Letter dated February 5, 2023 from J. Estrin, Re: OCP Restart Plan

RE: Agenda Item 8.1 a) Draft Official Community Plan Update – Restart Plan

Dear Mayor Tobias, City Council Members and Staff,

I participated in the on-line “data-gathering” which was, while entertaining, inconclusive. The process was not substantive, but a manipulation of foregone conclusions looking for a problem with little value being drawn from the few participants. While comments are buried in the document their ideas are not incorporated into any actions.

The recommendation by staff to restart the OCP update and move forward with the final phase of the project is, like the process that has taken place up to now, does not do what it claims to and is once again an attempt to force a conclusion on the town of View Royal that does not reflect the uniqueness of our community.

As a management consultant, both internally and externally in private sector firms, I have seen what a “one size fits all” template produces. Voices are not heard, although they may be included in focus groups to give them the feeling that they are participating in an inclusive process The OCP draft has all the hallmarks of a templatized process that requires very little tweaking to meet the objective – what the RFP asked for and more importantly, to generate the fee the consultant desired. It looks like the RFP didn’t ask for much and View Royal got exactly what it paid for. Not much.

View Royal deserves more than a once size fits all plan, one that could easily be overlaid on almost every other town of our size in the province with only minor wordsmithing. Even the “proposed” sketches of what housing and business in our town should look like seem far to cookie cutter to be useful data.

The next steps to engagement as proposed by staff are more of the same. The draft plan is an unreadable mess with inaccurate data, typos and an inability to even identify the neighborhoods within View Royal consistently from section to section. I urge you to scrape the OCP, archive it away from public view and start again.

Standing out as unsatisfactory ideas to me:

Two staff-driven public open houses recommended are not about engaging community. The “action step” is about rubber stamping what is already a fore-gone conclusion of what the OCP should be.

Community engagement means identifying the neighborhoods in View Royal, setting up small community meetings for data gathering from residents, both property owners and renters, as well as pursing on-line input and larger input sessions. At least as many people who voted should be the target for the number to be heard from. This proposal is void of accountability; it is perfunctory with no desire for accuracy or genuine input. The proposed step may garner the same 30 – 40 people as before instead of a statistical valid representative number of View Royal residents. There is no target number of participants sought for input (in person or otherwise) in the vague recommendation from staff. The result will be as before. Garbage in, garbage out.

While the second point, consultation with the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations to ground truth in some of the language and continue important relationship-building is important, it will neither hinder nor significantly impact the content of the plan. It should, however, be a part of the long term direction of the town.

There are many ways to engage with and include our neighbors – more than lip service, which is what this point feels like. Among other ideas, we should be looking to our neighbors for ideas on how to be more inclusive of our children and how to treat the elders in our community, among other new directions of conversation.

The last two points that staff makes are also non-starters. To further policy edits and refinements is their job. Updates to the Development Permit Areas and associated design guidelines? How is this different from what they should be doing on a regular basis and what does it have to do with the body of the OCP?

Financial implications

Let us remember when the provincial government spent millions to build fast ferries that did not work. Just one example of good money being spent on a very bad idea. Our OCP has the markings of a ferry folly. Flawed and unworkable.

The draft OCP, while it may have a nicely done history of the town, is not a plan for the future of View Royal. The document if full of inconsistencies, and reads like a brochure to welcome developers to shape our communities the way they want instead of the way we, the citizens of View Royal want to see our community.

There are a myriad of methods to gather the pertinent, valid information to construct a living, workable strategic guiding document. Creative, critical thinking plus accurate data on population, current housing project status/data, transportation and infrastructure will go a long way to providing a base upon which a workable plan can be built.

Much has changed in our world in the last three years.

View Royal Council has the opportunity to lead, not only our town, but to shine as an example and model to other towns of similar size in the Province on how to do it right – not the same old way with the same old results. Now is the time to pivot, to listen to the residents who spoke loud and clear, not only in our election, but in so many of the elections regionally, that they want to be heard. They want change. They want View Royal to shine as a community of choice to live in. Not as a developers paradise, but a place to raise children, to age in place and to live the life we moved here to have.

I implore you to do the right thing. Do not accept the recommendation to accept the OCP draft as a restart. Start again. There is work to be done. There are citizens willing to pitch in and make the process inclusive. Now is the time to roll up your sleeves, agree to do the work, engage the community in a meaningful way to make the View Royal OCP one that represents who we are and where we are going.

Thank you.