Don’t fret, your new community plan ‘exceptional’

The middle of a global pandemic that has upended society seems an odd time for a city to chart its course for the next decade.

But that’s exactly what Saskatoon city council is poised to do tonight.

City hall is staging its first public hearing since the COVID-19 pandemic prompted closures and restrictions throughout Saskatchewan this evening, and the city’s official community plan is on the agenda.

What is the official community plan, you ask? And why is it so urgent that it needs to be passed during a pandemic?

The official community plan serves as a city’s vision or direction and it’s required by the province.

You can view this two different ways: That such a document is just a collection of aspirational nonsense, or that it’s an essential guide for a city’s development.

City hall’s administration seems to regard it as the latter, so much so that it commissioned a bizarre one-minute video filled with animation and popping sound effects to promote the revised document.

“(The OCP) is like a master plan for the city, guiding all aspects of how we grow and develop,” the voice in the video gushes. “And ours will be exceptional!”

That sounds like it ranks as very important. Saskatoon’s version was approved in 1998 and updated in 2009.

So what’s in this revised version, which, by the way, is 134 pages? The video fails to say, only suggesting that many people were consulted as part of separate initiatives that have been wrapped into the plan.

Those initiatives include Saskatoon Speaks, a decade-old effort to engage the city on its future vision that claims 7,000 to 10,000 participants.

The information page on the city’s website also offers no clue about what has been updated. Why it needs to be considered now remains unclear.

While many people have lots of time during the pandemic to peruse a 134-page document vital to the city’s future, many more will not.

Many are busier than ever, trying to adapt to the severe restrictions to prevent the pandemic’s spread. Others are preparing for the various stages of Saskatchewan’s reopening plan.

Call a store owner in the throes of trying to save his or her business and see if they’ve read the plan.

The public hearing at which this plan will be considered is intended to offer a chance for anyone to walk into the council chamber and offer an opinion, without the need to make an appointment.

With city hall shuttered and meetings online, that sort of unbridled input, the kind that exists rarely outside municipal government, is impossible now.

Instead, people are asked to fill out a form online and submit a request to speak. That’s fine for the tech savvy who are comfortable with navigating the online realm, but introducing any new system is bound to come with hiccups.

And what about everyone else? Video conferencing has revealed that many struggle with the new virtual landscape.

This approach seems shaky for regular items on the public hearing agenda, and earthquake-level shaky for passing a document like the official community plan.

A letter from the municipal planning commission, a citizens’ panel that advises city council, backs approval of the plan, but notes that concerns about passing it during the pandemic were raised at its April meeting.

A citizen has written to council to suggest revisions to the plan with the same concern. So what’s in the plan?

One revision is a shiny new goal of 50 per cent infill development. That seems sensible, since city hall never came close to its previous 25 per cent target — kind of like a high jumper who can’t clear two metres moving the bar to three metres.

Some of the controversial infill projects approved during this council’s term have required a revision to the prevailing official community plan. So this document does affect people and neighbourhoods.

City hall can pretend its new virtual approach allows for real engagement by residents, but any approval right now would be taking place literally and figuratively behind closed doors.