Stephanson Juggles The Org Chart

It is actually a good thing to split Economic Development from Planning except of course the City bungled it. Often in the past, Economic Development would be proposing something and Planning would have to approve it. The former department was in partnership with developers and then responsible for approving the zoning. Having both in the same department meant that senior managers had a clear conflict and could not make objective decisions. By splitting the two functions, at least on paper, one department, Economic Development, could propose a development and it is now a totally separate department, Planning, and Senior Manager who has to approve it. That being said, the most blatant and largest project, Lansdowne which was based on how much up-zoning was required to provide a certain level of taxation to support the project, is still under Planning. Trust the City to do its typical half-assed job.