One of Dr. Phil’s main lessons on relationships is that every action you take has only two possible consequences. You are either contributing to your relationship or contaminating it. There is no third option.
Windsorites need to look at every Decision or action our city Leaders make and view it in these terms. Either this decision is contributing to the official plan of the city of Windsor, or it is contaminating the official plan.
The document I read by planning departments of the city and the county is proof positive that the problem does not lie with our respective planning departments. Smart Choices for the Windsor-Essex Region is a perfect document that everyone should read. If anyone ever questioned the integrity or qualifications of the planners in our region, this document should vindicate them once and for all. I can unequivocally state that my confidence in our city, our planning department and the goals of scaledown.ca have been reaffirmed yet again.
There is a lot of talk about vision, this document states our vision and it is one that we can be darn proud of. I know I am not alone when I tell you that there are many people that feel there is a disconnect between our vision and our actions. A disconnect between what we want to do and doing what we said we were going to do.
My goals with scaledown is to subject the actions our city takes to Dr. Phil’s simple philosophy. I would like to see more people and groups subject every decision made by Council, every action taken by every other city department and committee to that simple question:
Are the actions you take or the decision you are making contributing to our official plan or contaminating it.
27 comments:
Information is such a beautiful thing!
The vision and planning and what actually occurs in this area might as well be on two different planets. Why spend hundreds of thousnds of dollars planning something when it is put on a shelf and forgotten about or it shelved because soemone needs to leave a legacy.
Why all of a sudden do politicans need to leave a legacy? What happened to leaving a position in better shape then when you received it? Isn't that a better legacy than some stupid building?
Thanks to the Windsor Municipal Shadow, we find out that we're not the only ones who see the difference between the Cities words and their actions (or lack thereof)
Dr. Phil Huh...Isn't he now being sued for practicing without a license? Wasn't he the guy who was run out of Texas for touching his patients inapropriately? Not so sure the source of your advice is sound.
Attacking the source of information as a argument is actually one of the major fallacies of my study in a philosophy of logic course at the University of Western Ontario. (Text written by U of W professors)
It is referred to ``as ad hominem`and the fallacy you are guilty of can be described below.
Argumentum ad hominem (argument directed at the person). This is the error of attacking the character or motives of a person who has stated an idea, rather than the idea itself. A more typical manifestation of argumentum ad hominem is attacking a source of information -- for example, responding to a quotation from Richard Nixon on the subject of free trade with China by saying, "We all know Nixon was a liar and a cheat, so why should we believe anything he says?"
Your point is?
Mark - my Grandpa used to tell me to pick my fights carefully and save my energy for the worthwhile ones.
Anon isn't worthwhile - when you debate an idiot, they don't know when they've lost.
He's lost, now let's discuss some important issues..
I'm looking forward to reading this document, if I get a chance this weekend. I have to admit that planning, and many of the surrounding concepts, is something that I'm still trying to get a grasp of. I'd group myself in with the average citizen. I think this is certainly one of the functions that ScaleDown can serve, helping the average person comprehend different planning concepts.
P of L also espouses "meditatus radix" which translates to consider the source. Any first year law student knows this.
P.S. Your dogs are impolite.
I have a lot of respect for people with ideas to move things forward. But when these individuals resort to arguments that are an attempt to display an artificial superiority, they lose me.
Those with knowledge and intellect do not need to demonstrate it.
I think the facts of the argument, you are either contributing to a relationship or contaminating it would be sourced long before Doctor Phil. the fact Doctor Phil was used shouldn't matter in this instance no matter what he's accused of. It's true he may be guilty of hypocrisy as well as other crimes but that doesn't mean what he stated isn't a fundamental truth.
The Dr. Phil thing was used in hope of garnering some extra attention.
It still applies, every councillor should be carrying an official plan with them as reference when making any decision
So on the one hand you are telling us how great our city planners are. But on the other you are telling them how bad they are (Re: the Coco box posts).
And now several of the planners who signed the MAGIC document that makes them great planners (just for signing it and not actually implementing it) are going to do battle with each other in an OMB hearing. One side backing the document they signed and the other (Our City of Windsor planners) defending the big box development , which flies in the face of the document they signed.
But I know you are going to come back with the fact that their hands are tied. Which to me is just letting them off the hook. They have a responsibility to stand up for the citizens and neighboring communities the way they claimed when signing the document.
If you plan on continuing writing your blog you are going to have to learn to stand up to these planners and challenge them, not kiss up.
And I note the document was signed long before the decision for the Coco Box development was given the green light by the City.
Sam,
I know that people from the planning department read this blog. If we support their Annual Report and reinforce the work they want to do we can be successful.
The problem is not the Professional Planners. The problem lies with developers, senior administration reccomending against what the planning departments want and our elected officials not seeing the reality of what the status quo is doing.
Professional Planners, like Professional Engineers and Doctors are required to do their work to the highest ethical standards. Every Professional Planner associated with municipal governments in this region have signed "Healthy Places, Healthy People: Smart Choices for the Windsor-Essex Region of Ontario". By signing this document and releasing it to the public we can use it any time our elected officials try to ram some piece-of-shit development down our throats. The planning departments are not in favour of such things and will advise councils against them.
If we continually remind our elected officials that sprawl is wrong and their advisors agree with us we can succeed in changing how our region grows.
James is correct. I used to think it was the planners until i continued to delve deeper into the abyss known as City Hall.
The planners truly are tied down and it is senior levels and our elected officials that either don't know better or are continuing down the same path they always have without consequence.
We, the citizens have to make those consequences harsh realities of we want things to change. As it stands, they don't have any incentives to change.
After reading Sam's bit I went back to the document in question and gave it a good read. Here is what the document divulges: Our chief Planners in Windsor who are Lee Anne Doyle, Jim Yanchula and Thom Hunt endorsed and signed the document (witnessed by this blog)on behalf of Windsor. After that, the decision to go ahead with the "Big Box" project on the border of Lasalle and adjacent to vital wetlands was endorsed by these same administrators. Endorsed meaning these same people signed off on the Big Box development which, as Sam points out, you are vehemently opposed to. Not only did these three Planning Administrators go against their own word and ideal, they betrayed the rest of their document co-signers by giving the green light to go forward with the "Coco Box" development. In particular, they stuck it to Larry Silani (Planning Administrator of Lasalle) who's long term game and vision for that community is fairly well on track. They gave him no choice but to challenge them through an OMB hearing. Now, time and money are being wasted and to what end? Here is what one of your commenters said:
"Professional Planners, like Professional Engineers and Doctors are required to do their work to the highest ethical standards. Every Professional Planner associated with municipal governments in this region have signed "Healthy Places, Healthy People: Smart Choices for the Windsor-Essex Region of Ontario". By signing this document and releasing it to the public we can use it any time our elected officials try to ram some piece-of-shit development down our throats. The planning departments are not in favour of such things and will advise councils against them."
Well, the "highest ethical standards" were just thrown out of the window. "The planning departments are not in favour of such things and will advise councils against them" just took a bath as well.
If you want Windsor to move ahead with your vision then you must see by now how imperative it is that the City infuses some new management blood into our Planning Department. To think that these guys are foiled by and controlled by administration is naive. THEY ARE THE ADMINISTRATION! We are reminded of this every time we watch City Council meetings. They guy in the front row, the one to whom all others refer for relevant and vital information is the Planning Manager. In the end, our City Planners HAVE contaminated their relationship and this blog, Mark Boscariol's ScaleDown Windsor seems to be endorsing that pollution.
Anon1: I take issue with you alluding to this blog as being lapdogs for anyone. We are a community partnership (it isn't Mark Boscariol's website, though Mark plays an integral part in it) with unmoderated commentors that would never let us get away with being cheerleaders for anyone.
That being said, your well-thought out comment is bang on the money. We have been struggling with finding out where the disconnect lies between the people who wrote reports like the Inter-Municipal Planning Consultation Committee document and the people who make the reccommendations to council. There is a break there and we aim (with the help of our studious readers) to shine a flashlight on in and expose it.
The timelines that brought your point of view to light has also done the same thing with us. Yes, there is talking out of so many sides-of-mouths that you really can't take anything that is said as the "Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth"
We must find who the "real" planners are and what their particular points of view are. As well as who is being silenced (because obviously someone is) and who is using their influence to do the silencing.
The Inter-Municipal document will be used to expose the cracks in administrations heirarchy. There is no way you can go public with a document like this, and then stand by the "CocoBox" development without being called on it.
They have actually given us one of the most powerful weapons they could have for fixing this city.
Apology: I meant Mark's posting. In he end there is every way in which they can get away with it. The Planners who signed off didn't do it in a vacuum. I'm sure they will hold their own and even win their case with the OMB. They are professionals after all.
You make some very good points, I talk about it as a disconnect between planning and our action but the disconnect may very well be within the planning process.
I think the planners should be taken to task on this. How do we hold an intermunicipal planning document in one hand and an OMB appeal over a big box development that contradicts it and pits Windsor against Lasalle in the other hand?
Maybe a Windsor star column or letter could draw some more attention to this.
But at the same time, these planners who you acknowledge gave us our greatest tool to fight this extremely poor development, cannot be written off as the "bad guys".
You can't hold them to it or threaten them with it for one simple reason. It's not an official document by any means. It is just a utopian "wish list". Anyone can draft it or read it or refer to it and say they agree with the ideals it contains. You can never pin anyone to it because they, after all, are saying: "that in a perfect world..." Outside of that, it is a useless, non binding document. The planners who we are talking about know this. If they are skating circles around it then it really isn't such a gift is it?
You are correct that the "Healthy People..." document is not binding. It is a statement of Principles that the Professional Planners of the Region hope to achieve.
The Planners are bound to the law. The Official Plans and Municipal By-laws are the rules the planners must work to. If a particular development is allowed under the Offical Plan then they cannot prevent it from being issued permission to go ahead. They can however, work to ensure that the project is built in a manner that minimizes its impact.
Of course when we're talking about a project like the Coco Big Box it is difficult to minimize its impact.
Where the document can be used is during the Offical Plan Review. We can use it to frame our suggestions when we submit them to 311. Also, we can use it when we come before council as delegations. The document can be quoted and used to demonstrate that certain proposals are not necessarily in our best interests and its not just our opinion it is the desire of our planners to build better communities.
The question remains: How will the current Planning Department honour it?
As I said the planning departments are bound by their respective Official Plans and By-laws.
Where this document has the most power is in "our" hands. We can use this to demonstrate to our councillors that a proposal, just because it is legal, is not necessarily in our best interests and the Planning Professionals of the Region agree. It is our elected officials that propose and vote on By-law and Official Plan ammendments. Those are the people we need to reach.
Dr. Phil isn't one of my favourites, but sometimes he'll come out with something that makes sense. Mark's use of him and his recognizable face as a ploy to get attention obviously worked ;)
Next time, might I suggest Mark that you take a look at using a quote from Brittany Spiers? ;)
Brittany Spears huh...Isn't she pregnant with Dr. Phil's baby?
L.O.L!
Did you pass the coarse?
http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
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