Guidance

Official plans should be inspirational. Like a trusted and weathered road atlas, they should inspire our dreams, hopes, ambitions about where we are going and what we shall see when we get there. It ought to set out in charts and data the facts on the ground. It should orient us to the place we are headed. Ideally, OPs should cause feelings of anticipation, excitement even, about the journey that lies before us.

Sadly, OPs do no such thing. For most folks, the first time they may come across an OP is to oppose projects or development on land they do not own. For most practical purposes, the OP is wielded as a weapon to stop something from being built. In this way, official plans are viewed more as cudgels rather than wayfinding tools. As such, the OP tends to reward vested interests and the powerful—the province, the municipality and large landowners. These folks understand what is at stake and work hard to protect their interests when updating these documents. The result is a roadmap that will define the place for several decades—written by the governing elite and special interest groups to rein in the ambition, hopes and dreams of everyone else.

Let us back up and properly consider what official plans are and how they are used. OPs are documents that define and shape a community such as Prince Edward County. They are broad in scope, segmenting geography between land uses—agricultural, residential, commercial, industrial, and such. They define and protect environmentally sensitive areas, shorelands, woodlots and open spaces. They speak to residential settlement areas—housing form, infrastructure and economy. OPs, generally speaking, shape future development and direct growth in a community. That makes them powerful documents.

The County’s OP is nearly 30 years old. The province would prefer municipalities to review their OP every 10 years or so. But in Prince Edward County, the current review itself is almost a decade old. The end, however, may be in sight. The County’s OP may, at last, be nearing the finish line. It is a good moment to look at the draft—to see if we recognize the place portrayed in this atlas.

A lot of work has gone into this document. A years-long land evaluation and assessment review that looked at rural land to its suitability for agricultural uses was punctuated by controversy and disagreement. A series of issue papers were prepared in 2012 to inform the OP renewal process. They remain useful guideposts for policymakers and anyone interested in matters likely to form the landscape of this place in the decades ahead. There are rewards in this draft OP for the dogged and determined reader.

But precisely because it is a dry, policyfilled document, most of us won’t read it. That is until it is used against us, or we are offended by a proposed development project. Nevertheless, the OP is an important document with vast power over our land, the economy and the potential of this place.

Very few folks attended the various OP public meetings (though some may be forgiven for thinking it might ever come to fruition in their lifetime).

The result is that the OP is written and shaped by a small number of folks, driven by a narrow set of interests. Governments have their own objectives, often influenced by the whims of politics of the day. Large landowners are motivated to expand their opportunities and ensure that no new impediments are put in their way. Both groups have the resources, organizational strength and endurance to do this. It is a process that rewards the powerful and marginalizes the individual. It is the frailty of most central planning exercises—inevitably, the power funnels to a small and powerful few.

It is why I encourage readers to seek out the draft OP before it is cast into stone for a decade or more (a Google search of Prince Edward County Planning should present all the OP reading you will need for a lifetime).

I have some views. While the current draft has greatly improved the opportunities for ag-related and agri-tourism and on-farm diversified uses, over previous drafts, there remains an over-reliance on large farms sizes. The current draft prescribes a minimum of a 40-hectare farm parcel. This narrow vision of what a farm is may preclude agriculture innovation and market opportunities that could emerge from smaller farm sizes.

Other jurisdictions also put a much stronger emphasis on protecting and preserving their old barns than is currently envisioned in the County’s draft OP. We could follow their lead. Adaptive reuse policies in other Ontario communities give local government the tools they need to empower landowners to breathe new life and purpose into the magnificent rural built heritage that is tragically disappearing from the Ontario landscape.

I would also like to see direct policies supporting small and tiny home development throughout the County to provide accessible options in this suffocatingly expensive housing market. I would also prefer to enable some small scale rural residential development clusters around existing current settlements as recommended by a Ryerson University study a decade ago. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see Niles Corners thrive again as a small residential hub? Or Hubbs Creek? Bailey’s Corners?

The truth is that I have had my opportunity to add comments to the OP. Perhaps they had some effect. I don’t know. What I know for certain is that doing nothing ensures nothing will change. I know that failing to speak up enables the powerful to continue shaping our community as they see fit. Our land. Our future.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca