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Information is power.

Information that is hoarded or withheld, without good reason, or only released after an unconscionable delay, can determine outcomes.

Nowhere is this more true than in the rarefied world of urban planning with its hierarchies of overlapping plans and strategies. It is all made to appear much more complex than it is.

For me, Glenway stands as a classic example of how local residents were royally stitched up by their own municipality and its agents. Key information was never put on the table.

We urgently need to demystify “planning” and start sharing more widely the information that planners collect and use to inform their decisions and recommendations. Like the rest of us, councillors are often kept in the dark, bamboozled by planning-babble, but they have the power to change things – if they so choose.

Of course, the usual caveats and health warnings apply. Anything that identifies individuals is out-of-bounds. Data must be aggregated to guarantee anonymity.

Does planning have to be this complex? 

Finding out what is happening locally means consulting a multiplicity of documents. There is no one document that will tell you what you need to know. Complexity, it seems, is built into the system. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to understand.

mapyourproperty.com is a new app that should make it easier to find basic information about any property in Newmarket (and beyond). The map uses overlays showing how provincial, regional and local official plans impact on any given property. The site is still under construction and will be available free of charge to non profit organisations. Professional firms, developers and the like will be expected to pay.

Open data catalogues

We can access open data catalogues at Federal and Provincial level.

The Federal Government’s open data portal is the gateway to over 240,000 data sets. Many of these are related to the physical environment although there is stuff there that informs social policy.

The Provincial Government toots its open-data horn and asks for suggestions on the kind of data sets that should be put out there. Its catalogue of open datasets needs to be massively expanded.

I don’t know the full range of information the Province collects – but we are told the “sunshine list” is the most popular. But why not list all the data-sets –closed and open – indicating why the closed ones are so classified? In many cases the answers will be blindingly obvious but for others, not so.

Toronto strikes up a conversation with local people

Toronto is also keen on open data and has a number of interesting sites aimed at striking up a conversation with residents.

The ward profiles allow readers to paint a picture of their neighbourhood based on a stack of striking economic and demographic data. (In his first election campaign, my own councillor, Tom Hempen,  wanted ward 4 to get "its fair share". He was, I recall, talking about a splash pad. But detailed ward profiles would help us identify priority areas.)

York Region, too, advertises its open data offering. But it needs to be more proactive.

In Newmarket, we should have a list of data collected – both open and closed - and an invitation to add further data-sets.

A commitment to open data presents a terrific opportunity for our secretive Mayor Tony Van Bynen to move beyond the sound bite.

He can surprise us all by enthusiastically embracing open data as he marches forward with his "ground breaking broadband network".

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Details

The kerfuffle over the 100 new jobs in Newmarket isn’t going away any time soon.

Mayor Tony Van Bynen and Regional Councillor John Taylor have both asked Newmarket staff to check and validate York Region's figures and report back.

If the “100 jobs” figure is accurate that’s bad news for Newmarket.

If it is inaccurate it is also bad news but in a different way.

The York Region Employment and Industry Report 2014 is compiled “with the assistance of local municipalities” and it describes the process for collecting and analysing the data. The Region was unable to contact 19% of businesses and 1% chose not to participate - but they make assumptions. It will be interesting to see how Newmarket staff mark the work of their colleagues at York Region. I suspect the caravan will silently move on and we shall hear no more about it.

Working for peanuts

The report makes a passing reference to precarious work. It detects a continuing shift away from full-time work.

“Over the past five years, there has been a shift in the shares of employment types with full-time employment decreasing from 75.6% to 73.5%, part-time employment decreasing from 19.9% to 19.0% and contract/seasonal employment increasing from 4.6% to 7.5%. The decrease in full-time employment can likely be attributed to the increase in retail/personal services jobs which are typically population-based and primarily generate part-time and seasonal/contract positions. Overall, sustained strength in full-time employment continues to bode well for York Region, since these positions normally provide increased stability, income, and opportunities for growth.”

The Employment and Industry Report 2014 tells us that over a quarter of people employed in York Region (27.3%) work in retail/personal services - which includes restaurants and fast food joints.

And of the 139,476 jobs in the sector, 43.5% are in retailing and 24% in accommodation and food.

This is a sector that typically pays low wages. The CIBC told us last week that Canadian job quality has sunk to a record low and “low paying jobs are becoming the norm”.

Perhaps next year’s report will tell us how much of Newmarket’s employment is precarious and doesn’t offer the pension and other benefits we used to take for granted. And how many people are scraping by on the minimum wage.

York Regional Expansion Building

The great debate on whether to locate the so-called "Region Administrative Annex Expansion Building" at the junction of Yonge Street and Highway 7 continues this Thursday (12 March 2015) at York Region's Committee of the Whole. It is currently planned to go next to the Region's Administrative HQ in Newmarket.

 

Details

After today’s formal blessing by the Region of York, Newmarket’s Urban Centres Secondary Plan becomes a revered document. The last minute additions and deletions will soon be forgotten and the clean text will have impressive new authority.

It will be folded into the Town’s Official Plan and pored over for years to come by lawyers, planners, developers and, perhaps even, by OMB adjudicators.

The Region’s Director of Community Planning, Karen Whitney, took councillors through the highlights. Looking on were Rick Nethery, Jason Unger, and the Plan’s midwife, Marion Plaunt, who brought it into the world after much labour.

His Worship the Mayor, Tony Van Bynen, acknowledges their presence as a feudal superior would in late medieval times:

“You have all done yeoman’s work in producing outstanding work for our community.”

John Taylor says he is “very, very happy with the outcome”.

Taylor then gently raises the issue of Upper Canada Mall as a “special study area” and its relationship with the mobility hub at Yonge and Davis.

Ms Whitney, who seems slightly bewildered, says they can take a “deep dive” into the UCM issue, suggesting they can study it in greater detail. (This is what planners say when they don’t have an answer immediately to hand.)

Newmarket has, in effect, contracted out responsibility for the Regional Shopping Centre Master Plan to the owners, Oxford Properties who will, presumably, lead the process with the Town, Region, Metrolinx and others tagging along behind as “partners”.

According to the schedules, the GO Bus Terminal, across the road from the Mall at Davis Drive West, does not fall within the study area.

In the planning world where colourful schedules and lines on maps are accorded huge significance by planning lawyers and the OMB, we are assured by staff, in this case, it doesn’t matter.

We are told the Regional Shopping Centre Study Area has been elevated into a Mobility Hub Study (as a result of late amendments to the text of the Secondary Plan in June 2014).

I think we should see a timetable and a work plan.

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Details

The figures are stark and, to my mind, unbelievable.

York Region’s Committee of the Whole is told today that employment in York Region grew by 77,000 between 2009 and 2014 – and Newmarket’s contribution was a pitiful 100. 

Staff presented the Region’s Economic and Industry Report 2014 showing Newmarket treading water for five years while Aurora, for example, chalked up an impressive additional 5,700 jobs. (Click on documents in the panel top left, navigate to York Region and open “York Region Total Employment by Municipality 2009-2014)

Disbelief as Newmarket gets the wooden spoon

Taylor shakes his head in disbelief. The police HQ moved to Aurora and that cost jobs but he doesn’t believe the figures. Neither do I. He wants the report to be referred to Newmarket staff to look into. Taylor is concerned about inaccuracies as inward investment decisions are often influenced by perceptions of the local economy and how strong it is.

The Mayor, too, is not a happy bunny. Secrecy is in his banker’s DNA. He wants to know if copies of the report are in the hands of the public!  He doesn't want this suspect information leaking out. He is told it is not on the Region's website. 

He wants the figures re-examined. They don’t add up.

Another councillor expresses concerns about employment in agriculture – which is based on a 9% return on a questionnaire sent out in a busy month for farmers. I worry about the methodology that throws up these figures.

Open data

As I am listening to these exchanges, it occurs to me we need more open data.

There is a lot of really historic stuff on York Region’s website but we need access to the data (and the algorithms) that informs policy making now – not ten years ago. York Region believes it is doing its bit. But I am sure it - and Newmarket - can do more.

The question is this. Is there a public harm in releasing data that informs policy making or is there a public good?

If there is no public harm (definition needed) then put it out there.

I shall return to open data and its virtues tomorrow.

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Details

Tomorrow is the big day when York Region gives its imprimatur to Newmarket’s Urban Centres Secondary Plan.

Seems to me there is a lot of smoke and mirrors in the world of planning. Everything is not quite as it appears at first glance.

Take the Plan’s Schedule 6, for example. It still has chunks of Glenway appearing in a light green colour denoting Natural Heritage Parks and Open Space (Outside of Secondary Plan Area). I realize planning moves at a glacial pace (when it suits) but we have known for a year that much of this open space is to be built over. Shouldn’t this be recorded in some way?

Future GO Rail Station

And I see on Schedules 3, 4, 5 and 6 the site of the “Future GO Transit Station” (sometimes referred to as the Future GO Rail Station). The unwary reader might believe that a GO Rail Station is to be built there at some point in the future.

Hold on! Not so fast!

If we go to the Newmarket Official Plan (Office consolidation September 2014) we learn:

The location of the “Conceptual Future Rail Station” at Mulock Drive is not intended to be specific and the identification of the final location will be subject to the applicable process and will not require an amendment to this Plan (OPA#7, By-law 2012-42).

So why not say in the Secondary Plan: “Conceptual Future GO Rail Station”?

We learned from Greg Percy’s presentation to the Metrolinx Board yesterday (3 March 2015) that one new station is being penciled in on the Barrie corridor – Downsview Park. No sign as yet of one at Mulock Drive. The knowledgeable Mr Percy also tells us that a new GO Rail Station costs between $25-$50 million, excluding land costs.

Mobility Hubs

The text of the Secondary Plan spells out the policies but these are complemented by colourful schedules, maps and plans, used to help us better understand what the authors have in mind.

So why did Newmarket planners reject a clear recommendation from Metrolinx in April 2014 to detail the study area for the anchor hub at Yonge and Davis?

“The four plans in Schedules 3 (land use), 4 (height and density), 5 (street network) and 6 (parks, open space and natural heritage) identify the two Mobility Hubs within the Newmarket Urban Centres and the conceptual Mobility Hub Station Area Plan Study Area for the Newmarket GO train station. It is recommended the conceptual Mobility Hub Area Plan Study Area for the Anchor Hub at the intersection of Yonge Street and Davis Drive be detailed on the Schedules.”

Newmarket Councillors were told by planning staff in June 2014   

“there is not going to be a circle on the map”.

No-one asked: why not?

Maybe I’ll find out tomorrow.

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