Airport Schmozzle: Former Council To Blame: BENN
To be or not to be. That is the question for the CIP.
Let’s start with what a CIP is, and what it is not.
CIP is an anacronym for Community Improvement Plan. Each word matters. What is a community? How does the proposed project improve the community? Is it really a plan, something with specific measurable outcomes, or is it just another city hall “plan”, something that is more like an amorphous vision statement with no measurable outcomes? Just words on paper with some colourful images? Back to that later.
A CIP, as structured in Ottawa, is a reduction in future property taxes. A set amount for a set period. It does not take the form of a payment by the city to reduce the capital expenditures to be made by the developer.
Not all CIPs are equal. As former mayor Larry O’Brien states in column published earlier this week in the Citizen, his administration brought in a “brownfields CIP”. The objective was to provide an incentive to a developer to convert an abandoned, contaminated site into something useful. I can think of two such sites, one a successful conversion, the other remains on the books as a brownfield.
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A number of years ago there was an “oil-tank farm” on southside of West Hunt Club Drive, between Prince of Wales Drive and Merivale Road. The tanks were removed, but the land remained contaminated. Today there is a retail big box complex on the site. It is my understanding that this re-development of contaminated land was enhanced with a brownfield CIP grant. Others can discuss whether big-box complexes are an improvement to a community. Does a section of roadway that is populated by an array of automobile dealerships, big-box retail complexes and the remaining oil tank farm constitute a community?
The other brownfield land that comes to mind is LeBreton Flats. For years the city used this site to dump snow. Snow that was contaminated with vehicle exhaust (lead, carbon) and road salt. Back before the turn of the previous century, LeBreton Flats hosted some primary manufacturing, with the underlying soil absorbing all manner of contaminants. Could the prospective owners of the Ottawa Senators apply for a brownfield CIP grant should they decide to build a new event centre on LeBreton Flats? How will that sit with the current mayor and council?
Next up. The standard, run of the mill, CIP. The one that the owners of the Mark Motors real estate and automotive sales group leveraged to reduce the operating costs of their new Porsche dealership. The dealership that is but a few blocks away from the existing Porsche dealership.
The concept that the area around the intersection of St. Laurent Boulevard and Montreal Road is a community is realistic. Lots of residences, some single family, some mid-density and a small forest of high rises, are in the vicinity. An array of smaller retailers, some street front, some in plazas, are located along the major arteries.
Is a two-storey automobile dealership replacing a single-storey auto dealership, adjacent to another two-storey car dealership, just down St. Laurent Boulevard from a whole bunch of other automobile dealerships an improvement? How does that enhance the community? How, as in what measurable outcome will it achieve?
On to the ill-fated Germain/Alt Hotel project at the airport. Is the airport and its surrounding lands a community? A community as was contemplated, or not contemplated, when the previous council approved the concept? Is the addition of another hotel near the airport an improvement? What are the measurable outcomes of this “plan”? Seriously. Will the addition of a hotel cause Transport Canada to change its policy, the one that limits which airports can host trans-Atlantic flights? Are we supposed to believe that in the event that Transport Canada wakes up and finds out that the pandemic is sort of over, that airlines will reintroduce trans-Atlantic flights to Ottawa, rather than continue to maximize their flight capacity on aircraft leaving Montreal and Toronto?
Which takes me to what should be done. Council needs to instruct staff to define each word in the phrase Community Improvement Plan. And by define that is to define it in a manner consistent with what council has in mind. To do this successfully, council needs to have a clear vision of what it is trying to accomplish.
What constitutes a community? Should it be limited to predominantly residential areas, or does it include predominantly commercial or retail sections of the city?
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What constitutes an improvement? Does adding more of the same (see Porsche dealership) equate to an improvement? Really? How? Perhaps council could give some guidance on what they want to encourage, such as providing an incentive to convert a derelict property into a grocery store, the first one in the community. Something that might even be considered supportive of that wonderful cliché that is the 15-minute neighbourhood. While it is unlikely to be the first time one policy supports another in the history of Ottawa, it would represent something unique to the last more than decade of municipal governance.
What constitutes a plan? Shouldn’t there be measurable outcomes, such as a business not currently available, such as the aforementioned grocery store. Or an event centre that draws people from “away” into the community, People who will partake of nearby retailers, restaurants. People who may decide that this is a community in which they would like to live.
So councillors. Having rejected the Germain/Alt Hotel CIP application, primarily for political reasons, the onus is on you to give staff far clearer guidance on what you want to accomplish with CIPs. If you can’t be bothered to put that much thought into it, then just cancel the programs and congratulate yourselves on having saved the city the cost of the staff that administered a program that was destined to fail. Not because of poor decisions by staff. No. A failure due to inadequate thought by the previous council.
Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.
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Even though the municipal authority for doing CIPs comes from the Ontario Planning Act as does zoning for example, unlike re-zoning applications, grant applications in CIP designated communities do not require public consultation. The City typically may talk to BIA members such as in the case of the Porsche project / Vanier BIA but the community of Vanier was largely opposed to it. It’s not even clear that City staff consulted with the other 3 existing hotels that also lease property from the Airport Authority.
Dan, it has long been my experience (more than three decades now) of dealing with city staff on community matters that they don’t want our input. They consult the community when required, with the key word being required. When not required to consult the community, the cynic in me thinks that their attitude is “Why bother wasting our time. It is not like anything the community tells us will affect our predetermined position.”
p.s. To the councillors and city staff who read this: I am more than willing to be proven wrong.
Good point, Ron.
That’s been my experience, too. And Happy Town News shields them by using email to respond to questions which allow no follow up.
Also my experience at times with staff has been at best dismissive. Where is Merv Beckstead when we need him.
Merv cared about the city and its people. Overall Ron, most senior city staffers don’t give a crap about people.
They do like their little empires and tell us what is best for us.
Stephen Lewis said it best: “If you want to know what is best for a neighbourhood, ask the people in the neighbourhood.”
The current model of city staff essentially says: “If you want to know what is best for your neighbourhood, we’ll tell you and you’ll like it.”
cheers
kgray
The irony I guess is that they call it COMMUNITY Improvement Plans when the “community” is actually left out. Jane Jacobs would not have
been impressed. The same thing about 15 minute neighbourhoods, missing middle housing, urban transects etc. All top-down concepts imposed by planners – remember the short-lived Gold Belt?
COMMUNITY meaning:
a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.
City Hall is its own community looking out for the better good of “Themselves”.
Dan:
I don’t remember the Gold Belt?
What was that?
cheers
kgray