Dear Editor,
I am compelled to write one last time to the Undercurrent to provide a professional planner’s perspective on the docks at Cape Roger.
First, permit me to provide some background: I have been a professional land use planner for 40 years; I am a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners; one of Canada’s largest land developers, Genstar, was a long-time client; in 2009/10, I was the ‘community planner’ for our current Official Community Plan (OCP). Many years ago, I was Chief Planner for Parks Canada.
The latter is an important part of the story here because in the early days of Cape Roger conversations (mid ’90s), I approached the then Vancouver office of Parks Canada and asked about any knowledge Parks Canada had about land. I was told that, in fact, Parks Canada had examined the underwater area off the Cape for a potential underwater park (similar to that off the Bruce Peninsula) and that the organisation believed it had significant merit. Let there be no doubt, the foreshore and offshore waters of Cape Roger are important biological communities (confirmed recently through additional environmental work).
Developers need to be held accountable to meet OCP expectations. Good development involves a strong commitment to community dialogue before approvals are sought (thank you John Reid). Cape Roger has suffered through challenging processes and unrealistic expectations, including notionally upwards of 1,000 units. That history is an unfortunate reality that has informed community perspectives.
I commend John Sbragia for his understanding of the important role that OCPs play in guiding a community forward: literally the road map for a community to manage itself into the future. Bowen’s OCP was developed with significant and widespread community input. That work has been documented elsewhere. But, let me be clear, as an award-winning professional planner, I state categorically and with pride that, in 2009, our OCP Update was one of the most rigorous and thorough OCP Update processes completed in the province. It is truly a community document. It sets out direction for the community and, most importantly, on the need to protect sensitive upland, shoreline, foreshore and off-shore ecological features (see: Section 2.9 Marine Resources/Foreshores: Objective 35, 36, and 38 and related Policies 73, 76, 77 and 79 as well as Section 2.11 Cape Roger Curtis Shoreline Objective 40 and Section 3.46 Cape Roger Curtis Lands Policy 152). Yes, there is clear direction for the Cape in the community approved and adopted OCP. John Sbragia has got it right.
The proposed docks (and in my view the existing dock[s]) fail that OCP ‘test’. While the land owners at Cape Roger and the developer may wish it were different, the OCP does provide the framework for ensuring that the Cape foreshore and offshore are protected for public and environmental benefit. Private land ownership does not trump public good. This is not the United Sates where property rights are enshrined in the constitution (this is a key notion: too often in my experience as a planner, Canadians approach land rights as if we are Americans: obviously we are not and have our own more muted sense of property rights [as confirmed by our legal system]). So, Bowen, please reflect upon the OCP and what it has to say. Until it is amended, it is our legal binding document that must guide all land (and where applicable marine) use decisions.
Dave Witty PhD, MRAIC, FCIP, RPP
