Devil’s In The ByWard Market Details: JONES

Hello city hall.

Taxpayer calling here. Just like to get some advice. Can you explain – please – the difference between “policy,” “program” and “plan”?

Now this being a federal government town, we are pretty sure we get the “program” thing. Like National Defence is a program. Health care is a program. They’re high level. Big dollars. Long time in development. Now part of the fabric of government.

Now what goes on at the municipal level doesn’t really reach that august level. Most of the Ottawa City Hall work is in the planning and delivery domain – as in planning and managing the city road network, the sewer and water systems and park maintenance. Not to say these are not important activities – they are. But they’re operational and for the most part – transactional.

But over and above those activities there are policies and there are general plans. These are managerial and directional statements that have some degree of life expectancy and as a consequence, are not modified at a whim. Policies and plans govern or guide specific operations and are important. Consequently city officials don’t normally toss around the term “policy” without good reason. But there are, apparently, exceptions.

The March 14 Citizen conveys an official city announcement of “MAJOR POLICY REPORT.” Well that got our attention. An upcoming meeting of a city committee will, wait for it, consider “road modifications.” As our interest is at the policy and plan level, attending a changing of a road discussion is not something we’re going to book into our already stuffed calendar. So maybe the city is a little unclear on what this policy thing is. We shall see.

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This same week we are hearing rumblings and bumblings around spending $200 million for do something with the ByWard Market. Now that is interesting – and apparently significant. A fifth of a billion dollars gets our attention. Now do we really know much – or anything about what is planned? Well, not a whole lot. What ideas and initiatives were kicked around in both high and lower circles at city hall? What was decided?

So we made a search. Looking for city policy and planning statements about the Market area. Hmmmmmm? You know, along the lines of what is envisioned at conceptual and real levels. What things will look like when that work is done. How the area and the city will benefit in material ways from this expenditure. What assurances the city has that spending a very large amount of money will ensure ByWard Market area vitality and bring people back. There just has to be a risk analysis backing up this grand enterprise. But for some reason, can’t seem to find documents with those headings anywhere.

And it would also be good if city hall could share the comparative analysis they’ve done of similar initiatives that have been undertaken in Canadian cities. It would be enlightening to see how such projects were funded, managed and delivered. And what the successes and failures were; things the City must do and things the City must not do.

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And the bottom line interests us – whether the expense and effort have been borne out in other cities. We’d like to see some reference to the Halifax Waterfront, Old Montreal, Granville Island, Toronto’s St. Lawrence neighbourhood. And any others that were reviewed by the city.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Let’s re-visit the beginnings. Let’s review the results of the city-wide survey that was done to assess citizen support for this massive restoration, renovation and development initiative. What did Ottawans say, in general and in particular about this project, the plans, and the costs? And to round out our understanding, we really should read – carefully –  the city council policy decision and general plan that set this project underway and are providing overall guidance.

We’re sure these items exist. It’s just that our files do have gaps. Perhaps the mayor, or a member of council or staff could forward those materials to us so we could study them? Standing by.

D.G. Jones was a senior municipal manager and federal government executive.

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