Allies

It’s not a fair fight. Residential builders will make many millions selling homes in Wellington. They will play rough. They are keenly motivated to maximize their return. They are experienced at working municipal rules in their favour. They will dedicate resources to find the shortest path to profitability and to widen margins. It is what they do. What they’ve always done.

On the other side, we have overworked, underpaid municipal officials protecting our interests. They don’t live in Wellington, and they have no skin in the game. This isn’t a critique. They are dedicated and hardworking folks doing their best. But the game is stacked against them. It always was.

We will never level the playing field, but there are a few things we can do to safeguard our interests, protect our community and make this contest more competitive.

The most important is resident vigilance. This community came out by the scores to update the secondary plan in 2010 and 2011. A hundred or more folks filled the basement cafeteria at CML Snider School over several nights to talk about what they valued in this village and what they wanted it to be. Themes emerged about tree-lined streets; interconnectedness (walking, biking, etc.) between new development and existing; retaining the primacy of the Main Street as the commercial core; and the necessity for a mix of housing formats—singles, townhomes, and apartments. It was vividly apparent then, as now, that the village needed home types that would accommodate seniors who were unable or unwilling to continue managing a three bedroom home with a yard, snow clearing, and such.

These values remain intact. Now, however, we will have to fight for them. Every day for the next decade or more. If we look away or leave it to others, the powerful will shape our community in ways that maximize their profit, but may be repugnant to residents. We cannot wait until the sick feeling overtakes us. We can’t wait until we don’t recognize our village any longer—we must fight now. We must hold up our Secondary Plan with pride and determination— as a document this village crafted— as the guiding blueprint.

When Shire Hall closed the door to new subdivision plans two years ago by way of an interim control bylaw, it said it wanted to revisit Wellington’s Secondary Plan. Shire Hall officials suggested this community hadn’t foreseen the prospect of new home development in 2010.

This was plain wrong. Demonstrably so. Worse, there has been little engagement with this community on any review of the plan. No one has come to Wellington to find out from residents what they want or don’t want. Many months have gone by. If there has been a review of the Secondary Plan, it has been done in the shadows—without the residents’ involvement.

Yes, Covid, but we have taken financial security from a developer and begun to build a water tower to support new homes. We have begun the work to dig up the Millennium Trail to install new trunk lines. We have bound ourselves to this developer. But we haven’t convened a meeting of this village to talk about what this community is becoming and how we might support Shire Hall in this unfair fight.

We should encourage competition.

Several parcels of land in and around the village have been subject to activity in recent weeks. Developers of these properties should be invited to the table. Others appear dormant. Or just waiting. Shire Hall might use a combination of carrots and sticks to stir these landowners into action—build or sell. I get this point is a bit controversial—but we need more options. We need more flexibility. We need competition.

Focus.

We should table the Heritage Conservation District Plan for a couple of years. I think it is a reasonable plan. The goals and ambitions are solid. But our focus for the next few years must be fixed north of the Millennium Trail. We must use all our resources to ensure commercial development doesn’t make Belleville Road a strip mall virus. This may mean retaining some flexibility on Main Street. In any event, it seems the wrong place to focus in the near term.

But mostly, Shire Hall must do a better job of talking to this community. It cannot embark on the next decade of change without genuine, earnest, and regular interaction with residents. We need meaningful engagement— every month. We should not learn of major new changes in the development landscape from billboard signs.

We are not the enemy. We are allies in this fight. We must work together.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca