(Calgary) Building on a campaign commitment earlier this month to fix The City’s broken citizen engagement processes, Communities First candidates are further pledging to re-engage citizens and communities before work is completed on some of Calgary’s most important growth plans.
Since 2019, The City has undertaken numerous Local Area Plans (LAPs) and had begun work on updating the Municipal Development Plan (which has subsequently been delayed to next year due to, among other things, concerns about how Calgarians have been consulted). Many of these plans have been quite contentious when they came to Council.
CF candidates support re-engaging citizens and community associations following an overhaul of The City’s engagement program, to allow for genuine and meaningful input into Calgary’s growth plans before they become the basis for Planning Department decision-making.
“I’ve heard a participant in a recent LAP say that it felt more like a hostage negotiation with The City, than people looking for real input on how I’d like the community to grow,” said CF mayoral candidate Sonya Sharp. “These things aren’t going to work, they won’t be effective, unless it’s done in a way that neighbours feel their ideas have been incorporated into the plans.”
CF candidates are proposing that community associations and interested members of the public be involved in a targeted re-engagement specifically designed to offer any amendments to the LAPs, and in the meantime, that these plans be given limited weight in Planning Department decisions.
“The LAP process has been a constructive exercise,” said CF Ward 7 candidate Terry Wong. “But from the perspective of many participants, the plans as they stand today still feel as though The City had their thumb on the scale. We want communities to feel that the LAPs are ‘their plans,’ ones that they had a tangible role in designing, so going this extra mile in finalizing the plans should help.”
CF candidates are further suggesting that re-starting work on the Municipal Development Plan should be delayed until this process has run its course, noting that The City’s coordination of these plans has been chaotic.
“We need to get things properly organized with these plans, and deal with them one step at a time,” notes CF Ward 11 candidate Rob Ward. “The City has pushed through blanket rezoning, simultaneously with some of these LAPS, and simultaneously tried to deal with the MDP. It’s a circus. CF will repeal blanket rezoning as we direct administration to improve its processing of applications, then re-engage communities on the LAPs in a meaningful and genuine way, and then we can move on to the MDP.”
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