The materials for this Community Planning Forum had a bias toward the villages model of growth (either because the bias was in submissions or the planning department added it). This session was, more or less, a discussion about how to implement that model. Many of the other people attending this session were leaders of neighbourhood associations.

I am far more engaged and educated than the average resident of Victoria, and yet I don’t understand neighbourhood associations. The City’s website provides nothing more than a list of (broken) links. I believe that they specify development permit areas, which restrict aspects of development all over Victoria.

I expressed my opinion that neighbourhood associations are “undemocratic” (I’ll explain why I think this in a future post), which got an amusing response from the other people present. Apparently they hung around in the room to discuss this issue after I left for lunch. I also learned that “NIMBY” is a derogatory term.

My big concern is that the villages plan requires villages to accept thousands of new residents after the next few years. Villages cannot be allowed to choose whether to expand or whether to have services like a needle exchange, because all of them might choose stasis. I am reminded of the provincial NDP’s carrot & stick model for implementing affirmative action in candidate nominations.

I also put up for discussion whether mixed-use villages includes office space and expressed my concern about commuting between villages.

These sessions really disappointed my hopes for deliberation. It was more a process of:

1. share ideas and gripe about the past
2. present ideas collected to date
3. share more ideas and gripe more

There was no weighing of trade-offs and making hard decisions. There was little requirement to give reasons. I’m sure these sessions give helpful guidance to the planners, but it sure didn’t feel like we were authoring the Plan.