[GREN-Exec] Friday and Saturday Update - ROP and Hidden Valley

Sat Nov 6 23:14:15 EDT 2021

Hi GREN Executive,

It has been another crazy busy two days:

Friday Activities

- I had a disappointing meeting with Regional Director of Planning Rod Regier.  It was good to meet with him and get an hour of his time but very troubling to hear how defensive he was on the Regional Official plan and how low his ambitions are - for example arguing that we should keep our intensification level at 60% for the future “because we know that we can easily achieve it” rather than the 70% to 80% rate that I am advocating because it is actually what we need to be achieving for any level of sustainability in our climate crisis.  It’s clear we are going to have beat him down or have Council bypass him to make any progress on the ROP.

- I prepared a 40 slide presentation of an overview of Official Plans and our current ROP process for the Call to Action Local Planning Meeting.

- It was fantastic to see over 40 people from a wide variety of community and environmental groups around the region join the Call to Action Planning Meeting on Zoom for 2 hours on Friday night.  There were over 150 comments in the chat and great questions/engagement - most importantly a broad concensus that:
		- we need to loudly speak up for a more ambitious and visionary Regional Official Plan,
		- we need to aim for intensification rates of at least 70% to 80%,
		- we need better employment land targets that reflect intensification efforts,
		- we want less farmland loss,
		- there needs to be far more community engagement and consultation.

- I had over a dozen phone calls to groups and people to plan things for the days ahead.

- On a different topic - River Road and Hidden Valley - I had someone from within the Region of Waterloo reach out to me to ask if I have been paying attention to the Capital Budget for 2022 and beyond.  Apparently, Regional Staff is proposing deferring the River Road extension that would so negatively impact Hidden Valley.  Apparently the deferral is so far into the future likely more than 10 years in the budget that it may never be built.   

This is fantastic news for all of us who campaigned for years against this very expensive four lane road through environmentally sensitive lands and Jefferson salamander habitat.

For a cash-strapped region wondering how to save money in the pandemic the implications of saving $60 to 80 million on a road is significant and there is a good chance that this will be quietly approved in the budget deferral.

I can’t find out much information and there isn’t much online.  The best that I have been able to find on the budget is the Engage WR site:  https://www.engagewr.ca/budget2022.  There are only 2 public meetings remaining on the budget - November 24th and December 8th before everything is approved on December 15th.

Perhaps there is a way that this project can be stopped forever.  This would certainly be a solid first step.  I do think that some of the adjacent development may still be approved using existing roads though.

The big question is do we get out and speak up in favour of this budget deferral or will that just attract attention to it and raise the ire of developers who will be furious if it isn’t proceeding.  My gut instinct tells me that I think we should just stay quiet, not draw any attention to it and hopefully after December 15th it will be off the table for many years - something we had always been told would be impossible.  I have reached out to Gord Nichols and Neil Taylor to inform them of this news.

Saturday Activities

- I was able to have a meeting with Elizabeth Clark this morning who will be chairing the Regional Council meeting on Tuesday and talk over with her the concerns about the ROP (it was astonishing how little she knew about the ROP and the process around it), ensure she is aware of all the groups that will be delegating, and then discuss how we can get a direction or resolution from Council to Staff to come back with a fourth ROP scenario with more ambitious targets as well as consultation.  She gets it and was great to talk with.  She is going to call Chair Redman and Councillor Galloway to see what might be possible.

- Scott Wicken our programmer finally followed up with the GREN Website Update after my 11th e-mail to him to try to get him to respond in any way.  Unfortunately the draft of the website that he shared somehow is less developed and far worse than the draft he shared three months ago.  I have serious concerns about the website and if he will ever get it done.  I may just have to program it myself which at this point would be easier and faster than chasing him for such lackluster results.

- I started the first draft of my Tuesday Council Presentation that Councillors want me to circulate early so they know what I will be asking for.

- I also created the Action Sheet that I have attached below that will be sent by 50x30 to all the participants from last night’s webinar.   Feel free to use it or circulate it to anyone who may find it helpful.  It is based on a similar sheet that has been successful in Hamilton.

Lots to accomplish in the days ahead.  Let me know any questions or ideas.

Cheers,
Kevin.

--------------------------

-------------------------------------

Kevin Thomason

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

-----------------------------------------

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/executive_gren.ca/attachments/20211106/2d514912/attachment-0002.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Action Sheet - ROP Update Nov 9 2021 Meeting v3.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 143385 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/executive_gren.ca/attachments/20211106/2d514912/attachment-0001.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/executive_gren.ca/attachments/20211106/2d514912/attachment-0003.html>