Mississauga Priorities: New Planning Commissioner

NRU
May 9, 2018
Dominik Matusik

As of last month, Mississauga has a new chief planner, and he is ready to tackle the city’s pressing issues, including affordable housing, the imminent lack of greenfield land that has necessitated a shift towards intensification, and changes to the provincial planning framework.

Following the retirement of long-time top planner Ed Sajecki earlier this year, Andrew Whittemore took over as planning and building commissioner on April 16. Last week, NRU spoke to him about his background, his priorities, and the future of planning in Mississauga.

“The first priority for me is to establish a strong vision for the city,” he says. “…The city really needs to rethink its vision, especially with all of the new legislative requirements: the Growth Plan, all of those things really are directing us and challenging us to think differently. That would be where I want to start…

“For me, I really want to focus on the creation of a destination waterfront. We are probably unique in the GTA in that we’re a big city and, up to now, the waterfront has been primarily industrial. So that provides an incredible opportunity to reshape it and open it up to all the residents.”

Whittemore says that his experience working in a municipality with a more traditionally urban fabric—he left the City of Halifax to join Mississauga in 2012—makes him well-positioned to continue transitioning Mississauga from suburban bedroom community to full-fledged city. He warns that the accompanying affordability crunch, is the biggest challenge facing the city.

“At a community level, I think the biggest challenge—which [makes us] a victim of our own success—is housing affordability. I believe as the chief planner that [to improve] quality of life and to make the city liveable, we really have to focus on housing affordability.”

In response, Mississauga undertook a housing strategy study last year, an unusual move for a lower-tier municipality. The strategy focuses on the middle class, where Whittemore says the need is greatest.

The new commissioner will steer Mississauga’s planning and building department into a new, post-OMB era. Whittemore says he has experience with a similar system from his time in Nova Scotia.

“Everybody is still trying to figure this out a little bit, and what it means,” he says. “In Nova Scotia, we did actually have a tribunal-type of OMB situation, so I am familiar with that, because I’ve worked in that context. What it will mean … is that the way we do business will need to change because [the new] tribunal has a different kind of approach than an OMB de novo hearing. So what you might see is the way we write our reports may be different. The way council makes decisions may be different. Because how you make a decision in one area may suddenly be held up as an example in a tribunal hearing. So you have to be sure to be consistent.”

He anticipates that educating the public on planning issues will become ever more important under the new regime.

“The biggest thing that we’ll have to put a lot of energy into is really bringing the community along,” he says. “The way this process is designed is it’s about giving the community a better voice. But a policy saying that and the way that translates on the ground are two different things. I think a big part of the commissioner’s role in the future will be to engage the residents and help them understand the planning process and prepare them so that they are able to participate in a manner that’s effective. So that will be the biggest piece, I think, of what we’ll have to do differently.”