Burlington citizens denied real input

Burlington’s deputy city manager repeats the city’s well-worn message they have been working on the Official Plan for the last seven years. What she forgets to mention is the downtown precinct plan details were added to the Official Plan only in November 2017. The downtown was originally outside the scope of changes, but was then fast-tracked, with council rushing the downtown plan adoption three months later.

The plan downplayed the proposed 27 towers for the downtown; instead it was packaged with stock Grow Bold slogans and misleading statistics that only 5 per cent of the city would be affected, which has proven not to be true. Though the deputy city manager did not repeat this statistic in her opinion piece, how many residents mistakenly believe their neighbourhood is protected?

City staff have an essential role to play, providing unprejudiced advice and recommendations, so council makes the best possible decision on behalf of its residents. However, Burlington’s bureaucrats strayed well beyond this impartiality when they used taxpayer funds to promote their plans through YouTube, Facebook and in Tim Hortons in-store video ads — before council approval. Ad promotion is not “engagement.”

As Jim Young said, citizens did not have meaningful input. Though the clear majority of residents voiced their opposition to the plan, council disregarded the will of the people, instead deferring to the will of staff.

Pete Ward, Burlington