Village Survey Explained
Blackwell shares thoughts
Lions Bay residents are being asked to participate in a provincially-mandated review of the Village's Official Community Plan (OCP).
The current version of the plan (downloadable HERE) was enshrined as a bylaw in 2009, with an addition to outline greenhouse gas emissions targets in 2010 and a second to clarify the Village's regional context statement in 2016. The regional context statement was updated again in 2022 to reflect the Village's rural designation.
The current reassessment of the OCP is funded by a grant and includes the cost of hiring MODUS Planning, Design & Engagement Inc., a firm specializing in assisting municipalities with the planning process.
In consultation with Village staff, MODUS held an introductory event at the beach on Canada Day, an in-person drop-in event at the Village Hall at the end of August, and is now conducting an on-line survey, available HERE.
The Watershed reached out to Chief Administrative Officer Ross Blackwell with questions about the survey:
Why complete the questionnaire rather than simply attend an event or write to Council?
All of forms of participation are valuable. The particular benefit of a questionnaire is that it asks a relatively large number of people a common set of questions. This makes it possible to identify patterns, common priorities, differing perspectives and subjects that may warrant further exploration. Workshops and individual correspondence provide different information and often allow greater depth, which is equally useful. The questionnaire is therefore not a substitute for other engagement, nor should its results be regarded as a type of “referendum”, so to speak. It is one source of information within the broader OCP process.
Why are respondents asked to consider the perspectives of other community members?
I cannot say specifically why MODUS chose to frame those particular questions as it did without asking them. From a planning perspective, however, asking people to consider circumstances beyond their own is a fairly typical engagement technique. An OCP is concerned with the community as a whole. A person's own experience is important, but so too is understanding how people perceive the needs and experiences of residents at different ages, life stages and circumstances. Those questions provide a different kind of information from simply asking, “What do you want?” Both can be useful to a community planning exercise.
Why plan to 2050 if OCPs are reviewed more frequently?
The two are not inconsistent. Community planning needs to work across different time horizons. Some matters have very long planning horizons. Infrastructure is an obvious example. Water systems, roads, drainage infrastructure, sewage collection and treatment, and other major municipal assets can remain in service for many decades, involve significant capital investment and often require planning well in advance of when the investment is actually made. Land-use patterns and environmental planning similarly have long-term consequences. Other matters are much more susceptible to change. Technology, particular service expectations, economic circumstances and community preferences may look considerably different five or ten years from now. There is little value in pretending that every issue addressed today can or should be projected with precision to 2050. That is why periodic OCP review remains important. 2050 is a planning horizon, not the lifespan of the OCP, and it is not necessarily the appropriate horizon for every issue within it.
Why ask about amenities or commercial development when there may be infrastructure constraints?
This is where it is important to distinguish between an OCP and a regulatory document such as a zoning bylaw. An OCP is fundamentally a long-range policy document. It establishes a broad vision and policy direction for the community. It is intentionally more aspirational and strategic than regulatory. A zoning bylaw, by comparison, implements land-use regulation through matters such as permitted uses, density, setbacks and other development requirements. An OCP is also not intended to anticipate and resolve every conceivable issue at a micro level. Trying to do so would produce an unwieldy document that would quickly become dated. Its purpose is to establish the broader direction and policy framework within which more detailed decisions can subsequently be made. For that reason, I would not necessarily start an OCP discussion by assuming that today's infrastructure represents an unchangeable limit on what the community could consider for its future. If the community identifies an amenity, service or form of development as desirable, the next question is what would be required to make it possible and whether that can reasonably be achieved.
Water and wastewater provide good examples. If a future direction creates additional water demand, there are potential supply options that could be investigated, including a connection to the Metro Vancouver water system, groundwater sources such as wells, or other technically viable alternatives. None of those possibilities should be interpreted as a current proposal. Each would require significant engineering, environmental, regulatory and financial investigation. Wastewater servicing is somewhat different. Where a proposed development cannot be accommodated by an existing municipal system, it would ordinarily be for the development proponent to demonstrate how the development can be appropriately serviced and to secure the necessary technical and regulatory approvals. The OCP does not therefore need to solve every future servicing question before the community can have a conversation about what it may or may not want.
Why include “increased water supply” if there is no identified new source?
For essentially the same reason. Water availability is fundamental to Lions Bay's long-term servicing and development capacity. If the community's preferred future would increase water demand, it is reasonable for the OCP process to identify that issue. That does not mean a new source has been selected or that additional supply is assured. It means that, if increased capacity becomes a long-term priority, the Municipality would need to investigate the available alternatives, including potentially Metro Vancouver water, groundwater or other options, and determine their technical, environmental and financial feasibility. This is precisely the type of infrastructure question for which a longer planning horizon can be valuable.
Is it appropriate for visitors and non-residents to complete the questionnaire?
Yes. It is quite common for community planning processes to hear from people with different relationships to a community, including residents, property owners, businesses, employees and visitors. The important consideration is knowing who is responding so that the information can be interpreted appropriately. That is one reason questionnaires typically ask respondents about their relationship to the community. The views of residents are obviously particularly important in developing Lions Bay's OCP, but input from others can also provide useful information about how the community functions and is experienced.
Are paper copies available?
Yes. Hard copies of the questionnaire are available from the Municipal Office for anyone who would prefer to complete it on paper.
There's one final point that may help put all of this in context. An OCP is not intended to be a detailed prescription for every decision the Municipality will or might make over the life of the document. It is a high-level policy framework intended to articulate where the community wants to go and to generally inform future decision-making. OCP policies are also different from the regulations contained in a zoning or other regulatory bylaw. They frequently allow Council discretion in determining if or how a broad policy objective should be pursued and how competing considerations should be balanced. At the same time, an adopted OCP is not something the Municipality can simply ignore; subsequent municipal bylaws and works undertaken by Council must be consistent with it.
The appropriate level for an OCP is therefore generally macro rather than micro: What kind of community do we want Lions Bay to be? How should it evolve? What should we protect? What challenges should we prepare for? What infrastructure might the community require over the longer term?
The more detailed questions of exactly how, when, where and at what cost a particular initiative might occur are often matters for subsequent infrastructure planning, financial planning, regulatory bylaws, development applications and future Council decisions. That is also how I would approach the questionnaire. It is not asking the community to endorse particular projects or determine that every option presented is feasible. It is helping to identify values, priorities and aspirations that can then be tested against technical information, infrastructure capacity, environmental considerations, financial realities and legislative requirements as the OCP is developed.
In summary, the engagement process helps us understand the future the community would like to see; the planning process then determines how much of that future is appropriate, achievable and supportable.
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