70% Of Ottawans Feel Ignored On Lansdowne: City Survey
Ottawans don’t feel their opinions were taken seriously on Lansdowne 2.0.
Says who? The City of Ottawa.
Buried so deeply in the ottawa.ca website that Sherlock Holmes, the Baker Street Irregulars, a crack team of Trump University forensic abacus technicians and a pack of bomb-sniffing police bulldogs couldn’t find it,
Nevertheless, a number of community activists did. The Engage Ottawa team asked the question in a Lansdowne report: “Do you feel your feedback was considered?”
About 70 per cent of engaged Ottawans said no.
Strangely, the city didn’t send out a press release on the findings. Can’t explain it.
Anyway, here is the city Lansdowne survey that the municipality didn’t want you to see:
community_engagement_initiative_lansdowne_2_0_survey_en
For You:
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Ottawa City Hall: A Government You Can’t Trust
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Staff, Councillors and the Mayor HAVE NOT LISTENED nor even considered the thought or opinions of the common taxpayer since 1994. As noted in the comments attached to the survey, (excellent work digging dog), most respondents feel that public participation, especially in person events, is a waste of time since they are TOLD by the staff and presenters basically what the outcome will be. I remember once such event where a flip chart presenter agreed with what a taxpayer was voicing and the presenter was quickly REMOVED by the city head of engineering, Richard Hewitt for digressing from the “company policy”.
When the “fix is in “, developers rule.
Last time I visited Lansdowne – oh I dunno – was maybe 15 years ago to a trade fair thingy. I have not been to the retail sector. I have no idea what’s there or what is planned elsewhere on the site. But I can assure one and all it would take a mighty attraction to get me there. Basically it is of no interest. (A Barrhaven resident) .
So 70% of people who are involved enough in civic affairs to respond to a poll conducted via the ‘Engage’ portal feel ignored by the City? How many of them will carry this forward to election day? My concern is that they may take reciprocal action, i.e. the City ignores me, therefore I’ll ignore the City and not participate in their elections. Let’s hope instead that this is a motivator rather than another discourager.
Ken, this survey was done after the L 2.0 engagements “ Further to a direction to staff by Councillor Brockington, our colleagues in the Planning, Development and Building Department recently surveyed residents on the engagement practices employed for Lansdowne 2.0.”
It was just recently published.
Jake
The survey DELIBERATELY avoided any mention of the standard “in person” meetings and sessions in the Survey choices.
It asked: Q13 Please rank your preferred method of engagement. 1 being least preferred, and 5 being
most preferred: a)Virtual information and comment sessions
b) Virtual coffee chats
c) Engage Ottawa
d) Online surveys
e) Advertisements
f) Pop Up Events
g) Email
There were NO public information sessions, only virtual and so called Pop up, sessions.
At the same time the city was avoiding the public, two other large developments were having in person meetings. (Carling, and Baseline – both on the Experimental farm)
The city managers are now manipulating surveys to show they are doing their job, which they are defiantly not.
Anyone know where Q11 disappeared to?
Andrew, the survey is a check on how satisfied the participants are with the engagements that happened. No in-person engagements were offered so the survey didn’t ask about that.
I think Councillor Brockington might well be disappointed that the survey didn’t ask what participants would have preferred, beyond what was offered (including public engagements. How about a workshop where citizens work to actually program the site to offer what they think it should have?).
Despite having OSEG, a private developer and sports management firm involved involved as a city partner, L 2.0 is a public project, far different from the Carling & Baseline private developments. In all three cases the zoning bylaw amendment applications before Planning & Housing Committee had public input during the committee or council meetings (totally ignored, as always) but the survey was not about that kind of engagement, it was about the City’s effort to hear from us on L 2.0 and the survey shows what a failure that effort was.
We pay these people to do that work and it was ill-conceived and poorly done.
The City geared up to do virtual engagements and now there are in love with it. Cheap, easy & sanitary. Un-democratic when controlled the way it has been.
Something should change in how the City does public engagement.
After 10 years of use, staff is reviewing their ‘2013 Public Engagement Strategy’ right now and will report to council in the Fall. They need your input. Go to engage.ottawa.ca and fill out the Public Engagement Survey or, if that doesn’t satisfy you, write to publicengagement@ottawa.ca with your suggestions.
Jake
In reference to Jake’s comment: ” the survey is a check on how satisfied the participants are with the engagements that happened. No in-person engagements were offered so the survey didn’t ask about that.”
I initially thought so as well, but if you look at a previous question:
“Q10 Are there any engagement opportunities you wish had been offered but were not?”
It clearly opens the survey to all types of engagement, and responses included in person meetings. Yet a few questions later the in person sessions is intentionally missing from the list of types of engagement. I believe I was correct that the city staff are avoiding the opinions of “in Person” meetings in this survey through silence/avoidance that they exist.
As the city is the “applicant” for the zoning change, they too have to comply with the process and are not “exempt”. There is no exemption in any law/regulation/or policy for any city in this regard. In fact the planning act makes it clear that they are NOT exempt (public Body).
Andrew, I will agree with you that staff are avoiding in-person engagements although I think I was wrong to say that there were no in-person events staged: what exactly is a pop-up? I’ll ask my correspondent at PIMR.
If it is an in-person event it was not favoured by those who did Q13.