5.11.2009

Downtown Plan Discussion Postponed


Wednesday's meeting of the Regina Planning Commission to discuss the Downtown Neighbourhood Plan has been canceled. Discussion of the plan will be postponed to some yet to be determined date.

From what I've heard, this probably has more to do with the practice of circulating city reports on the Friday before their discussion on the following Wednesday (when RPC meetings traditionally occur). The Downtown Plan is a huge document and some stakeholders feel they need more time to plow through it.

Fair enough. Still, one wonders who these stakeholders are who've expressed a need for more time to review the document and provide comments. I know that it's been a complaint among some in the community that they aren't given enough time to examine the reports that affect them. If, by having the Downtown Plan held up, the message gets through to city admin that community members, councillors and anyone affected by city decisions need more lead time before engaging in official discussion of reports, well then that's great.

2 comments:

observer said...

i agree paul.

council is like its own little clique - agendas appear on regina.ca on fridays, but if you want to present befroe council on the monday after, you have lodge your presentation with city clerks on the thursday

Paul Dechene said...

Yeah, it's really annoying and I'm stunned this is something that hasn't been fixed yet.

Still, in this case, I'm thinking: "What? You thought they'd do it differently this time?" I mean, everybody following the process -- myself included -- knew this was coming up and would play out the traditional way: report out on friday, RPC on Wednesday, council meeting two weeks later. It sucks, but it's hardly a shock. You'd think if it was going to be a problem for some people, they could have complained about it two weeks ago so that consideration of the report could have been scheduled later, the RPC May schedule wouldn't have been cleared and the committee could have considered some of the other very important planning issues, and the city wouldn't have had to pay for a trip to Regina by Urban One (they're in town right now, btw, powerpoint presentation in hand).

As it stands, it looks like it won't be until June before the Downtown Plan goes before RPC.