Tribunal decision a challenge to Woolwich’s assumptions about downtown

CHARGED WITH BEING AN improvement on the provincial agency it replaced, the Environment & Land Tribunals Ontario process is supposed to be more attentive to local planning decisions. Its predecessor, the Ontario Municipal Board, was notorious for overriding municipal councils in favour of developers, no matter how bad the project was – there are plenty of (poorly policed) gravel pits and woeful condo projects to attest to that.

In the first decision under the new format to hit Woolwich, the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT) has sided with ... the developer. (To be fair, it was decided under the old OMB guidelines, considered a “legacy” hearing.)

In this case, however, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The case involves a proposed expansion of the Foodland plaza in Elmira’s south end. Skyline Retail Real Estate Holdings has been looking to add more offerings at the location, only to be rebuffed by the township. It was the same response previous owner Sobeys Capital Inc. got from Woolwich.

The township’s objections centre on protecting downtown Elmira, based on the assumption that new retail should be funneled into the core. Even if you agree with the premise – and it’s a tough sell – there’s the issue of accommodating the changing nature of retail in the core of Elmira, or any other municipality’s downtown area, for that matter.

As the tribunal’s report indicates, development at the Foodland site requires a minimum floor space of 7,500 square feet, and there are precious few suitable locations in downtown Elmira for retail space that size, let alone for the much larger footprint of today’s big box stores.

The township’s argument is not new, nor is it alone in voicing it. Municipalities generally fret over their downtown areas, some with more cause than others. A downward trend is the norm across the continent. Woolwich has heard this argument in relation to grocery stores – planners would still prefer to see a supermarket in the core rather than the way things have evolved – and with the power centre in St. Jacobs, over which there was handwringing about the impact on the cores of both Elmira and Waterloo, with varying amounts of credibility.

With this latest development there is concern, of course, about the potential impact on the downtown core. There will be one, just as the growth of shopping malls and, later, big box developments undoubtedly had an impact on cities everywhere – you need look no further than our neighbours Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo.

The reality is, however, that we want something different in our shopping habits. Malls, with dozens or hundreds of stores under one roof and plenty of parking, offer decided advantages, not the least of which is shelter from the weather. And, in recent years, the superstore phenomenon has caught fire. You can bet that plenty of people from Elmira, not to mention the rest of Woolwich and Wellesley townships, do their shopping at those facilities in the aforementioned cities.

Space considerations alone preclude those kinds of shopping experiences from being offered in downtown cores – in Elmira’s case, it’s easy to look around and see that big-box retail, for instance, would find no home there. Yet most of us are voting with our dollars to shop at those other spots ... when we’re not shopping online, a much more recent threat to traditional bricks-andmortar retail, and not just in downtowns.

By bringing some of that flavour to Elmira’s south end there is an opportunity to keep some of that trade in this community, as developers have reiterated. That doesn’t alleviate the pressures seen on the downtowns of just about every community, but ideally the cores evolve to provide the kind of offerings that draw people there, from specialty retail to restaurants and entertainment – precisely the kind of outcome, as yet unfulfilled, that has prompted Kitchener to spend millions in its core, much of it to no avail.

Woolwich has nothing like that kind of money to spend downtown; it will be up to the private sector to make the investment. Past core reviews identified the goal: attractive, pedestrianfriendly streetscapes, including trees, green spaces, flowers, benches and trails and amenities such as restaurants are what residents want from their downtowns. Some of that has been taken on by the downtown BIA, in conjunction with a township greening strategy. Add to that this week’s announcement of $52,000 in provincial funding under the Ontario Main Street Revitalization Initiative.

The protection of downtown cores is a Woolwich priority, but a focus shared by most municipalities, at least on paper. Growth policies, for instance, often have core areas as a key player in curtailing sprawl.

On the growth and expansion front, the region has its growth management strategy in place, calling for fewer greenfield developments and more intensification in the downtown cores of the three cities, Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo. Attached to that goal is the light rail transit scheme designed to encourage public transit over private automobiles.

While the rail line may in theory eventually extend to St. Jacobs and Elmira, the intensification plan doesn’t particularly apply to the townships, where much of the residential growth is typical single-family suburban homes.

Breslau, of course, represents the most dramatic changes in the offing. With two subdivisions representing some 1,000 new homes almost built-out and hundreds of acres of land awaiting more residential and industrial development, the village is likely to be completely altered over the next two decades.

The projected growth is precisely why the town-

ship undertook the Breslau secondary plan: it will only get one shot at establishing a roadmap before things start changing. There’s also the boundary rationalization plan now under construction.

The mixed-use development proposed for the east side of Breslau is the type of project – combining residential, commercial, industrial and retail uses within walking distance of each other – that is now touted as the standard to combat the suburban sprawl that has shaped the way we live for the past five or six decades.

In that time, we’ve seen a number of changes to how we live, work and go about our business, including how we shop. Technology has vastly accelerated the change. When it comes to choosing how and where we shop, we’ve voted with our wallets. Anyone still opposed to the changes brought on by the likes of power centre development and the potential moves following the LPAT decision in Woolwich – or to the type of retail it represents – is free to make the same kind of vote.