There’s a problematic gap between what many people want to see in Victoria’s Official Community Plan, and what traditional urban economics dictates.

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As the public participation component of Victoria’s Official Community Plan process officially launched, the air felt heavy with irony. It was only March, but fans were already fighting mugginess in the glass-roofed Crystal Garden, serving as a constant reminder of the preceding century of haphazard government “planning” that built a downtown saltwater swimming pool which became ­a tropical botanical zoo and then an ill-fated geographic museum and finally a less-than-ideal conference centre dependent on the public purse.

Nevertheless, as I participated in the municipality’s “Shape Your Future Victoria” event, the energies of an increasingly concerned and engaged population were stirring inspiration.

Over at the “Local Food Systems” forum, Derek Masselink led conversations about his consulting firm’s thought-provoking 134-page report. (See all the available discussion papers here.) Participants explored establishing more farmers’ markets and local food processing infrastructures, supporting regional agricultural protection, composting organic wastes, and replacing ornamentals along public boulevards with fruit and nut trees. By the end, we were even considering models for reining in private property rights to create free community gardening spaces. The increasingly animated group made statements like, “First, I want to cheer for the comments of the previous speaker…” before offering their own ideas on preparing for climate change-­driven food shortages.

All of that rolled seamlessly into the “Climate Change and Energy Challenge” forum, where Alex Boston provided block-by-block data on automobile types, transportation habits, and emissions. Stunning statistics showed vehicle emissions going up six-fold in our suburban areas and building emissions nearly doubling compared to inner city homes, and spurred discussions of public transportation, walkable communities, centres for used goods exchanges, and mandating high performance buildings with onsite renewable energy systems.

Similar ideas and unity of purpose revolving around quality of life and the characters of neighbourhoods emerged at the “Urban Design” forum, and all together, it started to feel like some sort of long-overdue civic revolution was truly in the offing.

But something extremely different happened at “Trends and Prospects for the Local Economy”.

Jay Wollenberg of Vancouver’s Coriolis Consulting laid out a completely different kind of story: Victoria’s economic growth was slowing compared to regional competitors, and so we had to give renewed focus to bringing in more jobs, more offices, more businesses, more residences in higher densities, more industries, more stores, more tourism and more harbour development.

In the midst of it all, there was no mention of how such growth could potentially accommodate greater food sustainability, emissions reductions, or character neighbourhoods. There was no analysis of how such growth might affect quality of life, population health, or the local environment. Basically, everything Wollenberg was saying ran at ­cross purposes to everything being explored in the other forums.

As his presentation gave way to group discussion and this gap was pointed out, the conflict heightened. Wollenberg himself became testily dismissive, and an intense division emerged between participants subscribing to a model of endless economic growth, and those questioning it.

Of course, there’s ample literature on ways of re-designing cities to reduce costs rather than increase financial bases. The net economic effect is the same, but the impacts on our environment and quality of life can be dramatically different when we’re focusing on reducing resource use and energy costs, increasing local food production, or maintaining greenspace and gathering rainwater to ease pressures on stormdrain and water systems.

So I asked Wollenberg if he’d made any suggestions in his report with regards to such a “reduced cost model” for Victoria, wherein ideas for economic expansion might be tempered by some of the other issues under discussion for the OCP like food sustainability and emissions reductions. He replied, “No. We weren’t asked to look at that.”

This ­encapsulates a common, giant problem with OCPs.

Under BC’s Local Government Act, OCPs are done about once a decade, and cover planning for everything from building and farming to sewers, roads and schools. The legislative goals sound surprisingly progressive: avoid urban sprawl, minimize car use, reduce pollution, develop alternative energy sources, protect greenspace, and encourage economic development “that supports the unique character of communities”. (Here’s the City’s own overview of the legislation.)

In practice, OCPs are guidelines not rules, though; so our elected representatives can ignore, bend or re-write them, and the latest economic pressures often win the day. Usually in response to re-zoning or development permit requests, Victoria has amended its current OCP on average about every two months since 1995. Tellingly, that OCP already included many laudable commitments to affordable housing, food sustainability, harbour water quality improvement and more which fell by the wayside. City staff’s own 2009 review of Victoria’s OCP notes that there’s a “lack of clear, structured implementation directions” and no procedures for monitoring compliance. Another problem, the report states, is that there’s “no link” between the OCP’s grand urban, social and environmental visions and the city’s “capital and strategic business planning”.

Obviously, then, it was sadly predictable that a reality gap could appear between Wollenberg’s economic paper and every other report. Why did it still occur?

Senior planners Cameron Scott and Deb Day insist in a conference call the city wants an “integrated” economic-environmental-social vision, and point me to Victoria’s OCP “Project Charter” which explicitly seeks strategies unifying “Ecological Integrity”, “Social Wellbeing” and “Economic Vitality”. Yet Scott forwards the city’s final Request for Proposals for the economic analysis, and there’s no mention of ecological integrity or social wellbeing.

Equally troubling, the city is offering questionnaires to help citizens run “Community Circle” discussion groups and submit ideas by June 6—but by late April, that key economic report was still not even publicly available for consideration. (See shapeyourfuturevictoria.ca for info.) Meanwhile, the two-page topic preambles (as opposed to the comprehensive consultants’ reports) that most people will read are devoid of specific visions or cost-benefit analyses, so unless participants already have expertise, their suggestions will likely be feebly underdeveloped.

Are we simply being drawn into a legally-mandated charade of public participation, at the end of which our city’s status quo will prevail?

Victoria Councillor Pamela Madoff insists council does want a strong OCP with clear “implementation mechanisms” which integrate economic drivers with broader environmental and quality of life issues.

“We’ve been trying much harder to link the budget to the goals so that [the OCP] doesn’t just become a document that sits on the shelf and gathers dust,” she says.

And she is concerned about the apparent conflicts between different community visions. “When I hear about [urban] growth, growth, growth, I have to admit one of my first questions is, ‘Okay, how do we feed those people?’”

So how is the municipality going to ensure it hears some serious, practical suggestions for integrating our economic, environmental and social visions?

“To engineer a Community Circle that would bring those disparate views together, that would be really, really interesting to see,” suggests Madoff.

But then shouldn’t council consider keeping the public feedback period open for longer after the release of the economic report, and make efforts to help guarantee exactly such circles do occur with some less conservative economic experts on hand?

“You’re the first person who’s told me about this,” responds Madoff. “If there are more people out there that have identified this as a real issue, I’d love to hear from them. And I’ll bring it to the attention of council.” (Contact information for Pamela Madoff here. Read the follow-up article here.)

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Originally published in Focus, May 2010.