Contradictions within the new OCP
Posted by Steven Hurdle on May 17, 2008
The proposed Official Community Plan is a big document to go through, and new elements within it keep cropping up. Below are a few that don’t quite seem to jibe with each other:
- The OCP purports to support sustainability on the one hand (Page 12.1), and a huge increase in growth on the other (Page 35).
- While the document argues that City Hall should “Consider view impacts from the valley or from water bodies and from hillside development sites,” (p.35, Objective 3.12) but it also says that “Higher building forms, such as point towers, will be permitted,” on hillsides and shorelines in some circumstances (p.36, Objective 3.13.2).
-The new OCP advocates for more walkable communities, but it permits extensive hillside development with “Single-loaded travel lanes or one-way streets”, “Narrow and/or steep local roads”, “Very steep driveways”, and “Sloping boulevards with fewer sidewalks” (p.37, Objective 3.14.1).
- The proposed OCP says that environmentally sensitive areas are “a significant aspect of the livability in the region and a top priority of local residents”, but notes on the same page that “some unprotected green spaces, including environmental sensitive areas, will be not preserved,” (p.42).
With this Official Community Plan, a number of people (myself being one of them) came together at various public meetings and advocated for a wide variety of things, some of which concern me and some of which I wholeheartedly support. I think some of the contradictions come from various individuals and stakeholder groups advocating strongly for things, and in some cases two things that don’t necessarily work well together made it into the document. That’s why I strongly feel that more time to go over the document before the public hearing is warranted so that people can consider it not only in the context of whether they support the initiatives in it, but whether they support each initiative in the context of being grouped with the other things the document puts forward. Perhaps most importantly, people deserve more time to decide if they support the document as a whole in the context of the final draft.
- Steven Hurdle -
