Councillors withdrawing FOI request
A trio of St. Catharines councillors who filed Freedom of Information requests with the city will be allowed to see a consultant’s report they were previously denied viewing.
Port Dalhousie Coun. Carlos Garcia, one of the councillors who filed the request in January, said he was told Friday by city staff they’ll share the Port Dalhousie Secondary Plan and Heritage Conservation District Plan with all of council confidentially.
“We made progress anyway,” said Garcia, who would still like the document to be public. “It’s a first step to at least see them, which we’ve been fighting for.”
Garcia, Port Dalhousie Coun Bruce Williamson and St. George’s Coun. Mike Britton jointly filed the FOI request on Jan. 24 after city staff wouldn’t let them see the first draft of a plan submitted by consulting firm Macaulay Shiomi Howson Ltd in 2016.
Council ordered a secondary plan in April 2015 to guide development in the area by providing land-use policies, such as maximum building heights.
It hired Macaulay Shiomi Howson in April 2016 to create a plan for the area that encompassed the Union Waterfront site, commercial core and surrounding harbour. The plan, for more than $125,000, would address issues such as heritage conservation, building heights and parking.
When council still hadn’t seen anything by November 2017, it passed a motion directing staff to submit the plan to council by January.
Council was given the December 2017 draft report. During a presentation by the consultants on Jan. 15 though, council learned the original draft report was submitted to city staff back in November 2016. Several revisions were made at the request of city staff over the following year.
Garcia, Williamson and Britton want to see the consultants “unvarnished” recommendations in the original draft report before changes were made at the request of staff.
Now that they’ve been told they’ll see the report, Garcia said they are withdrawing the FOI request.
Garcia said they were all reluctant to do so because they believe the documents should be available to the public as they were paid with taxpayer dollars.
But he said the alternative was to be tied up through an FOI appeals process for weeks which would defeat the whole purpose of the request.
Garcia said council needs to see what the consultants originally recommended before they approve a final version of the plan. He said it’s a critical piece for how council looks at all of the current development proposals in Port Dalhousie together.
“At least this way we get to see them and hopefully, as decisions are made, this will come out and the public will be able to understand” he said.