[All] Waterloo Regional Official Plan Council Meeting Outcome

[Neil Taylor]

Congratulations!

> ---------- Original Message ----------
>     From: Kevin Thomason <kevinthomason at mac.com>
>     Date: November 10, 2021 at 9:47 AM
> 
>     Hi GREN folks,
> 
>     It was absolutely fantastic to see so many articulate citizens and groups
> delivering such powerful presentations to Regional Council yesterday!  Thank
> you to everyone who delegated, e-mailed, and phoned Regional officials along
> with Council.  It’s clear that we had a considerable impact and I’m so glad
> that we were able to provide a strong community voice to balance the
> aggressive land speculator lobbying for development that Council was hearing.
> 
>     There were over 20 delegations, very little overlap, and a strong clear
> message sent to Council about our concerns with the ROP process - that it
> needs to be far more ambitious to address our pending climate crisis.
> 
>     It was great to see the motions introduced by Council and I think that we
> overachieved 120%+ on what we set out to do two weeks ago:
> 
>     - we raised awareness and had dozens of people & groups to delegate and
> write letters to Council expressing serious concerns about the ROP and
> process,
>     - we successfully stopped the decision on the Recommended Growth Scenario
> #2 planned for Council today and bought more time (though not sure how much
> more),
>     - we managed to get a Fourth and a Fifth Growth Scenario for more
> ambitious plans on the table exceeding what we thought might be possible to
> direct Staff come back with,
>     - we got broad agreement that the public engagement and consultation was
> totally insufficient and secured a commitment for far more public consultation
> and information moving forward.
> 
>     This is far beyond what anyone thought possible just days ago and is an
> impressive accomplishment.
> 
>     However:
> 
>     - we don’t really know how detailed or good new Scenarios will be and they
> could be easily designed to fail or simply confuse issues,
>     - we don’t even know when the next meeting or decision point is or any of
> the expectations,
>     - most of the public engagement and consultation planned seems to be so
> far into the future that it could be too late to make any significant or
> meaningful changes.
>      
>     And:
> 
>     - the Land Needs Analysis (LNA) motion that was introduced by Regional
> Councillor Mike Harris is quite concerning as the wording seems to imply that
> they can’t even come back with Scenario #4 and #5 until the LNA is done,
>     - the LNA doesn’t sound like it will be completed until February/March
> which is too far from now,
>     - the flawed provincial LNA methodoolgy will dramatically overdesignate
> farmland for development and we shouldn’t have the future of our community
> determined by land speculators,
>     - we aren’t going to succeed on climate change if we can’t get a more
> progressive provincial government and continue our innovative leadership here
> in Waterloo with more sustainable growth solutions. 
> 
>     As expected the land speculators are desperate and are going to do
> everything possible to get the development they want.  We are going to have to
> figure out how to overcome the flawed LNA process mandated by Doug Ford.  If
> anyone has contacts within the university planning schools, planning
> associations, or access to other LNA experts I’d love to know their
> suggestions.
> 
>     We’ve stopped the train and gotten a recognition that better is needed.
>  The community is now aware of these issues and concern is growing.  We need
> to continue to articulate our visions for the community we want to see and
> ensure that it is citizens - not speculators deciding our future.
> 
>     We have the upcoming webinar on the ROP on Monday night (November 15th at
> 7:00pm) that GREN is hosting along with numerous local environmental groups.
>  Hopefully you can register and join us:
> 
> 
>    https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/community-webinar-on-growth-plan-for-waterloo-region-tickets-204795658327
> 
>     Well done on everything so far.  It was an impressive day and we have made
> good progress in getting a better, more sustainable Regional Official Plan.
>  Please share any way that you may be able to help and any thoughts or ideas!
> 
>     Cheers,
>     Kevin.  
>      
>      
> 
>     -------------------------------------
> 
>     Kevin Thomason
>     Vice-Chair, Grand River Environmental Network
> 
>     1115 Cedar Grove Road
>     Waterloo, Ontario Canada  N2J 3Z4
> 
>     Phone: (519) 888-0519
>     Mobile Phone/WhatsApp: (519) 240-1648
>     Twitter: @kthomason
>     E-mail: kevinthomason at mac.com <mailto:kevinthomason at mac.com>
> 
>     -----------------------------------------
> 
> 


 

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