{"id":6006,"date":"2017-06-18T11:14:09","date_gmt":"2017-06-18T11:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/?p=6006"},"modified":"2019-04-17T17:17:13","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T17:17:13","slug":"london-city-hall-politicians-are-set-to-confront-the-latest-example-of-proper-urban-planning-gettin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/london-city-hall-politicians-are-set-to-confront-the-latest-example-of-proper-urban-planning-gettin\/","title":{"rendered":"London city hall: Politicians are set to confront the latest example of proper urban planning gettin&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/storage.lfpress.com\/v1\/suns-prod-images\/1297340304339_ORIGINAL.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>When city council debates ways to fix a \u201cmangled\u201d part of the Southwest Area Plan Tuesday, they\u2019ll do more than deal with London\u2019s largest tract of undeveloped land.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019ll also confront a stubborn city hall pattern that\u2019s affected London for decades: sound urban-planning advice is offered, politicians ignore it, and London lurches from one economically driven development to the next, with no overarching plan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really frustrating,\u201d Coun. Maureen Cassidy said. \u201cWhat they (the previous council) did made no sense. I don\u2019t think we can fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Southwest Area Plan (SWAP) was presented in 2012 to council.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the basics:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>City hall\u2019s planners recommended capping retail space \u2014 big-box stores, basically \u2014 at 30,000 square metres along a portion of Wonderland Road south of Southdale Road, SWAP\u2019s so-called enterprise corridor.<\/li>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<li>Council, led by then mayor Joe Fontana, blew the doors off it, extending the commercial corridor and tripling the amount of retail space to 100,000 square metres.<\/li>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<li>That created a problem for just about every developer but York Developments, which owned roughly 60,000 square metres of that space. Another 20,000 was taken up by other businesses, and the rest snapped up by two other firms.<\/li>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<li>So now the 100,000 square metres is all gone and the expanded template crafted by Fontana et al \u2014 against planning staff\u2019s recommendation, remember \u2014 is full of empty spaces, creating \u201cleapfrog\u201d development. In a word, says Coun. Jesse Helmer, it\u2019s \u201cmangled.\u201d<\/li>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<li>City staff is trying to fix the council-made mess by obliterating the cap on retail to allow for \u201ccontiguous\u201d retail buildings and keep alive dreams of mixed-use development along the Wonderland corridor.<\/li>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<li>But critics fear unlimited shops at the city\u2019s outer edge could hammer other shopping nodes, such as White Oaks Mall.<\/li>\n<p>&#13;\n<\/ul>\n<p>Last week, council\u2019s planning and environment committee was deadlocked, 3-3, on whether to follow staff\u2019s new recommendation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe made a mess of this plan,\u201d Mayor Matt Brown, who was a ward councillor in 2012, said during last week\u2019s debate.<\/p>\n<p>Coun. Stephen Turner, who wasn\u2019t in politics at the time, clearly recalls the 30,000-to-100,000 change made by council, basically on the fly. \u201cI watched in horror,\u201d he said last week.<\/p>\n<p>City planners say the cap is serving no useful planning purpose, and is in fact deforming what should be a gateway into the city. They also point to evidence suggesting its removal won\u2019t hurt other commercial areas.<\/p>\n<p>At last week\u2019s debate, Anna Hopkins, Brown and Helmer voted to remove the cap. Turner, Cassidy and Tanya Park wanted it maintained. It goes to council for a final decision Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>But, again, it\u2019s not just about SWAP and the amount of big-box sprawl allowed along Wonderland south of Southdale.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also about a tradition of past city councils ignoring planning staff advice and harming London\u2019s growth pattern.<\/p>\n<p>Just go back a few years ago, when council pushed ahead with the apartment project on west-end Reservoir Hill, despite the reservations of staff. Or go back to the 1960s, when a proposed cross-town expressway died due to political dithering.<\/p>\n<p>The London Plan, city hall\u2019s blueprint for long-term growth, should represent hope for those who value sound planning. But it\u2019s held up for now in appeals to a provincial tribunal, the Ontario Municipal Board.<\/p>\n<p>On SWAP, the previous council made a mess, as Brown admits. Planning staff and this council, which has shown itself to be largely respectful of good planning techniques, has to fix it up without making it worse.<\/p>\n<p>But will the process just repeat itself during London\u2019s next big urban plan? And the one after that? And the one after that?<\/p>\n<p>Londoners should expect better. But past is prologue.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"javascript:location.href='mailto:'+String.fromCharCode(112,109,97,108,111,110,101,121,64,112,111,115,116,109,101,100,105,97,46,99,111,109)+'?'\">pmaloney@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/patatLFPress\">twitter.com\/patatLFPress<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lfpress.com\/2017\/06\/12\/london-city-hall-politicians-are-set-to-confront-the-latest-example-of-proper-urban-planning-getting-undermined-by-city-council\">Source link <\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/contact-us\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/footer-300x100.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"200\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-14\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/footer-300x100.png 300w, https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/footer-150x50.png 150w, https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/footer.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When city council debates ways to fix a \u201cmangled\u201d part of the Southwest Area Plan Tuesday, they\u2019ll do more than deal with London\u2019s largest tract of undeveloped land. They\u2019ll also confront a stubborn city hall pattern that\u2019s affected London for decades: sound urban-planning advice is offered, politicians ignore it, and London lurches from one economically &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/london-city-hall-politicians-are-set-to-confront-the-latest-example-of-proper-urban-planning-gettin\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;London city hall: Politicians are set to confront the latest example of proper urban planning gettin&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>London city hall: Politicians are set to confront the latest example of proper urban planning gettin... - Dominic Levent Solicitors Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/london-city-hall-politicians-are-set-to-confront-the-latest-example-of-proper-urban-planning-gettin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"London city hall: Politicians are set to confront the latest example of proper urban planning gettin... - Dominic Levent Solicitors Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When city council debates ways to fix a \u201cmangled\u201d part of the Southwest Area Plan Tuesday, they\u2019ll do more than deal with London\u2019s largest tract of undeveloped land. They\u2019ll also confront a stubborn city hall pattern that\u2019s affected London for decades: sound urban-planning advice is offered, politicians ignore it, and London lurches from one economically &hellip; Continue reading &quot;London city hall: Politicians are set to confront the latest example of proper urban planning gettin&#8230;&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/london-city-hall-politicians-are-set-to-confront-the-latest-example-of-proper-urban-planning-gettin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dominic Levent Solicitors Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-06-18T11:14:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-04-17T17:17:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/storage.lfpress.com\/v1\/suns-prod-images\/1297340304339_ORIGINAL.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"spainops\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"spainops\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/london-city-hall-politicians-are-set-to-confront-the-latest-example-of-proper-urban-planning-gettin\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/london-city-hall-politicians-are-set-to-confront-the-latest-example-of-proper-urban-planning-gettin\/\",\"name\":\"London city hall: Politicians are set to confront the latest example of proper urban planning gettin... - 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