Listening

The Wellington Community Association has released the results of a fresh survey of residents this week. It asked residents about their hopes, aspirations, and worries for the village.

The survey found that respondents enjoy living in a community with an array of amenities and surrounded by natural beauty. (See story page 4). It revealed, too, a deep desire to work together toward positive change. Respondents worry, however, about the availability of health care, the dire lack of affordable housing, and its impact on the local economy. They fear that unfettered home development will destroy the character of their village and that the infrastructure costs to support this development will be ruinous. Residents want greater input in decisionmaking and better and more transparent controls on what happens in their village.

Wellington isn’t just a place to live—for many residents, it is who they are. What they want to be. Their identity is woven into the fabric of this place. It is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, more than a decade ago, Wellington residents worked tirelessly over weeks and months to create a Secondary Plan that would embody the values, traditions, and dreams of this place. These ideas and values endure to this day. More to the point, Wellington residents have demonstrated they are ready to roll up their sleeves to do the hard work of community building. But Shire Hall isn’t interested.

According to the WCA’s survey, residents fear losing their village to a soulless suburbia—to tract homes as far as the eye can see. To strip malls and fast food venues lining Belleville Street. When residents read that Shire Hall is readying the village for 8,600 people— or 14,000—they know this will devastate their community. When they read that it will cost more than $100 million to facilitate this horror show, they want to know who Shire Hall is listening to. They know it isn’t them.

Few understand why Shire Hall is forging ahead with massive transformational change against the wishes of a community that doesn’t want it, hasn’t been persuaded it is needed, and feels such radical intervention will forever change their community.

Residents in this village, and I daresay, every community in Prince Edward County, want to be part of the conversation that shapes the place in which they live. But it just isn’t happening. Residents, and I suggest even Council, are increasingly shut out of the conversation in Prince Edward County. We have become bystanders as our communities are reshaped, costs skyrocket, the debt burden grows, and the risk becomes unbearable.

In this bold new paradigm, residents are to be educated by the ruling class. Council members are to carry the message out to the masses. It is a one-way conversation. Neither Council nor residents, it seems, are qualified to participate in the transformation of Prince Edward County. Instead of an open and honest dialogue, we are invited to look at colourful placards arrayed around a meeting room. And when the community finally demands a proper conversation, it is accused of ignorance and intolerance.

How did we get here?

Your correspondent has now been in this perch for 20 years. It has been my privilege to document the workings of six councils, four County managers and four mayors. I have watched a collection of townships, villages and a town strain and struggle to gain a footing as a cohesive organization. Mostly, I have reported on a municipality muddling through to the best of its collective abilities.

The difference today is the sheer breathtaking scale of the transformation underway—and the risk we are being asked to bear to make it happen. Moreover, the risk is compounded by the speed with which transformation is being imposed upon this community. Literally, hundreds of millions of dollars are planned for waterworks, millions more on roads each year, and one hundred million more at McFarland home. Meanwhile, Shire Hall has persuaded the province to ratchet up the County’s debt limit to fund this transformation. It is all predicated on a population boom that has long been predicted but never materialized.

Shire Hall used to be curious about what residents thought. That seems so quaint now.

Of course, some change is required, and some is warranted by the facts on the ground. But Shire Hall must make the case. Each and every time. And when it fails this basic standard, it cannot proceed as though residents’ concerns never mattered. It must collaborate with this community to develop workable plans that carry a tolerable degree of risk. Council must insist it does so.

Shire Hall must learn to collaborate. It must slow down. Take a breath. Accept that muddling through isn’t such a bad outcome. Most of all, Shire Hall must learn to listen to residents who will live with the consequences of its actions.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca