Council Heads-Up
A couple of interesting and important issues going before council this Monday. If you would like to get your voice heard on these, you’re going to have to register as a delegate by Friday at noon, or whip off an email to your councillor. They’re all more than worthy of your time.
PAC 1 - Brownfield Development Community Improvement Plan. Brownfields are an impediment to urban revitalization. Let’s get moving on cleaning these things up.
PAC 5 - Official Plan Review Report #25, Summary of Moving Forward Phsase and Moving Forward Synthesis Report. This includes the Residential Intensification Analysis, Commercial Land Use Policy Report and the Land Needs Analysis that was hard fought to pass by the lawyers and developers to be endorsed by PAC. Email your councillor and request that they follow Administrations and PACs endorsement, and vote in favour of adoption.
ITEM 1 - Development Charges Background Study and By-Law. This is the task force that ScaleDown lobbied to get some citizen representation on, with myself and Mark Boscariol accepting the invitation to join that arose due to those efforts. It is also probably the most important one to have your input in, as it is a very politically-charged topic. There’s lots of people benefitting from the status quo and they’re all politically connected. The by-law now includes provisions for: brownfield exemptions of development charges in an effort to spur interest in redevelopment, and Residential Infill exemptions featuring reduced development charges in an effort to encourage infill development.
One part of the DC Task Force’s recommendations that I have a real problem with is charging a Uniform development charge across the entire city. One of the options presented to us by the consulting firm was an Area-Specific charge, which would end up charging higher development charges in the annexed lands by the airport than the existing built-up portions of the city. City administration and Hemson Consulting agrees with me on this one, saying that going with the Uniform charge “may however encourage development in the transferred land areas sooner than would otherwise take place and may also generate a practise of less than optimal use of existing infrastructure.” I would highly urge our city councillors to go with the Area-Specific charges instead of the uniform recommendation of the DC Task Force.
ITEM 8 - Municipal Cultural Master Plan. The moment we’ve all been waiting for. The big question is: does it achieve its intended goal of “encourag(ing) the development and sustainability of the City’s cultural assets“? In it are 16 recommendations that “focus upon the most strategic and significant opportunities for the City to encourage growth and investment in the cultural sector“, yet when you look at where they want to spend the money, I think they would be hard-pressed at accomplishing those 16 broad goals. In fact, that is one of my criticisms of the document: it’s a little too broad and lacking in focus. Yet, that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t recommend city council taking this step and adopting the Cultural Master Plan.
It’s a BIG week at council on Monday, April 19th. Get your names on that delegation list, as these are some big-ticket items council will be deliberating that will have long-reaching ramifications. Uncle Henry is making sure that I can’t attend by forcing me onto the afternoon shift at the funny factory, so I need as many people sharing their concerns with councillors on all these items. Good luck!
Post Feedback
yup, it’s a big night alright!
maybe you need to get a pass Chris…
Hey, Chris, and everyone else. What do you think? Should Chris and I do a joint presentation for our position on the Development charges task force or should Chris go it alone.
I say we take bets on how the results, am I, Mark, an asset to this particular presentation or not? Chris will assuredly answer politically correct but I think we need a readers poll.
No worries about constrictive criticism here. The goal is simply to see scaledown as effective as it can be
Bwah! Bosco all the way!
Besides, I’ve already asked. They’re not letting me have the night off
Damned earning-a-living!
Feel free to ask me any questions before casting a vote
i just read through the pack and there is a bunch of stuff missing?
Yeah - I just cherry picked through for SD-type stuff.
I’m surprised this group hasn’t jumped on some of the stuff in the Muncipal Cultural Master Plan. In particular, the consultants speak very highly of the need to develop downtown as a cultural hub including live-work spaces. They don’t appear to have had a mandate to address the Capitol Theatre or the Armouries but they mention them favourably as key to a cultural core in downtown Windsor.
Some recommendations:
Windsor’s New Possibility is ripe with opportunity. These include:
• The opportunity to develop a downtown cultural district, a strategy for cultureled
regeneration that more 120 North American downtowns have embraced.
• The opportunity to capitalize on Windsor’s cultural resources as tourism assets,
targeting 3.66 million annual visits to Windsor and Essex County.
• The opportunity to redevelop the Downtown Tilston Armouries as a major
cultural venue and a Windsor landmark to greet U.S. visitors as they emerge from
the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.
• The opportunity to incorporate cultural amenities into the Canal Project
Proposal and the Central Riverfront Implementation Plan (CRIP), two highprofile
civic projects where culture’s presence can animate, educate, and
showcase Windsor’s artists and civic heritage.
• The opportunity to develop a cultural industries strategy that would position
Windsor as an emerging centre for film, new media, publishing, sound recording,
and the production of other cultural goods and services.
• The opportunity to re-brand Windsor as a centre for cultural commerce, artistic
innovation, and creative excellence.
These opportunities are a partial list. Many others are outlined in this Municipal
Cultural Master Plan. From the establishment of a community museum to preserve
and honour Windsor’s past to the adaptive re-use of industrial buildings as artist
live/work spaces, from a fuller engagement with Windsor’s immigrant communities
to the use of public art to beautify and humanize the urban environment, culture
affords Windsor myriad opportunities.
Another reason that development charges are critical: they are one of the ways the city can pay for some of the dreams contained in this proposal.
In all honesty, now that the first major election campaign event is in the can, I can devote some time to read this rather hefty report in it’s entirety. As usual though, Margaret, you are raising some tantalizing points and I intend on treading through this document to find more!
I have read elsewhere that they also recommend creating a new regional museum for Windsor. I’m not sure what is wrong with the old one (I sadly admit I haven’t made it there yet since moving to Windsor) - other than perhaps lack of advertising.
However, would the armories be a good location for a new museum? Kill two birds with one stone?
“Let’s face it. There’s no growth here,” he told council. Halberstadt said while many municipalities are planning for “smart growth,” Windsor should also be considering the potential for depopulation and plan for “smart decline.” - Alan Halberstadt
No shit. A Windsor politician actually understands that growth can go both ways and consideration should be given to a future of less.
And this - Coun. Fulvio Valentinis, who sits on the development charges task force, spoke in favour of the changes. “I’m a believer in decreasing urban sprawl,” he said. “We need to create incentives for people to build in the core.”
I am fumbling for the words…
This election may be more interesting than I thought.
Yeah, I think I saw Valentinis there once.
It’s funny that a councillor, when the decision is an easy one (and in line with what the development community has begrudgingly agreed to), can jump up and say “I’m a believer in decresing urban sprawl“! I just wish I would have witnessed this “belief” in his voting history.
I missed it last night! Can someone give me a synopsis? Did they go with the Uniform DevCharge or the Area Specific? The Windsor Star’s archiving is on the fritz.
From the Star article:
The recommendation, endorsed by the Greater Windsor Home Builders’ Association and the Windsor Construction Association, will see development charges for a single family home jump from the current one-time fee of $11,667 to $15,787 once council approves the bylaw.
After the initial hike, charges will increase each year according to changes in the city’s growth, with the charges reaching a maximum of $28,147 for a single family home.
“Development charges are a way to ensure that those new people — the ones that are buying the new houses and causing the growth — are paying for that growth,” explained city treasurer Onorio Colucci. “If you don’t do that, the alternative is that your existing taxpayers are going to have to pay for those new libraries, those new roads, those new sewers to accommodate those new people.”
While Windsor has historically charged a flat rate for development across the city, the new bylaw makes provisions to encourage developers to build in the city’s older neighbourhoods and on brownfields rather than on the outskirts or on undeveloped land.
http://www.windsorstar.com/Windsor+hikes+charge+houses/2928268/story.html