Mayor Jimmy Really Doesn’t Get It

The following twitter exchange exemplifies Mayor Jimmy's petty reaction to criticism.

I suppose I should be thankful I have not been blocked yet, like so many of the mayor's critics.

Jim Watson ‏@JimWatsonOttawa
Pleased to join @Eli_Ward5 and @AllanHubley_23 and Cyril Leeder at Tanger Outlet ground breaking in Kanata
pic.twitter.com/RXzKKT46gZ

Richard W. Woodley ‏@the5thColumnist
@JimWatsonOttawa @AllanHubley_23 @Eli_Ward5
paving farmland and clearcutting forests sure makes our mayor happy and proud #developersrule

Jim Watson ‏@JimWatsonOttawa
@the5thColumnist and where do you live? Oh yes, a former farmers field.

What can I take from this but the suggestion that somehow anyone who lives on what used to be farmland or wilderness has no right to oppose the inappropriate development of farmland or environmentally sensitive lands. That is a pretty neat trick to basically take away the rights of anyone who lives in a city, in this case the city of Ottawa, to oppose the development of farmland or environmental lands. After all, most cities, including Ottawa, started as rural agricultural areas and before that was wilderness.

But no, because we might live on what was once farmland or wilderness does not take away our rights to be concerned about and oppose inappropriate development.

Mayor Jimmy may want to label us as crazy environmentalists who should all live in cabins in the bush but we are not against cities and development but rather understand that boundaries need to be set, and rules need to be followed, to allow for appropriate development, and appropriate development is not defined as whatever developers want.

Does Mayor Jimmy really expect home buyers to determine what lands are developed by their purchasing choices made after the fact. Does he really think that would work. That people will not buy houses that are already built because they think they should not have been built there, knowing their decisions will not bring the farmland or wilderness back. Does he really think he can transfer the responsibility for proper decision making by the authorities who actually have power to the virtually powerless consumers of these mega corporations' housing developments.

It is the responsibility of the political authorities at the federal, provincial and municipal levels to set limits and establish priorities to protect agricultural land environmental lands. And as more land becomes developed and agricultural and environmental lands become scarcer it becomes more important to protect them. We need to strengthen, not weaken these protections. We need to be more vigilant, not less vigilant, in enforcing the rules.

Politicians, like Mayor Jimmy, need to take these responsibilities seriously and not dismiss criticism in a petty way simply because it is expressed by people who actually live in the City of Ottawa, the people they are supposed to represent.

Zoning: Developers vs the Environment and the Public Interest

I was out on my bike yesterday riding along Huntmar Road and the Carp River, including land on the flood plain that the city has approved for housing development. Along parts of my route you could not even tell where the river is as everything is flooded alongside it.

As I passed the Corel Centre I recalled the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) rezoning battle for the proposed NHL arena lands.

My wife and I were amongst the official objectors to the proposal to rezone thousands of acres of high quality farmland for commercial development, including the arena. The result was unusual in that we essentially won the battle with the well funded developers. The arena and 100 acres, was allowed to be developed but the remaining thousands of acres were protected and conditions were put on the development to protect the surrounding land from development, including limiting sewage and other services to the size necessary for the arena and requiring the developer to pay for the Highway 417 interchange because it would only be serve the arena project.

The only reason we won this unusual victory was because of timing. The battle was waged during the short period that Ontario actually had a progressive government (Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party government) that cared about protecting the environment and protecting farmland and our food supply. It was the dedicated officials from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food (OMAF) that carried the major weight of the battle, otherwise the various public interest groups would not have been able to compete with the financial resources of the developer.

Interestingly the quality of the farmland was not an issue at the hearings, although it was an issue in the developers PR campaign. Even as the developer was presenting to the OMB it’s consultants report, that agreed that the land was high quality agricultural land, the developer was waging a public relations campaign of lies to claiming the exact opposite of what they were saying to the OMB, a quasi-judicial board. They knew better that to try to lie to the OMB but lying to the public was no problem for them.

So why was I biking through all sorts of development adjacent to the arena. It is essentially because the rules favour the developers. A victory for the developers is always permanent. A victory for the environment and the public interest is always temporary.

Once developers get land zoned for development it can virtually never be taken away no matter what environmental or public interest arguments and evidence might be presented. To do so would take away their “property rights” and that has financial implications - it would be reducing the monetary value of their land.

However land that is zoned to protect it from development for environmental and public interests reasons has no such long term protection. The developers can keep trying again and again until the defenders of the environment and public interest can no longer afford to keep fighting. It appears that the environment and the public interest has no monetary value.

One of the most troubling cases involved land adjacent to the Trillium Woods in Kanata that was designated as environmentally protected and purchased by a developer (Minto). The City was forced to purchase the lands when the OMB basically ruled that because the land was owned by a developer the developer could do whatever it wanted with it.

This is the type of irrational thinking that leads to the argument that we have to destroy the environment or the economy will collapse. The fact that there would be no economy without the environment is irrelevant because there is no monetary value placed on the environment.

If we are going to have livable communities we have to place a value on the environment that we live in. Once land is designated as protected from development those environmental rights should have the same permanent status as developers rights to destroy the environment (and farmland) have.