WINDSOR: PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE - THANK YOU’S
I have some people to thank for today’s event.
To Jim Yanchula, Larry Silani and Veronika Mogyorody, a very big thanks for speaking and taking part in the discussion afterward.
To Dr. Strasser and the St. Clair Centre for the Arts staff, thank you for having us and providing all those pastries and coffee.
Lunch was provided by the DWBIA, on short notice. Thank you for your generosity.
To everyone that came out to attend and participate in the discussion a huge thank you.
Thank you to CBC 1550’s Barbara Peacock for helping promote the event. The City of Windsor’s 311 service (even though it wasn’t a city sponsored event a few people got the info from 311). The Windsor Star and A Channel for their coverage of today’s event and scaledown.ca and internationalmetropolis.com for promoting our event on their websites.
I was a little nervous heading into this venture. However, the quality of the dialogue and the enthusiasm and energy that pervaded has convinced me that this was a good idea. Today was a first step, the beginning of something that we can build on.
My head is still swimming from information overload. As I said in my opening remarks, my goals today were to learn and start a dialogue, I feel we accomplished those goals.
If you would like a copy of the survey or need to send me your completed survey do not hesitate to email me. james@scaledown.ca
-If I missed anyone, my deepest apologies, it was great to have so much support for today’s activities.
Post Feedback
James, kudo’s to you, Capri also contributed half of the pizza’s when I told them about the event.
Although I enjoyed both Jim and Larry, it was Veronika who really caught my attention.
I’m sure there will be many blog postings still to come from this event
James - I echo Mark’s sentiments. I feel that events such as these are what Scaledown will need to put more emphasis on to make our breakthrough a little speedier. The appetite for more was palpable as the attendees were aching to set up another meeting ASAP.
There is an interest and energy surrounding transportation and land use planning that I’ve never seen before. Is planning sexy yet? Not a chance, but it definitely has some people interested and we must rally the troups with this energy.
Thanks to James, St. Clair, and the fantastic speakers.Thanks also to the DWBIA and Capri for the pizza. It was a great day of learning!
What I learned yesterday, more than anything else, is that our planners have a grip on the problems associated with sprawl, sustainability, etc, and it seems to me that the their expertise is not being put into practice when the tough decisions need to be made by our elected officials.
It seems what is needed is a vocal group that can speak to good planning practices when important issues come to City Council, and it seemed that this was the wish of at least a few of the participants at the round table discussion following the presentations. It must be frustrating for the City Planners to see some of the zoning decisions that are made by Council, but with the exception for recommendations, what power do they have? They are employees of the City and answer to Council. How vocal can they be?
It was good to see Percy Hatfield there yesterday, but I would have preferred to allow him to simply be there and learn with the rest of us, rather than defend the actions of Council over issues that predate his involvement. I’m sure it was rewarding and valuable for him to take part, but maybe in the future it should be clear to everyone that Council are there as spectators only. Otherwise, how can we encourage more involvement by City Council (as mentioned by Percy when he introduced himself, the learning curve is there for him too). The experience should be an enjoyable one for everyone present.
Again, thanks to all and looking forward to the next meeting.
I’m sure if we called out one of the architects that attended and told them their buildings are ugly they would have defended themselves too. Councillor Hatfield did a pretty good job of summarizing the mess around the west side land. I think what is more important is that he is interested in our work and that he was there to learn and participate like everyone else.
The Windsor Star has a write up on yesterday’s event and it has a comment option. For us to go beyond the usual suspects we should take advantage of this.
A BIG WELL DONE TO JAMES, CHRIS, MARK for Saturday and a thank you to the DBWIA and Capri for lunch and St. Clair College Centre for the Arts for sponsoring this event. And event it was! Planning might not be sexy yet, but it will be, it has to be if we are going to have a better city and surrounding communities.
It seems that Larry Silani is more aware of the problems facing his community of Lasalle than Windsor is, congratulations to him for being straight forward about it and what he is trying to do in his community and ours, he doesn’t seem to have the attitude of our mayor and city council.
One question that I was hoping to ask him but didn’t get the chance to was to ask him his views on the rising price of gasoline and how he sees it affecting his community now and in the future! It doesn’t seem to be a question that our mayor and city council are addressing at all.
I agree with Jim Yanchula that he doesn’t want to go through the whole planning and visioning thing again, and that is what Saturday wasn’t about, it was about discussion, ideas that already exist and new ones to come. What is needed is a more vocal action and discourse to hold the city , the planners and developers to a higher degree of accountability for their decisions for what they want to develop and were! And persuade them to look at the community (ies) in which they want to develop as Veronika Mogyorody so nicely put on Saturday. It is just not the structures but how we interact with those structures and what we create and live about those structures that make a community a community of interacting people.
That is what Saturday was about, a start to a on going dialogue…a space..a Third Place in which discussion, the interchange of ideas, likes and dislikes and future action(s) can take place. Those there on Saturday are all very much aware of what is wrong, what isn’t being done and what could possibly can be done..to start, there was no lack of ideas, nor information, the discussion could have gone on for hours, everybody was eager to present, share and most important to listen to each other!
So kudos to Scaledown for boldly coming forth to create that Third Place for us and those that missed it or who are just now aware of it, come forward and join the discussion.
A great event with a wonderful plethora of people from all backgrounds.
A big thank you to Scaledown, the DWBIA, Capri Pizza and of course Mr. Yanchula, Mr. Salani and Ms. Mogyorody.
We need to get this citizens adcocay group going and giong now! The people of this city MUST be heard if we want to have an impact on future planning of this city. After all, it is us that is going to have to live with any decisions that will be made by city hall. To be honest the decisions made thus far have been less that decent on a good day. So let’s get together and make sure the community’s voice is heard!
One thing I was glad to see was at least one councillor there, kudo’s to Mr. Hatfield who attended even though his ward has NOTHING to do with downtown. Which brings to question why weren’t the other FOUR COUNCILLORS from WARD 2 and Ward 3 there? The downtown is in both wards yet we didn’t see any of them? Sure it was Easter but Saturday was a busy day everywhere else in the city so again I ask, where were they?
Is it indicative of why both Ward 2 and Ward 3 are seeing populations fall and infrastructure crumbling when the councillors can’t even come to an even that wants to see changes for the betterment of the city? Or is it that the councillors Jones, Postma, Halberstadt and Valentinis didn’t come up with the plan themselves so therefore no ego boost for them?
I expected as much from Jones and Postma but from Halberstadt and Valentinis? For shame on all four!