get none now.

[JeffB]

Update: Talked to Holmes about it. She said she’d like a system where developers are required to consult community associations before filing applications — essentially to add another pre-consultation stage. This would avoid all kinds of disputes and arguments, she said, that are caused by the planning department’s purporting to speak for residents when the planners actually have no idea what the residents want. People are in favour of intensification, Holmes said, but nobody likes anything presented to them as a fait accompli.

I'm not sure it would avoid many disputes or arguments. If anything, it just starts them earlier in the process and may even give some of the people making them more time to dig their heels in.

The Reevely posting included a part where she said the arguments from residents are dismissed as NIMBY arguments. What she needs to remember is that many of them are that. Yes, there are some arguments that are brought up that are valid arguments that should be addressed. (Although I tend to think that a fair percentage of even those valid ones that can be addressed aren't brought forward to actually be addressed. The hope is that the argument will bring the discussion to a halt)

[Fatty McButterpants]

So the NCC preaches that residency within a development area doesn't entitle those who are most affected to any kind of special influence and that all citizens from far and wide should have an equal say.

But this Holmes lady seems to believe that the people who reside within a development area deserve a louder voice than those from surrounding areas.

Is that about right?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by defishel

Many of the things that I find community associations bring up are more wants, but not needs.

And not even good wants.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Fatty McButterpants

So the NCC preaches that residency within a development area doesn't entitle those who are most affected to any kind of special influence and that all citizens from far and wide should have an equal say.

But this Holmes lady seems to believe that the people who reside within a development area deserve a louder voice than those from surrounding areas.

Is that about right?

"But"?