By Peter Ferguson
From time to time individuals in the community wonder why the Lowertown Community Association (LCA) Planning Committee only plays what they see as a reactive role in the planning process, that is, responding to zoning and site-plan control applications submitted to the City by developers. The questions include: What is the vision for the future of Lowertown? What should Lowertown be like in twenty years? What must be preserved and what is expendable? Shouldn’t we be planning for additional green spaces? How do we better manage traffic flows into and within our neighbourhoods? As you can see these questions rapidly move from a planning-and-development mode to a broader set of issues that are outside the scope of the committee structure of the LCA. Nonetheless, these are very good questions that we have to debate within the LCA.
First, the current role of the planning committee isn’t quite as reactive as it might appear. It is true that ultimately we are responding to someone else’s proposal, but we are usually involved from the outset, sitting in on what are called pre-application consultations between the developer and City planning staff on what might be appropriate for the site in question.
These consultations can involve competing parties who are interested in acquiring a property and are looking for the City’s views on what might be appropriate. On the other hand, they could involve discussions between the property owners and City staff about technical issues and heritage requirements, supported by architectural and design documents. When a development proposal is complex there may well be more than one pre-application discussion. Thus the LCA is in this from the beginning and can contextualize the decisions that will follow when the formal application is underway.
In terms of developing a more visionary approach to planning the community, this is normally done through a community design plan (CDP) exercises. The participants are City planning staff, the development community and community associations. A recent example is the Uptown Rideau CDP – forming part of Lowertown and Sandy Hill – which commenced in March 2014 and concluded in December 2015 with the approval of the new plan by city council. These are lengthy exercises often undertaken when there is some degree of conformity in the economic, social and development potential. The benefits include updates to zoning requirements, building-height limitations, improvements in future traffic patterns and the requirement for privately owned public spaces as part of new developments. However, CDP exercises are costly in terms of the number of city staff who have to be involved and require the dedicated involvement of community volunteers for an extended period of time. So far, the LCA has been unsuccessful in convincing the City to undertake other CDP exercises in other parts of Lowertown.
However, what the LCA Planning Committee could do is to undertake a visioning exercise within the community. What do the residents of the community see as its future and how do we undertake an exercise that will generate useful and accurate information? We will discuss this idea at an upcoming meeting.