SHELTERS: Another Mess Again: Lo
“Originally this was sort of framed as an honest conversation about shelters and shelter permissions, but …the will of Council is sort of choosing to bypass the remaining nine months of the process we approved two years ago.
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This is a transcript of Barrhaven East Councilor Wilson Lo’s comments to planning committee Wednesday.
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I don’t think that’s an honest conversation. And that’s not the only contradiction that I believe we’re looking at right now. Among the mover’s reasons was to lighten staff’s workload, but we tasked them with what’s essentially work that’s redundant to the ongoing zoning bylaw update while staff are still working on that update.
“There also seems to be a belief that presumption of what the public feedback will be is license to bypass public consultation and engagement like the two rounds of public consultation remaining in the zoning bylaw process. And yet an exception was created for the site in Kanata, previously identified for a sprung structure, to ensure that community’s voices were heard, which I think is right.
“But further yet, the sites that were previously identified in my community (for Sprung Structure) were denied that opportunity, and then further yet there was a vote against the first item on today’s agenda on the basis of a commitment to the community even though it met the intent of the Official Plan.
“So Council, back in February, one of our colleagues on the zoning bylaw sponsors group asked if there was a low hanging fruit that could be accelerated and addressed immediately, earlier in the process. Staff shared their preference to keep the zoning bylaw update as one document, and yet here we are basically voting on accelerating one part.
“So, expanding shelter permission does not serve or advance the City’s Housing First policy. Perhaps my sensitivity to the issue is heightened, but we saw what happens when things are rushed with Sprung Structure. The initial location selection, procurement, lack of public consultation, all rushed, bypassed and bungled to the point where conversation strayed far from the actual item towards questions about process and public trust.
“Shelter and housing, as a whole, is and has been truly an important topic of conversation that we seem to be destined to muddel again on the basis of bad process, to bring the item forward by nine months or so. This is, indeed, a half baked item, to use my colleague’s term there. I will be voting against it and will be asking for a recorded vote.”
This transcript is courtesy of the city-wide community group Your Applewood Acres (And Beyond) Neighbours
For You:
There’s A Homelessness Emergency: TROSTER
SHELTERS: Public Consultations Demanded By Law: BENN
Bring Good Baseball To Ottawa, Your Worship
Big Media Dodge Huge Shelter Story
City Badly Misses Housing Targets: STANKOVIC
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– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
It sounds like the workload on staff was inflicted on them by council. The solution, as pointed out by Barrhaven East Councillor Wilson Lo is simple. Remove the duplication of effort created by council. The duplication being accelerating a subset of zoning by-laws by a few months, rather than leave that subset in the omnibus zoning changes scheduled for council review later this year.
Very simply put, council created the problem and council has the power to remove the problem. That would require that council acknowledge what Councillor Lo has pointed out, but council’s lack of humility is the major impediment.
As I noted a couple of days ago, most people don’t know what they don’t know while using politicians as my prime example. I’d like to take a moment to thank Ariel Troster for stepping forth and being this week’s pin-up girl (or maybe more to her liking, pinup-person).