MPS - PUBLIC PRESENTATION --AUGUST 11TH

Draft Version of Public Presentation - August 11th Council Meeting


The new MPS has been written with three primary guiding principles: sprawl is bad; density is good; and protect the natural environment. “Protect the environment” in both a narrow and wide sense: so such things as steep slopes and watercourses are afforded more protection; and there are steps to protect the environment in a wider sense, global warming, by reducing reducing the use of cars.

In the abstract these principles are hard to argue against, but the question is how are they to be applied in rewriting the MPS and LUB for Wolfville.

These principles, and the resulting MPS, must be viewed in light of the MPS’s three large shortcomings: there was a lack of real public engagement; the plan did not address planning issues, other than issues of “sustainability”; and the plan seriously lacks, what I’ll call “facts on the ground”.

These shortcomings are in many ways inter-related.

I’ll deal with these in reverse order:

Facts on the ground:

The MPS talks repeatedly about decreasing the use of cars. Certainly a wortwhile goal.

But in the community profile section of the MPS there is no information about about shopping and commuting habits of town residents. Where people are employed. There is nothing about shopping in New Minas.

There is nothing about the decrease in enrolment at Acadia.

And what about the growing number of retirees in the town? It’s hard to discuss the implications of this trend for planning, when you don’t have specific information about it.

Much is said about the need to attract young families to Wolfville, but the plan provides no details about what might be needed to attract them, other than the need for affordable housing.

Repeatedly, at the PAC meeting held at the Irving Centre, the vision statement was criticized for being too general, for not reflecting the realities of Wolfville.

And as an example of the inter-relatedness of lack of facts on the ground and failure to engage the public, the more you engage the public, more likely general ideas will be backed up by specific facts and specific examples. Similarly, although the vision statement was roundly criticized with legitimate arguments, the vision statement was never changed, or even, to my knoweldge, discussed after the Irving Centre meeting.


As to planning principles: the only planning principle which seemed to matter was sustainability.

But what about the issue raised several times by Peter Drummond, “Do the town residents have a certain ideal population size in mind for the town? If so, shouldn’t the planning document reflect that.

A member of the PAC raised the issue at the July PAC meeting. He expressed the view that in making planning decisions his hands had been tied by the MPS. Why wasn’t that issue explored and attempts to deal with it made part of the new MPS.

Moving to public enegagement or public consultation:

This should have been more than just holding public meeting where the public was invited to make comments.

The response to this comment takes the form of “what about the community circles” At least one member of the STF had this to say about the CCs: They were “going out to the community to get information. The STF got no product; and the TF never in its deliberations acting in any way on what the CC had uncovered because it was all incomplete.”

But of course, the proof is in the pudding, if real public consultation had occurred, then the brouhaha over the issue of converting R1 to R1A would not have arisen; or there would have been at least less of an outcry over the Vision Statement being abstract and nothing to do with the realities of Wolfville.

How many times did I hear from Chairman Wrye after I and others had made comments: “thank you for your comment”; and that would be the end of it; or he would turn to planning staff, and say, would you like to respond, and the response would generally take the form of defending what was in the MPS, as though there was a contest as to who was right, rather than see the publics’ comments not as criticisms but a way to write a better MPS.

Here is another example of the how comments from the public were dealt with; and I apologize if again this one concerns one of my comments. At the last PAC meeting, sort of says it all. There was a discussion of constructing three storey buildings on Main Street, I mentioned perhaps as a criteria of sunlight should be added. I was told” thank you for your comment, and not discussed. Only later, after we had moved on to other issues, at the very end of the meeting, GM suggests making sunlight criteria, and unanamously approved.


But perhaps “thank you for your comment” is better than no response at all which is what I often received in response to my writen comments and suggestions.

Let me just say, to head off the response to this: yes, there were several times when my suggestions and others’. But certainly in my case, I hardly ever received a response to my written comments. And of course, that was true of my suggestion that comments by residents be bunched together, and that there be a reasoned written response.

I believe Keith Irving will discuss in more detail the failure of the PAC or the planning staff to response to his thoughtful letter with concrete ideas on how the public could and should have been engaged in the process. But to my knowledge he received no acknowlegement to his letter, until he brought it up at PAC meeting.

In the May 2, 06 minutes to the STF meeting, there is a reference to the fact that the planning staff was working on a new public participation program. But I am not aware of any such program being being used for the review of the new MPS, and perhaps more importantly, there is nothing in the new MPS which incorporates any new process by which future planning decisions are to be made.


DELETE? And a final instance of failure of public engagement: the final irony as it were: was when I was listening to the tape of the final STF meeting, and hearing that a lesson learned was more public information and engagement was needed. As if they had to wait till the end of the process, to figure that out, when Mr. Irving had written a detailed letter, with a plan, at the time the PAC began its review, asking for more public engagement; I had written no less than three articles saying more public participation was needed.

The new MPS plan is better than the present existing one. But the questions I have is whether the final product should have taken almost two years and 10 months to produce, at a cost of of over $160,000.00. When I looked at the summary of changes between the present MPS and the proposed new one could not help asking: this took almost three years and $160,000.00 to produce.

One last comment and suggestion:
According to the Calendar on the Town’s website there are meetings of the Council scheduled for Aug 18th and 28th to discuss and debate the MPS and LUB. It does not say, but it appears that tonight’s meeting will be the final one at which public comment will be accepted on the MPS and LUB.

Why not have another public meeting after the Council discusses these important documents at which the public may have a final input on the comments by the Councilors. This would seem especially appropriate after listen to the tape of the July 22nd STF meeting at which several members spoke of the need to have more public input in the process.

What is the rush.

Thank you.

David A. Daniels