Email dated February 7, 2023 from D. Coleman, Re: OCP Restart Plan

Draft Official Community Plan Update

Dear Mayor and Council,

I am writing to address the Draft Official Community Plan Update and restart plan that tonight, Staff are recommending that Council Receive.

I implore everyone to reject this draft and create a plan to build a foundation for this Official Community Plan Update that consists of true, honest and complete community input.

The Background of this report states 'Substantial work and community consultation has occurred in developing the draft OCP update.' While I expect there was a great deal of work put in, I believe it to be under design to achieve a specific outcome for what this OCP update would look like. This belief is solely based on my experience during the Community Engagement portions of the process.

My first experience was in the 'Walkshop' where I noticed 2 things. First, I was the only person from my community in the Walkshop of the Hospital District. There were several people from other areas of view royal and a developer directly involved in the properties we were discussing. Secondly, when I gave my vision of development and densification in my area, the town staff member leading the Community Engaging Walkshop, told me that it wasn't happening and that all I can do is 'get ready for what is coming.' This is the opposite of community engagement.

My second and third experiences were online 'engagement' with a third party. This online engagement offered little to no opportunity to give answers outside of their pre determined responses. For example, were were given a choice of what type of housing we would like to see for our View Royal:

Supportive housing
duplex, garden suites, rentals and emergency shelters
smaller homes, townhouses, apartments
Transitional

These were our only options. One can argue that if you want apartments/condos (multi-storey residential), you can put them in any of these categories. There is no other. This was a directed test. It is closed choice. This does not offer avenues to provide our community vision.

I recall there was one opportunity to write down in your own words what your community looked like in your mind. I can't fully describe the feeling of furiously writing down information and placing it on the digital map. I could feel it from every community member involved in this online workshop. It was as if everyone identified this was their only chance to provide the information they actually wanted to give. Unfortunately, as I wrote, I thought back to the View Royal staff member during the walkshop and his sentiment: 'its not happening,' 'you better get ready for what is coming.' It made sense. There is a plan. The staff have it. This third party group understands it. The community's opinion does not matter. This 'Community Engagement' is designed to box people into our molded ideals and give the Town of View Royal the check in the box of completing the engagement portion of this update.

This Draft Official Community Plan Update fails to involve our community in any meaningful way. It also only engaged with less than 5% of the community. It was built on the foundation of staff who believe that community members should 'get ready for what is coming' and stand out of our way. This Draft is a failure and the only bigger failure would be to receive it and move forward with this foundation representing the future of our community. Our Community.

We love our community. We are not naive to the need to develop and revitalize. The literature totes housing needs, diversity and options but failed to provide those as options in the engagement and fails to represent that in this draft. We want to be properly engaged so that we are not tearing down valuable communities to create new cities. Let's add to our communities, expanding on all the good in them.

Please do not let the misled monies spent, impact your decision to make a choice for the community.

Please vote NO to the staff recommendation to receive this draft update and restart plan. It does not represent the voters. It only represents the staff and developers who put it together.

Thank you very much for serving the View Royal community.

Sincerely,

Drew Coleman 136 Conard St