Towards a New Urbanism for the Next London

We desperately need to develop a shared vision of how we are going to build and grow this city of ours over the next generation. This mustn’t be something left to the municipality itself to suss out, or the process will become the captive of entrenched interests, ensuring its failure.

London’s most advanced urbanism, absolutely necessary for moving the city forward, is, and has always been, located in its neighbourhoods. The practice of local urbanism, however, has become “defensive” – more concerned with limiting change than embracing it. And we shouldn’t be surprised by this. When community consultation on planning matters affecting neighbourhoods becomes perfunctory, held late in the planning process and merely to satisfy Municipal Act requirements for public participation, NIMBYism is the logical outcome. This isn’t a reflection on the motives of residents, most of whom understand that neighbourhoods must evolve to remain viable. We need residents to become active participants in the design of their city, and we can only do this by engaging them in the planning of their neighbourhoods from the very beginning – even if it does occasionally get messy.

Let me give a more concrete example. My neighbourhood, Old East Village, is a classic example of an older model of a sustainable neighbourhood termed the industrial city neighbourhood. These types of neighbourhoods are easily identified. There are a number of examples here in London, and hundreds in cities across Ontario. They begin with clusters of manufacturers, such as we had with the oil refineries and railroad car shops here in Old East at the west end of the neighbourhood and the manufacturers located around the McCormick’s factory at the eastern edge. Around these factories develop fairly uniform tracts of standardized houses built for the workers in these factories. And then a commercial avenue is introduced, mixing retail, services and light manufacturing, such as we have with Dundas Street East.

What is interesting in this model is that the patterns that emerged allowed the neighbourhood to evolve into one in which people shared work and private lives, building social and economic capital.

Of even more interest, perhaps, is that this type of neighbourhood is nearly identical to the intent of new planning perspectives favouring mixed-use, mixed-income development, such as the city is putting in place for the redevelopment of the London Psychiatric Hospital Lands.

Here, in my neighbourhood, many of us hope to recapture some of this through the careful and strategic redevelopment of the McCormick Lands, currently subject to an Area Planning Review, with the ongoing participation of several dozen local residents. We believe that we can address the legitimate concerns of nearby residents around noise and smells and views through thoughtful and effective buffering while targeting “clean” industry, with substantially lower immediate impacts – perhaps IT/media clusters, but also green technology clusters and, perhaps, small-scale artisanal food production facilities. Many of the buildings are eminently suited for adaptive re-use, as has been done so successfully in cities such as Toronto and Waterloo.

There are real opportunities with this to provide good jobs for local people.

Mr. Orser’s claims that he “believe[s] in bulldozing old buildings and building new ones” is not particularly helpful in this regard. Nor is his characterization of the McCormick Lands as “starting to look like a little Detroit. It is time to start demolishing these old run down fire traps...”. Both of these opinions betray a lack of understanding (which he might have addressed had he bothered to show up to any of the community meetings held on this issue) on how we can create prosperity in our city and good jobs for residents in an economy that is rapidly changing.

To create a new urbanism for London we need to recognize that our urbanist practices must contain within it clear and compelling economic propositions. It is the private sector that builds the vast majority of buildings in this city, and provides the clear majority of jobs. As we go forward with building a city that works for this generation, and for the ones that follow, we must create economic opportunities for the private sector that are so predictable that they encourage it to climb on board – fewer layers of regulations, streamlined development policies and procedures, incentive packages that are formalized early enough in the development pre-planning stage so as to provide cost-certainty to the developer as s/he goes forward, a lighter touch on the wheel. For any chance of success, we need a stable alliance of political, civic, and business interests, such as we can see in Toronto’s City Summit Alliance, to give just one example.

It also requires that we all become much more literate about the details of our city-building efforts. Doing away with the shifting ground upon which the private sector must operate, together with engaging citizens in the planning of their city at the very beginning of the process, would be a very good start. I’m looking forward to participating in the conversation.......

Why Mr. Orser’s Proposal for a “Voting Block” is the Wrong Idea

Anyone who has watched the Rogers TV debate for Ward 4 will be familiar with Mr. Orser’s proposal that he create, and presumably lead, a voting block of 8 as yet unidentified ward councilors to accomplish some as yet unidentified goal. From my side of the camera, looking out into the audience comprised mostly candidates from Ward 1 – 4, having finished the taping of their ward “debate” and hanging around, the looks of astonishment on their faces was instructive.

That Mr. Orser, who has a history of doing end runs around the very body on which he was elected to serve and trying to make “policy” in the pages of the local paper instead, thinks he could build the consensus required to accomplish such an audacious goal is incredible to behold. Whether it rises to the level of hubris, or is simply gratuitous electioneering, is a decision that the voters of Ward 4 will have to make before October 25^th. I’ve been a constituent of his for four years now: he has given me no indication that consensus-building, or even playing nicely in the sandbox, is one of the tools in his belt.

Apart from all that, though, this is the wrong idea at exactly the wrong time. With the abolition of Board of Control, and its city-wide mandate, the newly-minted councilors from the fourteen wards of the city will be required to come together and step past parochialism to true city-building. There are serious challenges facing us, and a new governance model that will require of us much more than aping a party line.

Voting blocks are a step backwards, not forward. Like ideologies, they represent a failure of imagination. They relieve elected officials of the responsibility to engage in dialogue, to think, deeply and often laterally, about a range of policy options, to weigh the merits of each, and to come to a conclusion on the best way forward. Participants in a voting block don’t own the results of their deliberations. It is exactly what we don’t need in the coming term of council.

On October 25^th, vote Greg Thompson for councilor in Ward 4. It’s past time for sensible, serious and pragmatic representation for this great ward of ours. The people of Ward 4 needs someone in their corner to make sure we are treated fairly – a builder, not a meddler; experienced, passionate about our prospects, committed to helping to build a Next London that is safe, affordable, prosperous and healthy.

The Incumbent’s Take on the Re-purposing of the McCormick Lands

Councilor Orser’s campaign website came up recently and, like all such websites, is a must read for all voters looking for information on candidates for council.

What I found of particular interest is the section on the McCormick Lands. I reproduce it below:

McCormick's Building

As you are aware, I promise nothing other than being a full time Councillor.

I feel this area McCormick's is starting to look like a little Detroit. It is time to start demolishing these old run down fire traps and building homes for families and maybe a seniors high-rise. I feel getting this next job done would greatly improve the area, home values. It would help keep Lorne Ave school open and improve the outlook for Ward 4, so I have been bringing major developers down to look at these properties with the hopes of starting something soon. As a full time Councillor I'm able to do this for you.

The McCormick Lands are an 87 acre parcel of land north of Dundas Street between Burbrook Place and Ashland Avenue. The properties making up this parcel are all in private ownership and the land is zoned General Industrial.

It is unusual for a parcel of land of this size to be subjected to an Area Planning process, but sorting out the challenges and opportunities for these underutilized lands is considered to be of such importance to the neighbourhood that the city has agreed to do exactly that.

Mr. Orser has the same right as any other citizen to express an opinion on the future of these lands. As the sitting councilor for the ward that contains the lands, however, his opinions must meet a higher standard. On to problem one:

The lands are all in private ownership. Would the incumbent have us believe that the City of London is interested in expropriating these lands from their owners so that these “old run down fire traps” can be demolished? If not expropriation, then he must be saying that potential buyers would be interested in purchasing these properties at their speculative value for redevelopment as residential lands. On to problem two:

If one reads the Phase 1 Report, as any full-time councilor must certainly have done, residential redevelopment of this site is complicated by two factors. – the potential for environmental contamination from a century of industrial use, requiring brownfield remediation, which seldom makes residential redevelopment economically feasible, even with the incentive programs available to developers; and, the proximity of the London Psychiatric Hospital Lands, currently in the process of redevelopment as an infill residential mixed-use neighbourhood and containing much more easily-developed land for residential uses. Which property developer is going to get involved in residential infill development on brownfield lands when greenfield opportunities exist but a few blocks away? On to problem three, and this is the big one, in my view:

The area planning process is a public process. In this particular case, the city has gone to great lengths to consult often and in detail with residents. There have been a number of public participation meetings at which several dozen of the incumbent’s constituents have come together with city planners to work their way through creating a vision for the area. The work is ongoing. There have been differences of opinion. But a consensus seems to be emerging. A full-time councilor would have found the time to participate in this planning process. The incumbent hasn’t. Not a single one of our public meetings.

Not that this is unusual. I have attended most of the public meetings held in the neighbourhood, and we hold a lot of them. I don’t remember ever seeing the incumbent at any of them.

Not the McCormick Area Study public participation meetings.

Not any of the Open Houses held by the community to introduce designs for the various redevelopment projects.

Not the Community Associations AGMs.

I also attend a lot of public participation meetings in this city, most recently on the city’s Affordable Housing Strategy, the Downtown Master Plan, the SoHo public meetings, the Transportation Master Plan, the Southwest Area Plan, and so on. I’m constantly amazed by the number of local politicians who are in attendance. I think I’ve seen almost every councilor or controller at least once, several on many occasions, and a few at every meeting. But never the incumbent in Ward 4. None of these people prattle on about their “full-time” status, yet they are there. Councilor Orser has made a fetish of his full-time work, but he is never there.

Our local councilor appears to be “missing in action”. Ward 4 deserves real representation, and I intend to deliver just this over the next four years.