Ward Boundary Review and New Sprawl Plans (UPDATED)
What? You’re bored? Well, let me fix that for you then…
CITY OF WINDSOR WARD BOUNDARY REVIEW
The time has come for the City of Windsor to investigate adjusting its ward boundaries to better reflect the redistribution of our population we’ve realized over the past thirty years. Yes, the last time this has been analyzed was 1978. I was ten, and chances are you probably weren’t even born yet.
There has been a significant move to the ‘burbs over the course of the last three decades, and the boundaries of our ward representation has yet to catch up with this trend. Wards one and five have noticed the greatest amount of land use homogeneity with the vast majority of their residential poulation living in raised ranch housing. Wards two and three have been continuously bleeding residents to these new subdivisions, while our other urban ward, ward four, has only grown due to the recently annexed land by the airport.
So yes, it’s time to look into our ward system again. From the city’s website…
Parameters
The review will be conducted within the following parameters:
- Respect the principle of “effective representation” as enunciated by the Supreme Court in its decision on the Carter case;
- Build from the experience gained through other municipal ward boundary reviews and the outcome of OMB hearings in those cases where a review has been appealed (Best Practices);
- Insofar as possible, develop a ward structure that will accommodate growth and population shifts for at least 10 years;
- Conduct all steps in the work program including research, public consultation, review of options with the public and provisions for a final report and recommendations to Council no later than July 2009.
Guiding Principles
Subject to the overriding principle of “effective representation” as set out in the Carter decision, the following criteria will be referred to for guidance in the conduct of the review:
- Communities of interest and neighbourhoods: It is desirable to avoid fragmenting traditional neighbourhoods or communities of interest within the City;
- Consideration of representation by population: To the extent possible, and bearing in mind the requirements for effective representation, wards should have reasonably equal population totals. Given the geography and varying population densities and characteristics in the City of Windsor, a degree of variation will be acceptable;
- Consideration of present and future population trends: Insofar as possible, the ward structure should accommodate growth for at least 10 years;
- Consideration of physical features as natural boundaries: Wards should have a coherent, contiguous shape and the boundaries should be straightforward and easy to remember.
I would urge you to jump into the way-back machine and relisten to our November 24, 2009 ScaleDown Radio Broadcast, which featured ex-ward one city councillor Joyce Zuk. Joyce, a political science graduate, who had some tremendous insights into what we should be focusing on when it comes to this boundary review. I agreed with Joyce on numerous aspects, but the one I will mention right now is the socio-economic makeup of the potential new wards as well as the land-use types contained within them.
How do you think a ward councillor would vote on a specific planning issue if their constituents weren’t impacted by that issue? What if there was a project that simply affected our suburban neighbours? How would a solely-urban ward councillor vote? Or vice-versa? What if ward one continued to house only suburbanites, without even housing a single BIA, and the topic-of-the-day was residential intensification/infill housing or access to public transportation? My bet would be that ward councillor would have no interest in supporting it, because it would only negatively affect his suburban voters. Effecting your electability is a pretty powerful incentive to support the status quo.
So, what if we decided to be sure that each and every ward within the city of Windsor had urban and suburban components to it, thereby ensuring that each and every new ward councillor had a vested interest in all sorts of planning issues? It would offer a more balanced approach to the long-term planning of our city as every councillor would have reason to becoming engaged in issues affecting every resident.
So how can you have your say in the Ward Boundary Review process? Ask, and ye shall receive…
Ward Boundary Review Public Meeting #1
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 (7:00pm to 9:00pm)
- Forest Glade Community Centre
3215 Forest Glade Drive
Windsor, Ontario
(519) 735-3536
(Meeting will take place in the Gym.)Ward Boundary Review Public Meeting #2
Thursday, April 16, 2009 (7:00pm to 9:00pm)
- South Windsor Recreation Complex
2555 Pulford Avenue
Windsor, Ontario
(519) 966-9441
(Meeting will take place in the Auditorium.)NEW Ward Boundary Review Public Meeting #3
Thursday, April 16, 2009 (4:00PM to 6:00PM)
- Windsor Water World
400 Wyandotte St E
Windsor, ON N9A 3H6
(519) 253-3806
The consultant will then use the information gathered at these two public consultation meetings to assist him in formulating a final report to City Council in May of this year. Be sure to get out there so that we can have some rational input into a change that will affect the governance and prosperity of our community for generations.
EAST PELTON SECONDARY PLAN
Try as I did, I could not find any online information about this plan, even though this is the third public information session surrounding the redevelopment plans for this large tract of land bounded by Baseline road to the north, 8th concession to the east, highway 401 to the south and 7th concession to the west. The Jones Consulting Group has been retained by the Azar Group of Companies and Mr. Derek Dunbar to prepare the East Pelton Secondary Plan in the next necessary step forllowing the approval of the Sandwich South Master Plan in the fall of 2006 and the adoption of Official Plan Ammendment no. 60 in May of 2007.
Tony Azar is quoted as hoping that “Having the province involved there ,(construction of the new regional jail facility) with deep pockets, may really spur development in the area“. Derek Dunbar, former owner of Murphy’s Irish Pub, owns 37 acres adjacent to Azar’s property. Another property owner, Chris Woodall who owns 90 acres closer to Baseline Road, has significant residential plans for his property including retirement condominiums.
That’s a lot of sprawl, folks. While in today’s nasty economic environment I really do not see residential subdivisions actually being built anywhere, it would be horrible to watch plans like these get closer to fruition. Which is why you really need to voice your opinions in this matter.
- Public Information Centre #3
Thursday, April 16, 2009
5:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Windsor Christian Fellowship Church
4490 7th Concession Road
Room 110
For further information, or to be added to the mailing list for this study, you can contact
Tiziano Zaghi, MCIP, RPP
Jones Consulting Group
300 Lakeshore Drive, Suite 100
Barrie, Ontario
L4N 0B4
Phone - 705.734.2538, X 298
Fax - 705.734.1056
email - tzaghi@jonesconsulting.com
It’s your city, folks - lay claim to it!
Tags: City Council, Official Plan, residential, ScaleDown Radio, sustainable development, Urban Design, urban sprawl
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The first four hours of last month’s marathon planning advisory committee meeting dealt with the East Pelton Secondary Plan. The media were present, waiting for the 2nd agenda item, the rezoning debate for the new jail. I was disappointed in seeing no coverage of the first, despite the large number of lawyers petitioning the committee to get a piece of the action for their clients.
Part of the proposed plan is to require developers to keep rain water on site, as the storm sewers and creeks are already overwhelmed.
There’s not enough confrontation and drama (yet) in building out the suburbs, Jim. Blood and sex - the only things that get the traditional media out! I just wish I could have found more info online. Did you get anything from the PAC meeting?
Sorry Chris, there weren’t any agenda papers left on the table when I went looking. The meeting did have a lot of confrontation and drama though, in both discussions. Lots of suspicion on the part of the smaller and older land owners. The major change was the approval of an expansion of the area. What was an L shaped section was filled in with the north east corner, completing the rectangle.
It wasn’t until I started reading and listening to the news coverage that I realized I should have recorded the meeting myself, or at least made notes. That’s what I get for taking a blogging vacation.
You still did a better job than I did, Jim!
Just an old new idea. Looking at the map above, why not go back to the old French Seigneurial system, have each ward start on the riverfront and run straight back or the best they can to the burbs, that way each ward could/might have a share of the old and the new.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigneurial_system_of_New_France
Right along my line of thinking, Mark. I was thinking that we could divide Windsor into a pie with it’s epicentre right on Ouellette. Each ward would have a portion of Downtown, along with other urban areas, and then out to the suburbs.
At the end of the day, however, to bolster the political strength of Windsor’s core/urban areas, we really should leave things alone. Right now we have 6 urban councillors and 4 suburban councillors. How the suburbs came into the political strength they have now is an example of how ineffective a certain number of those 6 urban councillors actually are. We just need a change in representation, without changing the boundaries.
That’s not going to happen, however. This ward boundary change means diminished power for the core as it moves out to the burb’s with the subsidized population. Nothing good can come of this, I’m afraid.
My question is why only two public meetings? And why none in the urban areas of the city?
This is the email I just sent to all our councillors. I would recommend that as many people as possible do the same.
You’re right Andrew, that is very odd! You would think that a subject so sensitive to us citizens would have a meeting in every ward, instead of out in the boonies. But then those that don’t have a car can’t get there without a two bus trip. Obviously they don’t want imput.
We’re just going to have to mess up their plans and arrange a car pool to one of the info sessions.
Like I said - it’s the suburbs that are poised to benefit from this ward boundary readjustment - so as many urbane Windsorites as humanly possible have got to make sure their voices are heard loud and clear!
Here’s mine. Every scaledown reader should send one. Make sure to include the Mayor’s Office too…
UPDATED OPEN HOUSE SCHEDULE
Who says that City Hall isn’t approachable? After Andrew and I sent our emails questioning the accessibility of only two open houses in the suburbs, I received this email today…
Whereas it’s not the best possible solution (one open house per ward) at least they were willing to work with the residents of the city’s core.
Now - everyone needs to attend this open house! Show them that Windsor’s core residents care and want to be involved!
citizen activism at its best!
Hey, that does cover off Wards 2 and 3 and a bus ride away from Ward 4
Kudo’s to Andrew and Chris
Now if we could just get them to consider that option of slicing the wards so everyone gets a piece of the core
Kudos to Chris and Andrew, so when do you guys form your election committees?
I would sooo vote for either of you!
“Now if we could just get them to consider that option of slicing the wards so everyone gets a piece of the core”
when do you guys form your election committees?
“, and “I would sooo vote for either of you!”
You should do at least one term as a city councilor before you run for mayor!
I will be at the public meeting at Windsor Water World tonight - thanks to all of you who pushed for that meeting I will be able to attend as soon as I finish work at 4 or so.. I hope to see some of you there as I’ll be arriving alone otherwise and my effectiveness in lobbying for something by myself is questionable at best. Any other ScaleDown people planning on attending tonight?
Don’t be so hard on yourself, Tim. You’re more effective than 99% of the population at lobbying already!
I’ll be there as well. If you see a guy in a floppy Gilligan’s Island style hat with the CBCNewsworld logo plastered on the front - that’s me. Be sure to introduce yourself, OK?
haha, I’ve met you before Chris - I flagged you down outside of the council Chambers that one night when you had gone to tell council about your plans to run for Ward 3.. er.. I mean speak out about the widening of Cabana.. =P
My middle name is Patrick so my e-mail comes off as Timothy Patrick even though my given name is Miron so I can understand the confusion but I am one and the same.. ^^
I’ll be there.
Hope to see you there!
You’re just trying to confuse the old man now, aren’t you Tim?
I’ll see everyone there.
And I disagree with Mark, I think you should go for the top job right away Chris ;).
You really shouldn’t be drinking this early in the morning, Edwin! It clouds your judgement