Future Of Community Building
Get Involved Early

NRU
April 25, 2018

Recent changes to the planning process in Ontario mean residents will have to get involved much earlier in the planning process, if they want to have a say in what happens in their neighbourhoods. 

Last week, Environmental Defence hosted an event to help residents and community groups understand the changes brought by the amended Growth Plan and the new Local Planning Appeal Tribunal. Panelists stressed the need to get involved early if residents want to influence planning decisions. 

“Residents need to get involved early in the development review and official plan review processes to have a say in shaping their communities. … Early dialogue with the community often leads to better outcomes for all parties,” Environmental Defence liveable communities senior program manager Susan Lloyd Swail told NRU. 

Ontario municipal affairs minister Bill Mauro told participants that the changes to Ontario’s land use planning appeals process are aimed at giving communities a stronger voice in land use planning and ensuring that people have access to faster, fairer and more affordable hearings. 

However, experts say that means getting involved much earlier in the planning process since appeals to LPAT will be limited to conformity with the municipal official plan and provincial policy. Residents will have to get involved in area-wide or municipal-wide planning, where policies are being decided. 

Senior planner Victor Doyle said it is really important for citizens and elected representatives to engage much more upfront than they did in the past. 

“A lot of citizens get involved when it’s the site-specific project down the street, they’re not used to getting engaged in area-wide or municipal-wide planning.” 

Doyle challenged participants to engage community members to get more involved in that areawide planning. 

Municipalities will have to do better at community consultation and get more and diverse voices engaged if they want to be successful. Involvement at the regional municipal comprehensive reviews will become much more important, which will be new for many community groups and residents. 

Smart Cities Research principal Ray Tomalty agrees. He told NRU that “residents must get involved in the up-stream processes— such as setting density and intensification targets—if they want to have any impact on downstream decisions—such as whether the settlement boundary is expanded and which areas of the municipality are going to be intensified. Key decisions could be taken two or even three years before something like a boundary extension is announced and it will be difficult if not impossible to reconsider the upstream decisions at that point. .. The upshot is we now live in a policy-driven planning environment where it’s pointless to argue that you don’t like the look of a proposed development—if it’s consistent with the official plan, it’s can’t be stopped.” 

However, people have other priorities and municipalities tend to hear repeatedly from the same people, missing input from more diverse voices, said Burlington Green executive director Amy Schnurr. 

“We have to come up with more engaging, creative ways to get together.” 

According to Tomalty that is exactly what York Region is doing. The region’s new approach to consultation uses a combination of in-person and on-line approaches that have been successful elsewhere in reaching and engaging a large segment of the municipal population. 

For its municipal comprehensive review the region is not going to simply advertise a public meeting and wait for people to show up at city hall, says Tomalty. This time planners are going to reach out to the community and draw people into the planning process through a broad range of initiatives. These include educational videos, photo contests, online surveys, interactive mapping workshops, webinars and online conferencing on growth management options, walking tours of proposed growth areas, and a one-stop online portal. 

“Residents in other municipalities in the GGH should be demanding a similar approach to consultations around their municipality’s Growth Plan conformity process,” says Tomalty. 

Panelists agreed that developers would be well served to consult with neighbours much earlier than most customarily do, and that it is important to prepare communities for change. 

The City of Toronto is making consultation with neighbours a formal part of the development application process, requiring developers to submit a consultation plan as part of their complete application submission requirements. 

“[That] is going to mean a greater effort on the part of the developers (and the city) to engage residents and to document that process in a much better way,” said Toronto planning stakeholder engagement lead Daniel Fusca. 

In greenfield development, where there is no existing community to consult, there is greater responsibility on the part of planners and NGOs to speak for people yet to come, said Greenberg Consultants principal Ken Greenberg. 

Lloyd Swail told NRU that Environmental Defence is developing a web-based public engagement toolkit to help residents understand when and how they can get involved in the municipal comprehensive review process. The toolkit is expected to be available on the organization’s website later this spring. 

Beyond the Backyard: Exploring the Future of Community Building was sponsored by the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation. Other presenters included Montgomery Sisam principal Robert Davies, Greenbelt Council chair David Crombie, Ministry of Municipal Affairs director Darren Cooney, George Brown Institute without Borders academic lead and urban designer Christopher Pandolfi and special projects coordinator Robert Giusti. Tomalty and Neptis Foundation executive director Marcy Burchfield moderated the panels. Other panelists included Urban Equation senior consultant Steve Dulmage and Sustainable Vaughan founder and architect Sony Rai.