The Precarity of Greenspaces in Governance Processes (September 8, 2023)

...The clash of unequal institutions in Ontario and Alberta

Vlog Overview

This FREE parks and urban planning vlog is intended to share my 30+ years of parks practitioner experience married with my recently completed (2019) Phd exploring park and urban planning decision-making processes using institutional theory. The opinions expressed are mine and mine alone. They are not intended to be the definitive answers or positions, but instead suggest and hopefully encourage reflection on your own practice. For more information about my vlog, and why you should subscribe, please read the vlog entitled “The Use Case for Parks Are Like Icebergs Vlog.,” March 5, 2023.

Todays Ice Sculpture:

The Precarity of Green Spaces in Governance Processes

Across the world there is a well documented historical trend toward more and more dense urban environments as rural populations and new immigrants move into cities. This includes a move towards redevelopment of existing urban areas. The retention of publicly planned, already conserved natural areas, agricultural lands or constructed community gathering places are increasingly in jeopardy despite their ability to nourish our ecological, social, mental and physical health and wellness. The roles and responsibilities between state and non-state actors, particularly economic actors are increasingly blended and muddled in government decision-making. What does the Ontario greenbelt land swap and the surplussing of park lands in Edmonton have in common? What do they say about governance of green spaces in municipal governance processes?

Please note: The lack of affordable housing is a real issue across Canada, cities across North American if not around the world. In some circumstances, land availability may be an issue. In Ontario that challenge was categorically described by Provincial land planners as false. In Edmonton park lands have been sold for housing contrary to past practices but the affordability crisis remains. This vlog explores process flaws and realities of planning legislation and institutional realities of governance decision-making not limited to elected officials and administrators.

Fords Follies…

Greenbelt preservation lands were a popular forward thinking sustainable city concept in Ontario some 20+ years ago that would preserve by policy 810,000 hectares of agricultural, wetlands, and natural areas, while simultaneously reduce or minimize urban sprawl. Recently, the Ontario Provincial Government led by Doug Ford decided to change policies that essentially opened up 3,100 hectares of these lands for development to accommodate 1.5M anticipated new homes. The Ford government argued the lack of land for development was the reason for out of control housing prices. Allegedly the Ford government invited in selected developers to tell them what greenbelt lands would be developed. In anticipation of the change, developers were buying up seemingly undevelopable lands near existing approved urban landscapes.

At the urging of all three opposition parties, the Ontario Auditor General was encouraged to review the process. She did, and concluded that the process was opaque, and some developers were privileged over others, and there were multiple failures in policy and process reviews in doing the land swaps at the expense of the greenbelt lands protected by policy. The community consultation process was flawed, to say the least. The change went against his own professional planning staff and was not needed to accommodate growth projections. It was soon also determined that his chief of staff and his housing minister violated integrity guidelines in selecting lands to be changed in status. There are now media reports that suggest a former mayor of Clarington Ontario, a town east of Toronto, was allegedly hired as an unregistered (handsomely) paid lobbyist by landowners in the greenbelt to use his influence to change greenbelt policy change that privileged selective economic interests at the expense of the community not to mention other developers. They punted the chief of staff of the Housing Minister, followed soon after by the Housing Minister himself. There may yet a charges laid by the RCMP.

In response, the new housing minister and the Premier doubled down and stated even more greenbelt lands could be lost. The details of the potty mess created by Ford minions are captured in both the Auditors Integrity Commissioners Report.

Auditor Report https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/specialreports/specialreports/Greenbelt_en.pdf

Integrity Commissioners Report https://www.oico.on.ca/web/default/files/public/Commissioners%20Reports/Report%20Re%20Minister%20Clark%20-%20August%2030%2C%202023.pdf

The report however underscores hidden or “hidden in plain sight” realities of planning legislation and governance writ large.

Tabling The Question in Alberta

Can this happen in Alberta? Has it happened here in Alberta? Is it legal in Alberta? Spoiler alert… the answers are yes, yes and yes. How does existing legislation give elected officials and administrators flexibility to facilitate opaque or transparent governance processes in Alberta?

Process Roles and Responsibilities - Its Complicated

There are four key realities/nuances in play in Alberta. First, planning legislation was the method used for non-local entities to establish control of land, often called colonization, that defined property by euclidean measures (i.e., property lines), attached privileged rights for use and enjoyment, and exclusion of others. In Alberta, todays planning legislation is contained in the Municipal Government Act of Alberta. Prior to colonization, indigenous peoples shared and managed the lands collectively both with one another and nature. That is a much bigger story of course…

Second, legislation delegates to elected officials the responsibility to develop macro scale policies to guide urban development in the form of strategic plans, approve and manage budgets and provide oversight. Elected officials are policy makers. The highest level plan in Alberta is the Municipal Development Plan (i.e., City Plan in Edmonton), passed as a bylaw. Based on these high level strategies, land uses are allocated across an urban landscape in area plans (i.e., micro scale) approved and/or redeveloped and amended by bylaw in public hearings. Landowners have no legal “right” per se to development, only a “right” to fair process. Similarly, adjacent landowners have a “right” to oppose development or redevelopment, but no agency other than persuasion and access to a public hearing to voice concerns. Policies contained in MDPs can be supported, selectively supported, or overruled by politicians at the micro level by elected officials.

Third, policy and political direction is implemented by administrators. Front line planners of various levels do all the detailed process and associated paperwork to effect the outcome, including the type and level of public engagement and council reporting as defined by each municipality. Land use planning processes and practices are crafted and implemented by land use planners, for new plan area development or amendments to existing land use plans. Planners do this by assembling and sharing knowledge in the form of public notices to some residents, erecting signs on impacted sites, writing council reports unfortunately all written in legalese and planner speak. Council reports may or may not share discordant information.

Fourth, registered professional planners have an ethical duty to follow legislation and policy and act in the best interest of the public. This can be complicated as registered planners advocate for and against an application depending on your choice of employer (public vs private), and/or the level of agency you have within that organization. In many cases, policy directives overlap and conflict with one another. There may be different ethical obligations depending on where you are in the organization and who you believe you serve. Some researchers have concluded that senior planning administrators serve their political masters, and less so the general public.

The following describes how these four realities and nuances expressed themselves in Edmonton in sale of developed park land for housing.

Edmonton Surplus Schools Debacle

Beginning in the 1990s when Provincial funding for school lagged, land planned for school building envelopes remained greenspace. The land had been assembled as part of the school and park site, graded, levelled and seeded at public expense. The land was actively used for unstructured and passive recreational activity. The planned school would accommodate the educational program as well as share gymnasiums, classrooms and parking lots at night, on weekends, and in the summer. (Note: Differentiating between school lands and park lands is a distinction without a difference. The Parks Bylaw defined school lands as park land, also consistent with the Joint Use Agreement, a legal agreement with school boards signed in 1960).

This greenspace was like red meat to economic interests. Between 2004-2006, a new mayor and former developer negotiated a behind closed doors an agreement to expedite approval by disengaging the public. In 2006 School Boards and the City of Edmonton approved 20 park parcels for residential development to address an “affordable housing emergency.” Standard land use change practices of the day legally required public notice, a public hearing, plan and zoning bylaw amendments. The Mayor and the Province agreed to waive public notice, waived reserve removal, waived any and all appeal processes and indemnify the city against any legal challenges through an “order in council” from the elected officials cabinet of the Provincial Government. Legal barriers gone!

Existing policy and practice process of the day with respect to surplus school lands negotiated an agreement with the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues some 12 years earlier required recreation need assessment to determine if recreation needs of the day had evolved to give the community an informed voice in the land use change process. This policy however was waived unilaterally by Council, never to be seen again, with no discussion at all with the community NGO they had created the surplus school site policy.

The agreement with the province introduced and approved “in-camera report” walked on to the Council agenda by the Mayor on November 11, 2006. An un-redacted version of this report has never been shared with the public. Seventeen 17 days a a public hearing was held to amend 20 plans and associated zoning plan amendments. The council reporting was written in legalese, loaded on to the agenda less than a week before the council meeting. The report DID NOT ACKNOWLEDGE the provincial government agreement, the lack of alignment with policy and practices that engaged the community in the decision-making on these sites or the change in policy. The format for other plan and bylaw amendments ON THE SAME DAY doing the same plan and zoning bylaw amendments on private land developments (i.e., agricultural holding zones to residential, commercial) INCLUDED policy alignment and the results of public engagement. No reference to discordant views inside or outside the walls of the corporation were identified in the public reporting.

When later publicly challenged, the public was given a false narrative that included changing internal social actors who typically managed park surplussing processes, ignoring the historical process experiences, used ambiguous language, incomplete or false information, and did not share reference to the “order in council” or the “in-camera” report. (Note: The City claimed the lands were school lands, not park lands, which is a distinction without a difference. The MDP, Parks Bylaw, and Joint Use Agreement defined school lands as park land). The local press branded objectors to the process as NIMBY’s, and elected officials silence was deafening. A law suit was filed by community social actors but could not be financially sustained when challenged by the legal costs compared to the deep pockets of developers and the City. The City opposed the judicial review of the process.

In 2009 another round of 20 sites were put up for redevelopment but this time the province said standard notification and public hearing requirements were necessary. When asked why the 2006 agreement with the province didn’t apply, a councillor involved who hadn’t supported the 2006 process … said “the 2006 process “f*c*ed us up.” In 2012 there was a loud and messy 18 hour public hearing on a small number of the surplussed sites. Nevertheless, elected officials and administrators doubled down on redeveloping public green spaces, and it continues today.

In both the 2006 and 2009 surplus decisions, the adopted rationale stated or implied that there was no other land available to address the housing affordability issue and the effective use of existing infrastructure, despite every square inch of the city having an approved area plan to address the issue.

Similarities Between Ontario and Alberta Examples

In both cases, in opaque processes, land previously agreed to be preserved as publicly or ecologically valuable lands in previously vetted public processes were unilaterally redeployed for urban development purposes in ways that deliberately disengaged the public. The argument for the change was a specious assumption that the supply of vacant land was the source of rising housing prices. The political masters could do this because existing legislation gives elected officials a broad mandate and flexibility to meet the pluralistic needs of the community they serve, including prioritizing land for development.

In both Ontario and Edmonton, cases elected officials:

• Targeted unencumbered publicly protected development of economically valuable lands deemed “ripe” for development;

• Disengaged the public from engaging in a public discourse on the proposed changes;

• Changed future land uses on specific parcels of land through agreements negotiated in opaque processes;

• Act quickly and unilaterally to expedite development approvals;

• Adopted (inauthentic) sustainable city rhetoric;

Administrators acting at the direction of elected officials:

• Prepared and facilitated truncated processes to implement decisions contrary to policy and legislation;

• Narrowed state actors in process as decisions;

• Invited in development industry representatives into processes to suggesting development options;

• Created false narratives for elected officials; and,

• Placed planners in ethically compromised positions.

In both Ontario and Alberta cases, the ethics if not success of democratic processes are contingent on how information/knowledge is assembled and disseminated. In both cases, selective knowledge was shared, information was left out, ambiguous or inauthentic narratives were developed using legalese and planner speak, economic social actors were privileged over others, and decision-making processes were truncated and expedited.

MY TAKE - Its the Institution Stupid!

What is shared above is “inside baseball.” Legislation privileges some social actors over others in ways that are legal, and to an extent, expected. All land use change processes create winners and losers. The outcome of both Ontario and Alberta potty messes were intended to address a legitimate public goal and outcome (i.e., affordable housing), but using a specious strategy (i.e., redevelopment of green spaces) may not (Ontario) or did not (Edmonton) achieve that goal.

What is more striking was (a) the lengths elected officials went to re-regulate and expedite development processes by disengaging the public, even though they had the right to approve the choices in public processes; and, (b) the doubling down when revealed. It confirms something more pernicious in government decision-making. Economic interests and outcomes dominate social, ecologicial, and health and wellness interests of the community. To bastardize a political line referring to election outcomes… “Its the Institution Stupid.”

Elected officials aligning government policy with business interests was a trend that began worldwide in the early 80s (i.e., Reaganomics), was kicked into gear by Ralph Klein in the Province of Alberta in the 90s, and accelerated with the election of a former developer as mayor in 2002. Characteristics of that trend tend to include: a push for smaller government and lower taxes; accelerated review and approval processes; re-regulation of policies and practices in favour of economic interests; and generally articulating a pro-development = progress narrative.

The flexibility to manipulate legislation, processes and practices in extraordinary ways was not intended to disengage the public, nor avoid controversial decisions. The Ontario and Edmonton examples are representative of both the flexibility of the legislation to meet pluralistic needs as well as growing focus and support for economic interests over the social and ecological health and well-being of the community. Entrepreneurial elected officials and administrators willingly, unwillingly or unknowingly are supported this trend. This happens incrementally in smaller less visible ways in smaller sites and files, and for the similar reasons and outcomes.

Another tangible example of the “how” this can occur today in unseen ways? The Urban Development Institute, the advocacy organization for developer/economic interests, has monthly meetings with the entire City’s senior management team (i.e., City Manager, Deputy City Managers). The Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues, who help fund and co-produce recreation services like no other municipal service, gets only quarterly access to a single Deputy City Manager.

The loss of publicly valued existing or planned public spaces and places that support the long term sustainability of a densified community (i.e., social, ecological, and health and wellness of the community) is contrary to the goals of sustainability (i.e., ready, shoot, aim). Public lands are effectively deemed precarious, almost an interim land use, awaiting access by development economic entities using sustainable city rhetoric to maximize corporate profits. Elected officials and administrators have a critical role to protect our publicly valued spaces and places to ensure the negative externalities of increased density can be mitigated to the extent possible. Adopted processes adopted must be transparent, fair and equitable to mitigate the overwhelming power and agency of economic interests.

Taschia the Vole Terrorist!