Wiggle room

There are perfectly sound reasons to leave the rewriting of the County’s official plan to others. Chief among them is that it is not really the County’s plan at all— but rather a tight little box created by the province (the parent), within which the municipality (the child) is allowed to define a little wiggle room. More illusion than self-determination.

Official plan consultants listen, interpret, transcribe and suggest mild alterations to the document. But they do so ever-reminding municipal officials and residents of hard limits to the province’s flexibility and willingness to listen.

“We have to use the words the province tells us to,” explained Ron Palmer of The Planning Partnership, one of as many as six (and counting) consulting firms working on the rewrite project.

Besides, it is a bone-achingly dull process stretched over many years. Those who earn their living immersed in these documents describe it as a “game of English.” By which they mean that our elbow room inside the province’s tight box is measured in words such as “shall” and “will,” and phrases including “have regard for” and “shall be consistent with.”

These constrictions mean that it is an incremental business. A game of inches rather than yards. Changes are made on the margin, if at all. Those looking for big, transformative alterations to the way land is used in Prince Edward County risk having their blood sucked dry and emerging from this process a much-older desiccated bag of skin.

To recap: the province compels us to rewrite our official plan at regular intervals, it insists we not change too much and it has made the process so arcane, we are required to contract a corps of decoding specialists to rewrite it for us and tell us what we aren’t permitted to do. Then we pay the bill. Then we do it all over again.

So why should we play this game at all?

The answer is that it is the only game around. As tempting as Steve Campbell’s simmering separation movement may be, the practical matter is that Prince Edward County remains, for the foreseeable future, embedded in the fabric of Ontario and Canada.

Within these constructs, we are given little room to define priorities or pursue opportunities as they are viewed from here. We are familiar with the regard the province has shown the residents of Prince Edward County in relation to its hospital. For healthcare for this aging community generally. We have seen the province remove decision making altogether for renewable energy projects. We’ve witnessed the elimination of protections for endangered species. We stand at the precipice of the destruction of property values as a result of an industrial wind project.

So we push back. We decry the unfairness, but it is unclear anyone is listening. We bring our complaints to a legal forum, but we rely on those funded by the province to determine what is just and fair. In the end, all we really have is the little box provided to us.

So we create opportunity in the wiggle room. Revolutions have begun with less.

We change what we can. Incremental change is still change. To do nothing is to admit defeat.

So we do what we can.

The first step is to read the Official Plan draft. It is available on The Times’ website: wellingtontimes. ca. Then ask yourself some questions: Does it reflect the place you live? The place you want it to become? Does it describe and preserve the natural beauty and unique characteristics that define the County? The history? The creativity? The entrepreneurialism? The spirit of a shared prosperity? Of caring?

Consider some practical notions. The economy in Prince Edward County has changed dramatically since the last Official Plan rewrite. Has this document kept up with this change? Or does it perpetuate old ideas about what a farm is, and what it can be?

Are trees an important part of our natural heritage? Of our natural ecosystem? Must every fencerow be excavated to accommodate the economics of modern crop cultivation?

We are blessed in the County with a growing array of innovators using the land to create distinctive, valueadded products finding eager markets here and beyond. Does our Official Plan reflect this shift? Does it promote this opportunity?

Write down your thoughts. Send them to Shire Hall. Voice them at a public meeting. We are paying folks a lot of money to gather and assemble this input—let it be from more than those with a special interest or particular axe to grind. Let your ideas, your aspirations and your ambitions for your County wash over and through this process. It is one of those now-or-never moments.

It is easy to glaze over in a discussion of the official plan. It is harder to engage. Yet it is essential that we do.

Ignoring these questions appears as indifference to province. They see a community content to exist in its little box. Let’s push back on these advancing walls.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca