Greenspace Alliance of Canada's CapitalRural Settlement Strategy
The Greenspace Alliance was sent an invitation to a workshop on the City's Rural Settlement Strategy. This invitation can be found at:
http://ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/rural_settlement/workshop_1_en.html
The workshop took place on Saturday, 24 March 2007.
An "As it was heard" summary is found here:
http://ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/rural_settlement/workshop_1_summary_en.html
Amy Kempster reported later:
I attended the workshop on rural planning issues on Mar. 24th. Have been waiting for the official report to give a report on this. Attended the ward meeting for West Carleton in the morning (felt I knew that area better than the others) and the session which included country lot estates in the afternoon. There Iola and I tried to get the idea of protecting rural features at least mentioned. I then signed up for the ongoing sessions on sustainability (which will include this topic) with the idea that if someone else from the Greenspace Alliance could attend then I would pull out. So my question is can anyone else commit to this? These sessions may help decide what happens in the Official Plan. I believe that the staff will take what comes out of this as their guide regardless of what is "good planning" as the staff seems to have decided to cater to the rural loud voices. Please let me know if you can volunteer for these sessions.
It was interesting that there were some voices at the workshop which were more reasonable ... Carp area rural people were very strong on protection of water sources.
Amy
May 31 Rural Development Workshop
Amy reports:
Rural Settlement Strategy Workshop 3
May 20, 2008 -- City planning staff have developed preliminary proposals for managing growth in the rural areas based on the 2007 Rural Discussion papers and input from rural residents.
You are invited to find out more about the recommendations and their impact on the City’s Official Plan by attending a workshop on May 31.
The recommendations are contained in the report “Review of the Official Plan and Infrastructure Master Plan – Preliminary Proposals” tabled at Planning and Environment Committee on April 22, 2008.
For more information, or a copy of the report, please contact:
Bruce Finlay
City of Ottawa
Planning, Transit and the Environment Department
110 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, ON K1P 1J1
Tel: 613-580-2424 ext. 21850
E-mail: bruce.finlay (at) ottawa.ca
Rural Summit II: Report
The Rural Affiars office reports on April 25, 2008:
Rural Summit II update
Approximately 200 residents, City staff and rural councilors participated in Rural Summit II to discuss rural issues and find solutions to improve services to Ottawa’s rural communities.
Prior to the Summit, community consultations were held in each rural ward resulting in over 700 documented issues and suggestions. The Rural Summit Steering Committee, a community-led working group, undertook the task of reviewing the consultation feedback and putting the information into four main categories that would form the agenda for Rural Summit II. Comments related to planning and development, including water and wastewater infrastructure, were forwarded to the Rural Settlement Strategy team. A parallel undertaking to Rural Summit II, this strategy will reflect the contributions of Ottawa’s rural community and will recommend changes to the City’s Official Plan.
The categories
Governance: Including localized decision making; localized access to community facilities; and communications
Rural Services: Such as Para Transpo; fire services; social services; and libraries
Infrastructure: Such as roads; ditches; telecommunications; and energy infrastructure
Bylaws, Permits and Processes: Including burn permits; forestry practices; and building permits.
Working Groups, composed of residents who had volunteered their services during the community consultations, were then formed for each of the four categories. These groups reviewed the comments from the community consultations and put forward "Options for Solutions" to address the concerns of rural residents.
During the Summit, participants could attend three facilitated sessions. At these sessions, they reviewed the Options for Solutions developed by their fellow residents in the Working Groups and individually voted on their priorities for action. The solutions and comments provided will allow the Rural Affairs Office to determine the most pressing issues affecting residents of rural Ottawa.
Refer to the vote results as identified by Rural Summit II participants:
Governance: http://ottawa.ca/residents/rural_connections/rural_summit_02/event/governance_en.html
Rural Services: http://ottawa.ca/residents/rural_connections/rural_summit_02/event/services_en.html
Infrastructure: http://ottawa.ca/residents/rural_connections/rural_summit_02/event/infrastructure_en.html
Bylaws, Permits and Processes: http://ottawa.ca/residents/rural_connections/rural_summit_02/event/bylaws_en.html
"Parking Lot" issues:
Parking Lot issues are additional issues and comments from participants attending the Rural Summit II.
During the Rural Summit, the “Parking Lot” process was used to ensure that these important off-topic issues were captured and that the facilitated discussion groups remained focused on the issues and solutions brought forward by the rural residents who volunteered on the pre-summit working groups.
http://ottawa.ca/residents/rural_connections/rural_summit_02/event/parking_lot/index_en.html
Participants Feedback:
Feedback form results - comments for Rural Summit II.
http://ottawa.ca/residents/rural_connections/rural_summit_02/event/feedback_en.html
See also: (You need an OPLibrary card number to access this article)
"City is better, councillors tell summit - Rural representatives say wards have benfitted and talk of de-amalgamation 'almost dead'", by Patrick Dare, Ottawa Citizen, April 6, 2008, page A3.
E.D.
7 May 2008
Rural Summit II update
March 11 - The Rural Affairs Office advises:
Rural residents are getting down to work discussing the issues raised at recent Rural Summit II meetings held recently in rural parts of the City.
All four rural Ward consultation meetings have been completed in preparation for the Rural Summit II and working groups are will be meeting throughout the month of March. In total, there were several hundred ideas put forward by the people that volunteered an evening of their time to let the City know where we should be making improvements.
Some very important issues were discussed at the community meetings. These covered a wide range of topics including: ParaTranspo services, the process to obtain a burn permit, ways to improve local involvement in decision making and the condition of the City’s road and drainage network. Among these and other issues mentioned, the City also received a few compliments on our accomplishments since the first Summit held in 2005. For more information about what was talked about at the community meetings visit the Rural Connections website - http://ottawa.ca/rural - and read the complete discussion notes that have now been posted.
The Rural Summit Steering Committee, which is made up of representatives from a variety of rural groups and communities, met recently to pour through the issues and figure out the best way to lump them together in themes that can be assigned to working groups. The consensus was to build the issues into four main themes that working groups would follow. These themes are: Governance; By-laws, Permits and Processes; Infrastructure; and Services. More information and progress reports will also be posted on the Rural Connections website.
Register now for Rural Summit II
As the working groups flesh out the issues, they will be looking for solutions that will work for rural residents, businesses and farmers. These solutions will be presented at Rural Summit II on April 5 at Confederation High School (1645 Woodroffe Avenue). Since lunch will be provided we are asking that people register in advance, either by completing the registration form at http://ottawa.ca/rural, calling 3-1-1 or by visiting any Client Service Centre. Registration for Rural Summit II runs from March 3 to March 31.
Greenspace Alliance comment on Agriculture Vision paper
On March 10, Amy Kempster wrote to Bruce Finlay on behalf of the Alliance:
... I wanted you to know that the Greenspace Alliance has approved the following comments on the paper about Agriculture. On the whole we were pleased with that paper. ...
The Greenspace Alliance would like to express its approval of the main land use recommendations of the Agricultural Paper. We believe they will work to ensure protection of Agricultural operations.
In Section 1, Impact of Land Use Decisions, we fully approve recommendations re Issues A (Erosion of land base), B (Minimum Separation Distance) and C (Restrictions on farm expansion).
We are not familiar with changes made to parcels in West Carleton just prior to amalgamation (Issue D) but the recommendations seem reasonable if the situation is as noted.
With regard to other issues we agree generally with the recommendations re improving economic viability (Issues E, F, G and H) and fully support the recommendation re farmers' markets being confined to sell only locally grown farm products (but a definition of local may be necessary - perhaps 100 miles or 100 kilometers) and for the continuation of the farmers market in Lansdowne Park.
We are not supportive however of the recommendations in the Section Links to Other Working Groups as we note that these were not supported by all members of the Working Group.
(Conveyed by Erwin Dreessen)
Agriculture Vision paper published
The final Rural Discussion Paper written by community volunteers is now available: A Vision for Agriculture in Ottawa.
Erwin Dreessen
Column by Joe Banks, 23 Jan 2008
An interesting column by rural affairs columnist Joe Banks in the Ottawa Citizen of January 23, 2008, page B4: "Please, Not Another Rural Summit."
Erwin
Onwards to Rural Summit II
Derrick Moodie, the City's Rural Affairs Officer (613-580-2424 x15134, Derrick.Moodie ( at ) ottawa.ca), writes on January 18:
I look forward to seeing many of you over the coming weeks as we kick off Rural Summit II - Building on Success. For those of you that I do not know yet, I hope we will have a chance to meet at the community meetings taking place on:
January 22 Metcalfe Community Centre 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
January 29 West Carleton Community Complex 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
January 30 Richmond Legion 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
January 31 Navan Memorial Centre Arena 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
For more information about Rural Summit II - Building on Success, please visit http://ottawa.ca/rural.
The specific web page for the Summit is
http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/rural_connections/rural_summit_02/index_en.html
The Summit will be held on April 5, 2008.
Second Workshop
A Workshop to discuss the Rural Discussion Papers occupied most of Saturday, November 3. Also on the agenda, unexpected by this participant, was staff's White Paper on Compensation Options for Wetlands and Other Environmental Lands. Somewhere between 50 and 100 people (staff included) attended.
A representatives from each of the Rural subgroups briefly reviewed the group's paper. Then everybody rotated from table to table, a facilitator (often a city staff member) dutifully taking notes about everything that was being said. It is difficult to say where it all went or what it means. There was no plenary presentation of what was heard. What did strike me is that several rural residents at tables I attended spoke out very much in favour of environmental protection of the land.
Erwin Dreessen
Update: A summary of this workshop is now posted on the City's web site here:
http://ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/rural_settlement/workshop_2_summary_en.html
This is a direct link to download the 35-page document (315 KB) from there.