Brant County Council Report
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Brant County Council Report To: To the Mayor and Members of Brant County Council From: Brandon Kortleve, BA, CPT, Planner, Policy Planning Jennifer Boyer, BES, M.Sc., MCIP RPP, Manager of Policy Planning Date: December 1, 2020 Report: RPT-20-216 Subject: New Official Plan Summary of Public Engagement Comments Purpose: For Information Recommendation THAT report RPT-20-216 be received as information. Key Strategic Priorities 1. Sustainable and Managed Growth 2. Healthy, Safe and Engaged Citizens 3. Effective Communications Financial Considerations Completion of the New Official Plan will be undertaken primarily by County staff, with some initiatives completed by external consultants for the Municipal Comprehensive Review and facilitation of public engagement events. Background Public and stakeholder feedback is critical to ensure that the New Official Plan will serve our community in the future. Planning staff continue efforts to ensure the new Official Plan is completed within the timeframes to meet conformity to the Growth Plan by July 1, 2022. To include as many voices as possible in this important conversation about the future of the planning of the County of Brant, staff have completed various public engagement activities that have been designed to give the community an opportunity to provide meaningful input on this project. Public and stakeholder engagement to create an Official Plan is not only required by the Planning Act but is an integral component of this process. The input that is gathered from this phase of engagement activities and consultation will be further summarized to inform Council in early 2021. This report provides an update of these activities to-date, in advance of the December 8th Special Meeting of Council to consider the recommendations for Growth Forecasting that will inform our Official Plan and Growth Management Strategy as we move forward. Report New Official Plan Engagement Initiatives As part of the revised public engagement initiatives for the Official Plan to adapt to the COVID-19 health emergency, County staff will be conducting no in-person large-scale public engagement events until further notice. Several virtual engagement opportunities are being conducted through County-supported technology tools (such as Zoom, GIS, eSolutions, and Bang the Table). We are also working actively with Corporate Communications and Marketing staff as we receive feedback through this process. We have created a flexible engagement program that is also helping us address any noted gaps in demographics or audiences. We are using the feedback we receive to direct alternative engagement opportunities to cohorts of residents that may not be best represented by the current initiatives and findings. The intent of this public engagement, aside from satisfying the requirements under the Planning Act, is to: 1. Educate and inform, 2. Stimulate thinking about complexities and challenges of land-use planning, and 3. Drive the public to other tools (surveys, discussion papers) to solicit feedback that will be used to form policy directions for the new Official Plan. As Planning staff continue the engagement opportunities for the new Official Plan project, an updated summary on these activities and the results received to-date is provided below. The information in this report is a continuation of RPT-20-190, which was provided as information at the November 3, 2020 Council meeting. Staff have also included a summary of the questions received from public and stakeholder engagement, as well as responses to these questions, found in Attachment 2 to this report. This attachment has been included on the New Official Plan webpage as well as emailed directly to our digital circulations list. In addition to these questions, several recent engagement activities are summarized below. Virtual Engagement Sessions Four virtual engagement sessions were held in October, each featuring a live presentation by staff and a period of questions and answers. In addition to the two public dedicated sessions (that were summarized in RPT-20-190), a two-hour session was held with stakeholders and development industry representatives, as well as a two-hour in-camera session with the County of Brant Council. The purpose and outcome of these two sessions is provided below. Development Industry and Stakeholder Session: This session presented an opportunity for the development industry to engage directly with Planning staff about the new Official Plan. The session consisted of a staff presentation about a number of key trends and public comments, an exercise to discuss objectives and outcomes that the development industry may wish to see in the new Official Plan, and a question and answer period to discuss additional influencers and key questions with County of Brant Planning staff. As examples, the key policy influencers and questions gathered from this session lead to discussions about the following topics: Increasing the quantity of ‘shovel-ready’ employment lands, Providing affordable and flexible housing options, Creating user-friendly policy framework that promotes creative, complete, and multi- use development options, Better ways to promote private investment in infrastructure, Transparent decision-making and communications, and Finding a balance to serve all interests in the community for the County of Brant as a whole. Council In-Camera Official Plan Workshop: This session presented an opportunity for the County of Brant Council to engage directly with Planning staff about public engagement, key trends, and the timelines for the new Official Plan. Staff were able to present information about managing the growth of the County of Brant, protecting our farmland and rural identity, proactively dealing with public concerns about growth, infrastructure, and land-use compatibility, and how to work towards clear and easy-to-understand policy foundations with our new Official Plan. This session was a summary of the sessions held for the public and development industry to provide Council with information that will inform decision making that will lead to the policy directions of the new Official Plan. This session was held to keep Council up to date on the many ongoing facets of the new Official Plan. This communication will ensure that the process is transparent and collaborative and that the new Official Plan will best represent the desires of the County of Brant as a whole. Advertising and Outreach With physical distancing requirements in place due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, Planning staff continue to approach public engagement in a way that focuses on physically distanced engagement. As previously noted, added information and opportunities are being released on a bi-weekly basis between October 2020 and January 2020. Planning staff recognize that virtual engagement opportunities may present barriers to participation but have been working on several ways to address this. One of these ways is to ensure that the information is organized to best reflect the weight of responses based on the demographics of the County of Brant and its various communities. Planning staff are also working with a number of County departments and divisions to utilize their knowledge base and outreach abilities and collaborate on collecting data that will be helpful to interdepartmental projects and master planning in the future. Website Webpages for each topic of interest continue to be released to provide a landing page for residents and stakeholders who may be interested in more specific information about each topic. As the new Official Plan project and its many facets continue to present an abundance of new information, the division of the topics of interest has been done in an effort to create layers and levels to the presentation of information, allowing each participant to engage at the level they choose. The central hub of information for the project continues to be www.brant.ca/NewOfficialPlan. Videos Short videos for each of the topics of interest for this project continue to be released bi- weekly on social media and through our digital mailing lists. To-date, videos have been released about Growth Management, Building Healthy and Complete Communities, Protecting What We Value and How We Green, with the next release set for Economic Development and Prosperity in the coming week. These topic releases are also being coordinated with other County of Brant departments that will also play a significant role in the implementation of the related policy directions. As noted, the video recordings of the two public town hall sessions have also been made available for viewing. As well, Planning staff intend to provide both video and written responses to common project questions that have been received to date. The questions received to-date have been included as Attachment 2 to this report and Planning staff will be working with our Corporate Communications and Marketing staff to further circulate this information in a number of formats. Information will continue to be circulated to the public to promote trust and transparency in the decision-making process for this important project. A full summary of these questions and responses will be provided in advance of the ‘As We Heard It’ report that will be presented to Council in February of 2021 as the project moves into the ‘Policy Direction’ phase. Surveys In addition to the thematic videos, thematic surveys continue to be launched bi-weekly into early 2021. These short surveys are intended to spark conversation