Planning department’s diversity experiment ends with mixed reviews
Members of the citizen panel say the experience was ‘amazing’ despite some negative feedback
Calling all wannabe urban planners and civic champions — Toronto’s planning department wants your advice.
This week 10,000 letters were randomly sent out across the city soliciting regular folks interested in studying and informing municipal planning policy and projects on the Toronto Planning Review Panel, which is wrapping up its first-ever experiment in diverse citizen engage- ment, to mixed reviews.
Two years after they were recruited, the original 28 panellists will meet for the last time next Saturday and the search is already on for the next batch of volunteers to take up the mantle in January.
Their input has helped make over the city’s ugly signage for development proposals and prompted heritage preservation services to better consider the histories of under-represented people in less affluent neighbourhoods, among other things. And they had to win a civic lottery to do it.
The panellists were randomly selected in 2015 out of about 500 willing Torontonians who had responded to 12,000 letters seeking volunteers who reflect the city’s diverse population and neighbourhoods. The goal in part was to diversify the sort of input the planning department was getting through traditional consultation meetings — typically that of older, white male property owners.
(In some cases the letters are targeted to certain neighbourhoods and communities, such as Indigenous groups, in order to recruit from as wide a range of voices as possible.)
Eventually 32 people will be picked for the second term, which will run for 16 Saturdays over the next two years.
Before joining the panel, Jihan Abrahim said she wasn’t engaged in local politics despite it being ingrained in everyday living where she grew up, in Guyana. Now, she’s intrigued and says she’ll stay involved in decisions that impact the Etobicoke neighbourhood where she’s lived for 11 years.
“I’ve never had that chance to learn about this city or help shape this city, so when I got the invite I was really excited,” she said. “I could start giving back on something that makes a difference. It made me feel more like this is home (and) we are working towards making it better.”
But some of the panellists were frustrated at the perceived slow pace and politicking behind municipal decision-making.
Mark Richardson, an open data advocate who makes regular deputations at city hall, said the panel was able to come to consensus relatively quickly on so-called controversial files. For instance, they gave input on the city’s townhouse and lowrise apartment design guidelines that Richardson said has moved like molasses through city hall.
“We provided (feedback) in an impartial way, representative of the whole city and chosen at random, almost like a jury. That impartial feedback came back with some very positive ideas that we could all agree on (and) defend if we were discussing any part of the city,” Richardson said.
“Like with everything, it’s great to say we want to engage the public in a new and better way, but when that engagement brushes up against entrenched interests at city hall, then they don’t seem to be as excited by the feedback, or as willing to act upon the feedback.”
Daniel Fusca, co-ordinator of stakeholder engagement and special projects in the city’s planning division, acknowledged Richardson’s disappointment.
“Maybe they expected to have more influence on projects,” Fusca said. “It’s not privileged in any way over any other form of consultation. It’s just another way for us to get a more diverse set of voices contributing to our projects.”
On the guidelines, Fusca said the panel’s recommendation to incorporate safety into environmental design did make its way into the draft version.
Overall, Fusca considers the unique experiment a success and one that provided city staffers input they may not have otherwise heard.
“The environment that exists at the panel is very different from any kind of public consultation,” he said. “It’s much more positive. They’re very curious, they ask lots of good questions. They want to understand a project really well and they want to understand how they can make it better . . . There’s none of the combative nature that exists at a lot of public consultations.”
Abrahim said it was an “amazing experience” but was briefly marred by backlash she received on social media after a news report was published about the panel last year, around its one-year anniversary.
It underscored the fact that in 2014, the planning department’s data suggested it wasn’t getting enough input from certain groups, especially young people, renters and newcomers.
The story also featured an image of Abrahim, and so she said she received angry messages from people on social media linking her to the statistic, and accusing her of being racist against white, male property owners — which is who the planning department said it typically heard from. One person told Abrahim to “return to your own land.”
She and her fellow panellists were upset, but Abrahim said it didn’t dampen her desire to participate.
“I’ve never felt that much hatred from people in Toronto, especially when I’m there volunteering, trying to make the city a better place,” she said.
Eventually, she ignored the messages.
“I’m just happy that I’m able now to have a say and learn about the city and be involved,” she said.