WBR V.18728394, and the DC Task Force
Ward Coundary Review, version 18,728,394
I know - have you ever seen a crappier scan?!? Click on it and it wil take you to a better, BIGGER version that you can actually read.
So, after many sleepless nights it seems as though Windsor’s Ward Boundary Review consultant Dr. Williams may have finally come up with a plan that our dear councillors can vote in favour of. I know this plan that was handed out at the public information session Tuesday night may differ a bit from the one that council will vote on this coming Monday, but take a good look at the ten wards. Each new ward will be the home of each sitting councillor! How convenient! Don’t take this the wrong way - I am ecstatic that this may finally go through, though I was looking forward to at least one ward that had a battle between incumbents. Just for the thrill factor, though.
I don’t think I need to tell you that we wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for the hard work of Paul Synnott and the Citizfaction volunteers who have been out collecting signatures for four weeks now. The Municipal Act states that we would need 500 verified signatures, and from what Paul tells me - WE’VE GOT THEM! Look for the petition to be on the agenda Monday night. We’re treating it as the big stick in the corner that council cannot ignore. If, for some unforseen reason council decides to vote against the latest ten ward option, you can bet that this petition will take care of it for us. Seems all the bases are covered on this one!
CONGRATULATIONS to everyone who had a hand in this victory!
DC Task Force
I don’t know if anyone noticed this item on Mondays agenda as well, but it sure caught my eye. It seems that Windsors development charges (the $$$ that are added to the price of a development that is supposed to pay for municipal infrastructure) are about half of what they should be. In other words, the current development charges do not pay for their share of the infrastructure they utilize. Yes, the majority of these developments are out in the suburbs, and you know how we’ve been subsidizing the suburbs, don’t ya?
It appears that this item on the agenda is simply to carry over our current development charges until May 31, 2010, until the city can study the issue. I really have no problem with this motion (if they don’t pass it, they cannot collect any development charges). What I do have a problem with is the recommendation that council direct the formation of the Development Charges (DC) Task Force. The DC Task Force will consist of five members of council, as well as five land developers. The Fabulous Five foxes watching over the chicken coop? They are Cindy Prince (Triamico Development), Tony Rosati (Rosati Group), Sandy Stankov (Coco Group), Tom Kaschulk (Form and Build Supply) and Mike Dinchik (Greater Windsor Home Builders Association).
What saddens me is the fact that we could be losing a great opportunity to use development charges to encourage smart growth in the city. This is the message I tried to get across to our city councillors in this email;
Mayor Francis and councillors,
I am writing to you today in regards to a matter on your current council agenda for the August 10 council meeting.
The issue, Item 3 - Interim Development Charges Study and By-law, does not in and of itself pose any problems, as it is simply an extension of the current development charges until the new protocol is in place.
My organization’s issue with the motion is with the process in place to determine the new development charges when these interim charges run out on May 31, 2010.
Council has initiated a committee, the Development Charges Task Force, comprised of five members of council along with five members from Windsor’s development community, that has been charged with the task of studying our current system. Seeing that municipal development charges not only effect the development community, but the city as a whole, we believe the make-up of the DC Task Force needs to address the importance of this issue.
The council communication states “(a)nother issue that remains outstanding is consultation surrounding Development Charges Policies such as: infilling, zone rates for Transferred Lands (formerly Sandwich South Lands) and new policies for the Downtown core”, and it is our belief that populating a committee tasked with determining the future of our development charges solely with representatives of the status quo, that these progressive policies will remain “outstanding”.
There are many communities that are using development charges as a way of promoting infill development, thereby increasing urban density and sustainability. Using varying development charges to encourage commercial and retail development in areas already serviced by existing infrastructure can also serve to promote the redevelopment of Windsor’s existing grey and brownfield sites.
There are literally hundreds of examples of ways municipalities encourage good design through creative development charges, but here is a brief example:
- the City of Ottawa offers reduced development charges in order to encourage the redevelopment of brownfield sites: HERE
- in British Columbia, they use develpment cost charges to finance smart growth, by focusing on Land Use Opportunities, Transportation Opportunities, Building Opportunities and Infrastructure Opportunities: HERE
- the West Coast Environmental Law organization has published studies outlining the effectiveness of using Development Cost Charges to encourage smart planning. The authors concluded that Smart Growth practices, particularly designing new communities to be more compact and complete than traditional suburban subdivisions and encouraging infill development in established urban areas, can significantly reduce the costs of new community infrastructure per new housing unit: HERE
It is our hope that council will see fit to include a wider demographic when populating this DC Task Force, to ensure that the entire communities needs are taken into consideration, instead of simply the local housing developers.
Sincerely,
Chris Holt
Tags: City Council, Development Charges, Ward Boundary Review
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No surprise here. It’s long been known that our development charges were too low. Here’s the money quote of the whole report:
“Development Charges are established to fund growth related infrastructure. Therefore, a large gap between the maximum permissible calculated development rate and the approved rate is generally not recommended as the funding shortfall for these projects would then require funding from alternative sources of revenue, including the municipal levy, resulting in pressures on property taxes.”
Even though the new “interim” by-law is scheduled to expire on May 10th, 2010 I’m betting that further study and consultation will still be required until, oh, let’s see, somewhere around the 20th of November, 2010. That should be about the same time they discover that another large WUC rate increase is required due to whatever excuse they can come up with for not dealing with the issue over the last several years.
Just guessing, mind you.
BBS - Windsor’s Nostradamus! If ever we needed a soothsayer to tell us some GOOD news, now is the time!
I wish I had 12 researchers at my beck-and-call, so we could figure out exactly how much a lot of this sprawl-related nonsense is costing us. The Mayor makes a big deal out of a few large expendatures, but the real drain on our municipal infrastructure budgets and abilitiy to keep our heads above water are issues like this - that are normalities in an unsustainable city that happen behind the scenes where nobody takes notice. We need to shine the flashlight on them in order to get enough public backing to make the hard decisions necessary to fix them.
Chris, you forgot one important factor…
Mayoral Aspirations. I suspect that Ward 8 will be open for battle, and maybe (hopefully) another one or two…
I’m very excited about the Ward Boundary change, whats wild in my eyes is that out of the, literally hundreds (probably over a thousand hours) I’ve volunteered for political causes, or money donated. This, seemingly, obscure issue will be the most impact I’ve ever had on something I’ve volunteered my time for.
The no incumbent fight coincidence is very humorous (Geez, imagine that) but it wasn’t supposed to be about that. This will still increase voter participation and allow candidates more of a chance to focus on a half the previous giving electors better knowledge of them and their views.
THe 10 ward system could also allow the return of the greater good 9-1 or 8-2 vote that Joyce Zuk lamented was lost. (longer story)
As far as the DC charges, I’m very skeptical and cynical that this opportunity to promote residential intensification in the core will be taken advantage of. I believe that the councillors are beholden to the donations of the developers who have some sort of rasputin like hold on them.
The province set goals to fight suburban sprawl by forcing city’s to come up with plans but Windsor seems only to want to pay lip service to their core residential intensification plan.
I will be watching how council votes on this issue and hopefully it can become an election issue. Only then can we hope for change. Although I fear the next election will be solely fought on the issue whether you support or oppose CUPE or which candidate opposes CUPE more
If the city is serious about stopping their own sprawl could they not impose higher DC’s at theouter ring of the city and lower fees for intensification of core neighbourhoods?
Since the majority of us have been supporting sprawl without getting any benefits maybe it is time the sprawl starts supporting us?
What is this sprawl you talk about? East Riverside is an infill development. It is a development that is taking place between two developed areas, Riverside and Tecumseh. Southwood Lakes? Infill between Roseland and the Sandwich South industrial area.
If anyone here thinks that increasing DC to 100% will encourage intensification in existing areas, think again. Land is cheap which means housing is cheap. Some of the county municipalities have higher DCs than Windsor and it hasn’t stopped people from buying new homes in LaSalle, Tecumseh or Lakeshore.
The Town of Markham has some of the highest development charges in the Greater Toronto Area (they have both Town and Regional DCs) and it hasn’t stopped new development. The high price of land and high DCs has had the result of increasing the density of the new developments, but it hasn’t stopped so-called sprawl.
I’m not against new development paying 100% of hard and soft services. It’s just that DCs are not a very effective tool in encouraging intensification in existing areas.
Take a look at where the intended “growth” areas of this city are located, as described to the WBR consultant by administration and council. The annexed lands and areas around the 401 are intended to be populated by more raised ranch subdivisions. It is the sought-after sprawl we must do something about, not the housing tracts already in existence. Those must be looked at as established neighbourhoods requiring infill and land-use diversification to make them more livable and walkable.
The issue here isn’t merely raising DC’s across the board. That may bring a few more dollars in to help pay for the infrastructure necessary to support these new developments, but they will do nothing for guiding development in areas of the city deemed preferable. By offering lower DC’s in areas (brown/grey fields) already serviced by existing infrastructure, and leaving them the same for greenfield development, this will offer an incentive to developers to build infill. Sure, it’s not a silver bullet (there will never be a silver bullet), and chances are that developers won’t start building infill willy-nilly due to this initiative, but it will help build a stronger foundation for urban intensification in the future. Another brick in the wall, so to speak.
I guess your right, its not necessarily sprawl that’s the problem, its the hollowing out of the core.
Its the fact that Ward 1 grew to 50,000 residents while Ward 2 shrinks to 30,000. Its the fact Downtown’s population has been cut in half over the past few decades. What I’d like to see is a two tier development rate where we add incentives to returning to the core.
Its funny, I realize more and more that Government won’t fix downtown, Residents, businesses and people will like they are doing in Walkerville. I just want the Government to get the people downtown who will do the job.
Chris, the map you posted above is slightly different from the one published in Prof. Williams’ Supplementary Final Report. (http://www.citywindsor.ca/DisplayAttach.asp?AttachID=14479) ‘Fulvio’s Finger’, the area bounded by Tecumseh, Howard and the ETR/CPR tracks, is now back in the new Ward 3.
The switch leaves the new Ward 10 (the ‘Frankenward’ – Frankenstein, not Al Franken) with a 2006 Census population of just 16,267. This is only barely above the 25% variance (16,235) permitted by the Supreme Court!
Ahh, yes - so he did do it. At Tuesday evenings public session, Dr. Williams said that after discussions with each individual councilor (actually, only 5 took the time) that he was thinking of making some last-minute alterations to that section of the map. It looks as though (it’s hard to tell from the map in the report - and I thought MY scan was bad!) he didn’t make any other alterations to make up for the loss of population in Ward 10.
On a completely personal politics-as-blood-sport note (yes, my family thinks I’m a wee bit strange, watching elections like others watch the Super Bowl) that puts Postma in Valentinis’ ward! I wonder if this is why Postma has been less-than-accomodating about the Ward Boundary Review and is questioning her future in municipal politics. Seems that she sees the writing on the wall, perhaps?
Here is my final attempt to tweak the Consultant’s supplementary report:
http://tinyurl.com/wardrevisions
Page one is the Consultant’s map, and page two is my alternative. I left Wards 4 to 8 unchanged, but moved a few lines in the remaining wards to balance populations and avoid having a ward stretching from Matchette to Walker.
The 2006 Census population has Ward 9 with approx. 4,100 more people than Ward 1, but the 2009 MPAC figures show it with 800 fewer people. This discrepancy may have affected the Consultant’s decision to use Dougall, rather than Howard, south of E.C. Row.
Comments?
Oh yeah baby here we go, now finally after lots of foofoo talk, scaledown is getting down to brass knuckles! This is where it REALLY happens!! I agree, politics is great blood-sport.
Well said Chris, I hope “they” are “Listening”.
Any great city I’ve been to is made from ripples of it’s core. I can’t seem to see Windsor’s. Could someone throw in a stone please?
Thanks Aimee! It appears they are listening, as they unanimously voted in favour of the new/old 10 ward system, as well as seeing my point about having citizen representation on the DC Task Force and agreed to add two more representatives from the community! It was a good night!!!
I was pleasently surprised this morning to read that council actually decided to move on the WBR and go for the 10 ward option! That’s great news and congrats to everyone in ScaleDown and Citizfaction who helped push this through!
On a side note, any word if this means we may see a showdown between a certain scaledown writer and one of the only decent municiple politicians the city has - ie. Alan Halberstadt - that would be sort of unfortunate.