Extra planning staff for plan approved

Citizens who want a say in how Peterborough will look in the future will get several chances to speak up, over the next several months.

The city is doing an overhaul of its Official Plan, the document that serves as a blueprint for future growth. Now council has decided to go out of its way to ask citizens to weigh in.

It’s going to cost money, though: On Monday, councillors voted a final time to spend twice what they’d budgeted for this complete update of the plan.

The idea is to spend an additional $200,000 on the update – bringing the total budget to $324,000.

That money is going to pay for extra planning staff to work on the plan – and for a series of public engagement meetings, too.

The new plan is expected complete by September, 2018 – just before the next municipal election, in October.

Two citizens spoke to council on Monday to say they wanted a robust public consultation before the Official Plan is adopted.

Michelle Collins spoke on behalf of Reimagine Peterborough, a citizens’ group formed to give the city feedback about what belongs in the revised Official Plan.

Collins said her group – and a lot of other people in Peterborough – have opinions to share about citymaking.

Coun. Diane Therrien asked Collins what kind of meeting she thinks would work best for people.

“Being creative and interactive and meeting people where they are is important,” Collins said.

She suggested giving people a chance to answer questions such as ‘What kind of Peterborough do you want to live in, 20 years from now?’ on paper, or even on video, and sharing the responses on social media.

“Not everyone is going to understand policy - but everyone is going to understand making the city better,” she said.

Bill Templeman said it’s a great idea to ask the public what they want to see, in their Official Plan.

He doesn’t think the city’s been particularly good at this, lately: public engagement on issues such as the Parkway was sorely lacking, he said.

“The confrontational mode there are battle scars on all sides,” he said. “This seems like a new direction.”

But Coun. Lesley Parnell said city council does do a good job giving people a chance to speak up on any issue. She pointed out that anyone can speak at a public council meeting – they don’t even need to register in advance with the clerk, and there’s no limit on public delegations.

“Sometimes we’ve been here until two in the morning,” she said. “We’re actually a very, very democratic city.”