By James Gordon
Tempers flared at City Hall on Monday as Somerset Ward Coun. Elisabeth Arnold’s first public consultation regarding Ottawa’s draft official plan left Centretown residents feeling left out.
The most contentious issue was the fact that while many of the city’s pre-amalgamation area plans, which cover such issues as land use and transit, will be a part of new plan, Centretown’s won’t.
This came as a surprise to Centretown Citizens’ Community Association representative Robert Smythe.
“What I want to know is why this is the first we’re hearing the Centretown plan won’t be included,” Smythe asked. “It’s a little late to be telling us that what we’ve worked so hard to establish in the past won’t be carried over.”
“I was just as surprised as you were and I wasn’t very happy either,” Arnold replied.
“I’m pretty outraged it was changed at the last minute with no consultation,” he said following the consultation. “We were assured the old Centretown plan would go in verbatim.”
Smythe said the detail of the old plan gave residents certain assurances that could be forgotten in the sweeping new document, citing building development as one example.
“Developers had to follow certain rules in the old plan, such as not putting tall buildings in low-rise areas,” he said. “We want to make sure we still have legal weight to deal with things like that.”
While Arnold explained the session was essentially a briefing about the draft and a chance for people to ask questions, many of the approximately 35 people who attended used it to express their discontent.
Aside from a few positive comments, most of the consultation was wrapped up in a mishmash of interests not included in the new plan.
According to Richard Kilstrom of the city’s planning department, the exclusion of some of the smaller details from this particular document was no mistake.
“There was definitely a goal of trying to make the plan less bulky,” he said. “We wanted it to be an easier read.”
Kilstrom said there would be more consultations coming up aimed at specific areas of concern within larger issues like housing and transit.
The new official plan, first launched as part of the June 2001 Smart Growth Summit, will be a blueprint for Ottawa’s urban development over the next two decades, but Arnold stressed its contents are not untouchable
“This plan will be a living document,” she said. “We certainly can change it over 20 years.”
She said the best way for people to express their concerns is to put them in writing and submit them either to her or the city. Those concerns will then be turned over to a committee for public meetings in February to discuss potential amendments.