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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-11-21 Minutes SUSTAINABLE CLARINGTON COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE Minutes of Meeting of November 21, 2013, 7:00 P.M. Mezzanine Room Present: Mike Dymarski Suzanne Elston Lorraine Jones Kerry Meydam Kira Nowick Michael Patrick Mayor Foster Absent: Allan Hewitt Neil Allin Councillor Hooper Also Present: Curry Clifford, Corporate Initiatives Officer Guests: Carlos Salazar, Manager, Planning Services Department Chris Winter, Founder, Canada Conserves 1. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION Committee Chair Michael Patrick welcomed the Committee. 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF OCTOBER 17, 2013 MEETING Moved by Suzanne Elston and seconded by Mike Dymarski that the minutes of the October 17, 2013 meeting be approved. Carried. 3.BUSINESS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES There was no business arising from the Minutes. 4FOLLOW-UP TO COUNCIL RESPONSE TO COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS ON . TASK #1 AND #2 th The Committee had before them their November 4 report to Council and the th Resolution from the November 12 GPA meeting responding to this report and the Council decision of November 18th confirming the GPA recommendation without amendment. Committee members noted their pleasure with Council’s decision, their appreciation for Council recognizing that communications and public education is the Municipality’s Sustainable Clarington - 2- November 21, 2013 Community Advisory Committee Communications Division mandate, rather than the Committee’s and reiterated their conclusion that simplifying the communication, co-ordination and implementation are critical to the Municipality getting success for the community in sustainability. 5.KEY LEARNINGS FROM PRIORITY GREEN SYMPOSIUM RELEVANT TO COMMITTEE’S TASK #3 Suzanne Elston, Kerry Meydem, Lorraine Jones, Kira Nowick, Mike Dymarski, Councillor st Hooper and Mayor Foster from the Committee attended this October 31 event. Members summarized their key learnings as:  The key issue is how rather than whether to build a culture that has a high regard for preserving land, especially through more intense use of lands in existing and new development.  The “how” should include:  tapping into people’s motivations, e.g., preserving the “small town feel” is important to people  building trust and confidence in the processes used to make decisions. The challenges with doing this, it was noted, was illustrated by the OMB’s decision just a day after the symposium. The OMB rejected the Municipality’s decision to support an 18 unit residential building being constructed, a proposal consistent with Provincial, Regional and Municipal policies  building an understanding of the financial and human cost of the risks that arise from not having the necessary level of regard for the natural environment, e.g., severe flooding  understanding the limitations of the existing processes to make decisions about land-use and creating community involvement in developing and implementing solutions. Co-ordinating community organizations may be an important first step  creating an understanding that making progress includes both improving current performance as well as building longer term resilience. Monitoring and measuring these are also important  recognizing that leadership is required to make progress in sustainability, that the status quo is not acceptable and that the current approach in our society may be described as being “at the cutting edge of tradition”. This can be contrasted with mindsets in Europe that are 15 years ahead of us. Learning from this culture would offer some economy in developing solutions  Engaging people in meaningful ways is critical to getting success and illustrates that the push needs to come not just top down but bottom up. 6. KEY RESULTS OF PRIORITY GREEN POLLING OF OPINIONS OF CLARINGTON RESIDENTS ON MATTERS RELEVANT TO TASK #3 th The Committee had before them a link to the October 28 GPA Report on Priority Green that included a summary of opinion polling of Clarington residents done for the project. Sustainable Clarington - 3- November 21, 2013 Community Advisory Committee Curry Clifford noted that the Committee would hear from Carlos Salazar, Planning Services Department Manager on this polling and from Chris Winter of Canada Conserves on the underlying issues in sustainability. Each would help inform the Committee on key considerations in setting its goals and strategies for Task #3 - recommended actions to foster a community-wide culture of sustainability. Mr. Salazar then highlighted a few key findings of the survey relevant to the Committee’s Task #3, noting that it produced similar results as a 2008 survey. Through a hand-out analysis he illustrated that:  “Small Town Feel” remains by far the most popular type of response that residents provide when asked “What do you enjoy most about the community?” 27% provided this type of responses with the next most popular “it is quiet” (14%) and “outdoors/green space/trails” (12%).  Three quarters of residents believe “Clarington should become a leader in environmental issues and become the greenest community in Ontario” yet only slightly more than a third (35%) believe “Clarington is doing a good job at protecting the environment and promoting energy conservation” and notably, 9% chose “Don’t Know”.  45% of residents across the Municipality would say that their current neighborhood is walkable, 33% say it is car oriented and 23% say it is both. There are significant variations though on the conclusion that 45% believe their neighborhood is walkable: only 20% of those aged 35-44 and only about 30% of those aged 45-54 agree it is walkable whereas over 80% among those 18-24 agree it is walkable.  There is a very high level of importance attached to walkability – 91% rank it as important in the design of neighborhoods. There is about a 13 percentage point spread between the importance residents attach to walkability and their sense of the current reality (91% say its important and 78% experience it as such.) Opinion on this point is consistent throughout the communities in the Municipality and its age groups. The Committee discussed the results and it was noted that:  Clarington’s population grew by 10,000 between 2008 and 2012 and the polling results remained largely unchanged  Of the intensification allocations to Clarington’s urban areas, 40% in Bowmanville are proposed or draft approved while the figure for Courtice is only about 10%  Building a culture that has a higher regard for preserving land, especially through more intense use of lands in existing and new development is a vexing issue – the polling indicates residents seem to desire this but either don’t have a strong understanding of what is required to reach this or don’t accept that they have a role to play in bringing it about. Sustainable Clarington - 4- November 21, 2013 Community Advisory Committee 7. DISCUSSION WITH CHRIS WINTER OF CANADA CONSERVES – TO ASSIST COMMITTEE IN IDENTIFYING KEY GOALS FOR TASK #3 The Chair introduced Chris Winter, noting his 20+ years of leadership in sustainability matters and his analysis of the 2010 Green Community Strategy which the Committee had before them. The latter provided context on Mr. Winter’s approach to sustainability and the “conserver” lens. Mr. Winter integrated a number of points raised by members earlier in the meeting. Key highlights of his discussion with the Committee included:  The walkability of a community is a helpful measure of what makes a place “a great place to live” and a key feature of a “small town feel”  Cobourg is an example of a municipality that, through development of condominiums in the downtown, has reaped the benefits (environmental, economic, social and cultural) of creating a walkable community  More information about this aspect of Cobourg and how “walkability” is measured is available from the Ontario Smart Growth Network, a provincial network of organizations, businesses and individuals working to promote a smarter approach to urban design. It is found at http://smartgrowth.wildapricot.org  Teasing out what else these terms “great place to live” and “small town feel” mean is important in arriving at a clear vision to guide the Committee’s next stage of work  Positioning any recommended actions as contributing to these practical, local results is important. (So, as an example, higher density unleashes benefits like ability to sustain an inviting coffee shop and the strategy needs to be connected back to these “great place to live” qualities to gain acceptance.)  This positioning will be more likely to build understanding and acceptance than appealing to fear, risks or abstract concepts where the impact of local action is not easily attributed to results. Suggesting actions that result in only marginal perceived personal benefit will unlikely to generate action as few would be willing to make the sacrifice necessary  Small, community driven initiatives like “Jane’s Walks” (named after Jane Jacobs) are important in building community engagement as they put people who know their neighborhood rather than government in charge of showing it to others. And it is without public expenditures. It also opens up opportunities to ask people what the community could/should be and tangibly demonstrates the benefits of a community being walkable  The environmental movement goes through waves that last about a generation and we are on the vanguard of a new wave. The new wave will integrate the four spheres of sustainability - social, economic, cultural and environmental- and their goals and actions. So, as an example, actions that address people’s concern about the costs of things, their quality of life and the health of local economies will be integrated into environmental strategies  Communities in parts of Quebec provide strong examples of this integration: 15 years ago there were few paved shoulders along roads for cycling. These are now common and this has significantly benefited local economies, promoted the culture of communities, brought people together socially and improved the natural environment. Sustainable Clarington - 5- November 21, 2013 Community Advisory Committee  Simultaneously, there is societal wave occurring that is characterized by empowerment of community organizations that: define the public issues that need to be addressed, create solutions and bring the necessary players on side to act. Examples discussed included:  Civic Action in Toronto begun by David Pecaut that includes an ability to attract the “A listers”  The City of Cambridge. In their case, for more than 20 years a range of community groups have come together to share information on their goals and actions  The City of Kingston has branded itself as “Canada’s Most Sustainable City” (and has taken the community engagement matter to the level of creating an independent Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that pulls each of the community organizations (including the municipality) together to identify specific actions each will take in each of the four spheres.)  Specific opportunities that Clarington could consider that would help foster a community-wide culture of sustainability include:  sustaining and promoting growing and consuming local food  placing walkability as a key objective in land-use planning decisions  developing a cycling strategy, especially to position Clarington to be ready to seize opportunities expected from the emerging Ontario Cycling Strategy  encouraging and facilitating youth entrepreneurships through such initiatives as business incubators, e.g., Core 21 in Oshawa  engaging school aged children in fostering a sustainability culture and recognizing how they can influence behaviour of their parent(s) to live in more sustainable ways. 8. DISCUSSION OF OUTCOMES DESIRED FROM JANUARY MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE Curry Clifford discussed with the Committee a process that could be used to complete their Task #3, noting that the January meeting could serve as the first step in a three step process with each step aiming to answer key questions: 1. What should a community-wide culture of sustainability in Clarington look like? 2. Where are we now as against this vision? 3. What are the gaps between the vision (first step) and the current reality (second step) and what strategies should be taken to close the gap? This would include identifying what are the barriers, including answering the question: Why aren’t we already there? Sustainable Clarington - 6- November 21, 2013 Community Advisory Committee He noted that Helen Break, a certified facilitator and municipal expert, is willing to facilitate the first meeting. The Committee expressed general concurrence with this approach, asking Curry Clifford to investigate if the facilitator could join the Committee for three, rather than two hours and therefore start this January meeting at 6 pm rather than 7 pm. The Chair emphasized that the Terms of Reference calls for a report to Council by July st 1 on this task and that the Committee will need to work diligently to achieve this. Committee members also noted that:  More discussion and definition is required about the desired economic, social and cultural results as the vision piece is developed as much of the discussion to date has been focussed on the environmental sphere  Significant improvements have been made in Clarington’s natural environment over the course of a few years, including cleaner air, water and land. Lessons on how these results have been achieved need to be considered as the strategy piece is developed  The question of who should be connected in moving the strategies forward and how to best interconnect the players is an important part of developing the strategy  Connecting the high level objectives with the local actions is an important way of making the former understood and accepted. 9. OTHER BUSINESS There was no other business raised. 10. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 8:57 p.m.