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Let me begin by congratulating you on the work you are undertaking. It is exactly what is needed. It’s the right antidote.
We live in very strange and perhaps precarious times in Ontario and in North America. We are beset with problems of a very significant nature. I think of the challenges of climate change because of the burning of fossil fuels and the dire prediction that if we don’t reverse our direction in a decade or two, the cascade of events will be unstoppable, the ice flows and glaciers will melt and the level of the oceans will rise 50 or more meters. We squander so much energy that our leaders are about to commit us to extraordinary large sums for nuclear plants for which we will risk bankrupt or perhaps suffer fates which are much worse. Our present way of life is not sustainable.
We are faced with other problems as well. Large gulfs are developing in our society between the 80% of us who have more than enough and the 20% who do not have enough. We fear pandemics in our near future. We have lost faith in the political leaders as individuals who can help resolve common problems.
Thirty years ago Canada was a much rosier place. We worked for a just society. We had strong programs to deliver affordable housing. We funded our young to be community workers and organizers. There was the sense that if we worked harder the world could be a better place.
Not today. We face the future with fear, maybe intimidation, maybe distraction. It is hard to plan for the future and mostly it isn’t done – or rather it isn’t done with any great sense of hope. I think particularly of the current provincial government, which has been bold enough to release a document called Places to Grow, a Proposed Growth Plan. It is now policy, but here’s what the draft said – and while the statement has been removed from the final document, the effect remains the same: “Most municipalities have sufficient land designated to accommodate urban growth in the Greater Golden Horseshoe for the next 15 to 25 years, even without implementing compact urban form measures as proposed.” It’s not much a plan if its impacts don’t kick in until the next generation. We know what happens to plans like those – they get thrown away in ten or fifteen years.
That’s the way it is in Ontario. What I call fake planning. Municipalities are told to create an Official Plan, as though that were a plan to guide decisions in the future. It is nothing of the sort. It is little but a swinging gate, which keeps getting opened. On the one hand it has words, which have no meaning. I think of the Official Plan in place here which says the council will `give consideration’ to protecting and enhancing significant natural features. It means the council will think about it, but won’t necessarily do much about the matter. On the other hand, where the Plan actually does say that something is not permitted, the general approach most municipal councils in Ontario take is pretty straightforward – just amend the Plan. Toronto, the place I come from, has a pretty interesting approach to its Official Plan: on average, it amends the plan ten times every council meeting, which means the plan is amended about 100 times a year. I’m leading a campaign to have the name changed to Silly Plan, or Unofficial Plan – something more descriptive.
My experience is that local planners find they have been diverted away from the work they thought they were trained to do. They are now fully engaged in development approval. Indeed it is hard to find any municipal planner willing to say No to a development application, for fear of losing his or her position.
Just to complete this thought: those who feel aggrieved at a municipal decision take their concerns to the Ontario Municipal Board, and as we know that is a body which has been established to give land developers a second kick at the can. It is not a body that respects community organizations and what they try to do. My favourite recent OMB quote is from a decision issued this February about the application by a developer to build a traditional 700-lot subdivision in Nobleton. Here is the very first sentence in the OMB decision: “In 25 years of practicing law in the area of land development in both the public and private sectors and in serving on this Board for nine years, this member has never (underlined) seen a housing proposal as exciting, dynamic and offering so much that is in the public interest as this proposal by this developer.” So much for an unbiased review of a contentious development. I can tell you that the residents group that had tried to show the problems with the development didn’t read much further than that – what more could be said in the following nine pages? And the person who wrote this decision, Bob Boxma, received his reward a few weeks later when his appointment was renewed by the provincial government for another three years.
That’s the depressing part. The good part it that it is very heartening to see a group of people like you comes together to create a strong plan for the future. I commend you for this initiative. While I would never claim it would be easy for you to make your plan a reality, I believe it is possible. I want to talk about some of the hurdles you will have to overcome in the hope you can make working together easier.
1. The scope of your work
Greenlands in Wellington County are not like some remote national park on the fringe of Baffin Island. They are right in the heart of Southern Ontario which has been settled by Western Europeans for the last 250 years and by Aboriginal communities for thousands of years before that. They do not exist in isolation – they are part of a larger complex of human activities occurring in this area. Greenlands can’t be planned in isolation. If they are to be strengthened, they must become integrated with other activities. You must show how agriculture will be strengthened if greenlands are protected; how towns and settlements will be strengthened if that occurs, how greenlands themselves will be strengthen if we are clear about the other kinds of activities that are happening around us.
Thus you should see your scope as larger rather than smaller – not that you need to solve all the problems in the world, but that you not deny the connections, and that you seek out common ground with other uses, and show how the situations are win-win, not win-lose. If you keep bumping up against win-lose scenarios, then you should stand back and look for the larger threads.
2. Governments as allies
Many people think that governments and other public bodies are the first places one should go for support for this kind of planning but my experience is that that is not the case. Undoubtedly there are individuals sympathetic to your cause working for government, but the structures of government rarely will be so helpful. Many governments today seem worn out, and feel so besieged by the pressure of development applications that they cannot be of much help. In some other jurisdictions those interested in greenlands and a sustainable future are finding that the greatest support comes from financial institutions and those who want to make money from land development. Thus in British Columbia, sustainable developments – and there are many – are being proposed by the private sector, and private financing can also be secured. What the developers have found is that sustainability is one of the most powerful marketing tools. As usual, the public is out in front on this issue, and those who must operate in the market have understood this well – governments are still a few steps behind.
Thus I caution you about trying early on in the process to get government support – whether for money or for policy statements.
3. Finding common ground with other interests
If you can draw in other interests whether commercial, agricultural, or industrial, and find out what you have in common with them, I believe that you will be surprised at how you can forge arrangements, which satisfy your needs and theirs. One often thinks of these interests as the enemies of greenlands rather than as the allies. It’s important that we change our focus to take a new look at opportunities.
It is often not easy to sit down with people when one has seen them as the enemy. Finding the right structures for productive discussions is important. I have two suggestions: first, don’t isolate one particular interest but instead meet with all of them at the same time; and don’t expect one meeting to be very useful.
Here’s my suggestion as to how to proceed.
Pull together a group of people from all of the different interests – developers, commercial, agriculture, industrial, recreational, and social interests - to talk about your greenlands initiative. The group should be no more than 15 to 20 people. Carefully select individuals who are leaders in their own particular field and respected by their peers. Choose two people from each interest.
You want people with strong opinions but who are not burdened with the idea that they are always right. Don’t invite people who have all the answers and know they re right – they don’t work well in a group. Don’t ask groups to appoint someone since you don’t know whom they will appoint. You are trying to choose a group that will be successful, so the choices made are important.
Tell these people you want to get together to talk about what can be done about greenlands right here in your own community. Say you will convene just three meetings, no longer than two hours apiece, every two weeks. Hold the meetings at the same time and in the same place where there is a big table around which everyone can sit. If you have the skills, then facilitate the meeting yourself; otherwise, find someone who is good at this, and who can help discussion, making it clear that no final decisions will be made until the end of the third meeting.
My experience is that this kind of process is very imaginative and very productive. It will come up with some practical ideas for actions. It will lead to new coalitions between different interests, and new political energy from those who really want to get things done but have been blocked by the existing political process. It will avoid the political divide, which we fear.
Why three meetings? Because here is what invariably occurs. At the first meeting people will put forward their own partisan ideas and you’ll be depressed about the great gulfs of understanding and tolerance. But remember you’ve got everyone committed to attend three meetings. At the second meeting you’ll find everyone has toned down their opinion and have incorporated ideas they picked up from the first meeting – proving the merit of discussion. You’ll also find there’s much more camaraderie among people who have never talked to each other civilly before. At the third meeting you’ll find people making very sensible suggestions about practical things that everyone can agree on. People will be so pleased with themselves that they might want to hold a fourth and fifth meeting to be precise about how the new ideas can be implemented.
What ideas might emerge? How big the greenlands should be. How it fits with other uses. How greenlands can be managed and maybe even improved. Funding. You’ll discover all sorts of interesting and helpful ideas that will improve and augment what you brought to the table.
Jeffrey Sachs, the economist and author of the important book `An End to Poverty’ uses this kind of process with great success. He calls it `analytical deliberation.’
4. Setting time horizons
My experience is that once off the ground, initiatives have a shelf life of no more than two years before they come crashing down of their own weight. If they drag on longer people drift away and energy dissipates. This means it is important to set very clear and strong goals that will be accomplished within 18 months. If you have a longer program of four or five years it will be subverted by time. If you make strong initiatives now and begin to act on them in the coming 12 or 18 months you will have built something on which others can ride in future years, even if you become tired and move on to other projects.
5. Levels of detail
I urge you not to get trapped in struggling to get the exact words needed small part of the whole. Instead I would urge you to find the right direction and then seek allies to round the direction out with words that people can live with and improve as things progress. Too often initiatives get bogged down in worrying about words rather than the soaring on the breath of the movement.
6. Mechanisms
I would like to spend a minute on legal controls. Ontario has done very poorly at protecting agricultural land and green spaces using the Official Plan, as already noted. Trying to protect greenlands by Official Plan Statements is a bit like nailing jelly to the wall, although not as much fun.
The provincial government has enacted legislation to protect the Oakridge Moraine but the plan that came out of the legislation has been a very thin reed in the face of relentless development pressure. Community organizations have recently threatened legal action to stop York Region from building sewers across the moraine contrary to various statements in the Oakridge Moraine plan. York’s defense has been to demand a $50,000 security to cover costs if residents fail in the courts - we know residents will back off since they do not have $50.000 to fight their government.
The only successful mechanism we appear to have in Ontario is the Niagara Escarpment Commission. I suspect that to work out really good arrangements in Wellington you might need that kind of legislation. I can’t vouch for how easy it is to obtain these kinds of laws, but I do know that if you can get a large consensus among many different actors that the opportunities are enhanced.
Another opportunity is to see your plans as amendments to the Places To Grow plan. I think the province might welcome a local addendum to that plan.
As an aside, I do get worried when I see the word `growth’ thrown around so much. As in `smart growth.’ I have a friend who comments: we get the adjective, they get the noun. Same with `sustainable development.’
7. Engaging the public
This is the last point I want to make. Be sure to engage the public. The best way to do that is to have a weekend where they get to walk the Greenland. Engaging them directly, physically, where they can experience what you have is better than asking them to be part of a discussion. Get them out on your site often. They’ll have fun, you’ll have support.
These are my words of encouragement to you. You are engaged in something most worthwhile – we need more initiatives like this. You have the opportunity of tapping into a wide spectrum of interests and to build it into support. The tides are auspicious for this kind of day. Plan well, find ways to include all interests, and you’ll be moving this part of Ontario into the sustainable future for which we all long.
Thank you