Council has voted unanimously to approve the Sustainability Plan. Now the real work begins! Pending creation of the terms of reference, critical next step will be appointing the members of the Sustainability Committee who will guide the implementation of the Plan. Having reached this milestone I have distilled down to a couple points why this Plan is important.
1st, we have an updated vision of what we want to be. This is very powerful; when someone walks into Planning and wants to talk about a development idea, the first feedback for them will be to look at our Sustainability Plan to see how they are going to fit in and how they will help us to realize our vision.
2nd, our Plan encourages “silo busting.” Engineering looks after its challenges. Finance has theirs etc. The same occurs within the advisory committees: EDAC has proposals; KEAC has ones etc. Each Council member has his/her own agenda. In contrast our Plan was developed with 4 pillars: finance, economic, environmental and socio-cultural. As we go forward we need to be paying attention to all 4 or we will not achieve our vision.
This is not a theoretical benefit; just the process of developing the Plan has changed “the conversation” as demonstrated in recent reports. E.g. At the April 2nd public meeting regarding transfer of 36 hectares (90 acres) from private ownership to the Nature Conservancy there was acknowledgment of the property tax hit; this is important because if we are not conscience of it we are certainly not going to develop a strategy to compensate. (It turns out that in this specific case the impact is insignificant.) Previously this data was not included. E.g. when determining user fees for our recreational services we are now asking ourselves how much subsidy do we want to provide.
3rd, as we move forward we can be proactive in terms of our tax rates. Rather than simply passing a tax increase to meet the need of the day we can make that decision with the knowledge of what is required over the next 10 years given the projects we want to implement, the anticipated new developments etc. etc.
4th, because of the process we will be using, as we move forward we can leverage the community’s energy, creativity and deep commitment to King Township to either change some things OR simply to accomplish things we have not done before. Any group in King…a Faith based group, a rate payers group, a citizens group can decide that they want to implement a Sustainability project; they submit the idea to the Committee who assess it against the Alignment Tool.. If it is approved they can proceed knowing that they will have the support of the Township as defined in their application. This empowers people to make a difference in their community.
I do want to acknowledge that comments/questions about the draft Plan were received; some changes were incorporated into the final version. At the April 2nd Committee of Whole when the Plan (final version) was before the Council one King Township resident made a deputation expressing disagreement with one of Financial Pillar’s actions, specifically “1.1 Develop a financial model based on regional growth targets.”
The deputant argued that King should make their own growth targets. Council did not accept the argument. We are part of York Region. The targets were not deployed without input; for example whereas Province deployed 40% intensification, our target of 920 units is only 20% (which means other municipalities will make up the difference.) Where we need to put our energy is on determining and working against the financial model.
If you haven’t done so already, do review the plan. Its available here on the King sustainability website. Hard copies are in libraries and can be purchased at the Township Office. As an individual or as a member of a group I hope you will get involved.
Finally…I want to thank very much the 4 Ambassadors who gave so much time and energy over the last 10 months to lead their working groups. Specifically, Brent King led the Financial pillar, Rick Kloepfer led the Economic pillar, Nancy Belo Gomez led the Socio cultural pillar and Susan Lloyd Swail led the Environmental pillar.
Hi Debbie,
You ALSO deserve big kudos for being our Council representative on the task force.
No doubt you would not have had it another way! But this was over and above all of your other Councillor duties, both required and voluntary (including creating and maintaining this very blog to keep us all informed).
I look forward to the plan’s implementation! We’ll often think back to the “early days” of its formation as it ebbs and twists to meet its vision for a sustainable and vibrant King.
Greg
thanks Greg. The task force and the upcoming work driven/inspired by the Sustainability Plan is surely the “best” work an elected official does as it is really about influencing how King is going to evolve. Debbie
Hi Debbie:
I was the deputant who suggested that the wording of our Sustainability Plan should not leave the amount of growth to the Region. One of the biggest issues in King Township that we have voted on for years and years is Keeping King Green. You will, of course, recall that Jane Underhill always had the slogan and she meant it. She was for SLOW growth. Now that we have the BIG PIPE in King City, it will be exceedingly difficult to have slow growth if King Township has abdicated its responsibility for the amount of growth to the Region.
I note that you said that we are part of York Region and so we are, but we are the ones who should, in consultation with the Region, decide on our growth. Leaving that wide open to the Region means that in the future King Councils will think that they have no say in the matter.
The Province named the actual places that were to have intensification. No place in King Township was listed for intensification. King’s Director of Planning has stated that the Province is dictating intensification to King Township. That is not correct.
It requires a lot of determination to maintain SLOW GROWTH in the face of eager developers (and potential for bribes to planning staff and donations to would-be politicians for their campaigns), but SLOW GROWTH is what the residents said that they wanted in the Sustainability Meetings. Some members in the Finance Pillar seem to think that development is great because there are more homes to pay more taxes. They forget that more people means more services are required and so actually it is better when we have fewer people.
I recall, not that long ago, when King Township had fewer people and NO DEBT. Margaret Britnell was our Mayor. Now it has more people and is swimming in so much debt that it had to go to the OMB to get the debt limit raised so that Nobleton’s sewers could be done.
I still would like that wording changed in our Sustainability Plan so that our made-in-King Plan is not a made-in-York-Region Plan.
Hello Nancy, Yes I know you were the attendee to ask the question. It is a regional target and we have embraced it in our plans; so to my mind it is our target. I appreciate that intensification is a means for having more people in an area BUT it is also a means for using less land area to house people. It is sprawl or it is intensification. I am very aware that there is the issue of transition and there is need to respect the already established “non-intense” neighbourhoods but some degree of intensification is the only way we can afford the much desired transit services.
As to your comment about the thinking of some members of the Finance Pillar. The Sustainability Plan’s success will come from integration of the beliefs, ideas, analysis etc. from the 4 pillars. It is not going to be easy but even if it were true that fast growth would solve the financial challenges for the long haul, that will not be adequate; we need to look at the goals & needs expressed by the other pillars.
Debbie