Citizen diligence

Who owns your land? Who decides what shall be done on it? What should be built? How big or how small?

Many folks assume land-use planning meetings to be dull affairs—bureaucrats and politicians poring over maps and legal definitions. Certainly, they can be all this. But some are anything but. Rarely have I witnessed such raw emotion in Shire Hall chambers than during planning committees. There is a moment—not in every meeting, but frequently enough— when the applicant— typically a small landowner—learns they don’t actually own their property. At that moment, the earth shifts violently under their feet.

They bought the property. Put up the down payment. Paid the mortgage faithfully for years. But at this moment, inside this chamber, after a dozen or more folks have debated the merit and worth of their plan, like a kitten with a ball, they learned a crushing reality. For up until that moment, they believed they owned their property. And that this gave them right to build and shape the land according to their dreams and ambitions.

But as it turns out, planning meetings are where a lot of dreams go to die.

Despite the brutally banal power of land planning authorities, we tend to have a poor understanding of planning regulations and how they reach into our lives—until that is, it is us whose ambitions are being eviscerated by a panel of strangers.

For this reason, the rules and regulations governing the land you own are codified in official plans, zoning bylaws and provincial policy statements. Chances are that the first time many of us scan any of these documents is when we consider erecting a fence or storage shed. Few can imagine the dream-devastating power contained in these pages.

Because these regulations are so arcane and voluminous, most tend not to consider them much. But some do.

Some folks just don’t like their neighbour. Planning rules provide a handy catalogue of ways to make trouble. Each year the municipality and province add to the array of cudgels we might use against our neighbour— or someone we don’t care for.

Others find their way to the planning rules because they don’t want to see change. They believe that when they bought their property, they purchased a static horizon. They want the surrounding lands, as far as the eye can see, crystallized forever. These folks are adept at digging out and straining planning rules to effect their goal.

NIMBYs also appreciate restrictive planning rules.

The more worrisome aspect of the mounds of planning regulations governing your land is that it rewards the powerful and the entrenched. Large landowners have a lot a stake. They have plenty of incentive to employ the brightest and most diligent planning experts to navigate the system—and to shape it to their benefit. And they do.

They are well placed with the resources to ensure official plans, land evaluations, soil classifications, zoning and such are crafted to entrench their advantages and to expand their opportunities other individuals have no such power. No such influence.

This is how we show up with our ambitions at Shire Hall only to learn these assembled folks have different plans for our land. And there is nothing you can do about it.

How do we push back against this entrenched and arbitrary power? By showing up.

There are just a few more weeks before the County’s Official Plan rewrite is scheduled to be finalized and sent to the province. Readers are encouraged to download the draft plan. Choose a section—farmland, residential, commercial or other—that most interests you and spend some time with it. Consider the goals and ambitions of the language. Does it ring true with your understanding of this community and where it is going over the next 20 years? Or does it seem a relic of a bygone era? Ask yourself: Who is being served by this language?

If enough folks do this—to examine and report on a specific portion of the OP—there is still time to make an impact on this document. This message will horrify planning department folks working hard— understandably—to seal this document and have it completed. After all, it has been nearly a decade-long rewriting process. But the implications of these rules are too important, too far-reaching to cave to expediency.

Further, we need our elected officials to be more engaged in this process and directing changes to the OP that reflect this community’s future rather than perpetuating the power of those who have been beneficiaries of “the way things have always been done”. For they are the guardians. It is their job to protect the individual from the powerful. They must become more actively engaged in ensuring it is a good plan rather than getting it over the finish line.

There are few jurisdictions in this province that have endured as much profound change over the past 20 years as has Prince Edward County. The forces churning structural, demographic and socioeconomic transformation are continuing to roil through our community. It is producing troubling conversations about who can live here, the impact of our tourism economy and stark inequality. It is deepening divisions in this community. Yet, we have had scant public conversation about the Official Plan and its role in addressing some of these issues.

We can be part of that conversation—or leave it to the powerful entrenched interests. It’s up to you.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca