Just over a week before Thompson's new city council was elected, their predecessors held a special meeting for the presentation of a document that could affect the city's development long after the current council's term has ended.
Don Hester, a senior planner and landscape architect with AECOM, the company contracted by the city to create its sustainable community and master parks plans, summarized the two documents - which total more than 450 pages - for the mayor and council as well as about 30 members of the public at City Hall Oct. 18.
"The intent of the [Sustainable Community Plan] is to provide a framework for actions effecting (sic) the long-term growth and sustainability of the City of Thompson and Local Government District of Mystery Lake," read an introductory letter from Bryan T. Weber, AECOM's Manitoba district manager of community infrastructure, to Gary Ceppetelli, the City of Thompson's director of planning and community development. "In particular, implementation of the SCP will entail changes to Thompson Planning District Development Plan and the City of Thompson Zoning Bylaw."
Eleven key themes of the sustainable community plan, as outlined by Hester, included infill development and intensification, downtown revitalization, densification, diversity of housing opportunities, new commercial and industrial opportunities, active transportation, protection of natural environment areas, development of a major city park network, sustainable infrastructure asset management, a broad planning framework, and, finally, cultural diversity, positive relationships and mutual sharing.
The proposed intensification of most residential areas to approximately 25 dwelling units per hectare and of the downtown revitalization zone to 45 dwelling units per hectare drew comment from Stella Locker, the city's longest-serving councillor and a real estate agent, following the presentation.
"When we're talking about increasing the density downtown and maybe putting apartments above the commercial I have a bit of difficulty with that because when Eastwood was developed and we were short of accommodations and so 80 per cent of the accommodation in Eastwood is pretty well rentals and we seem to have more social problems and people really don't care to live in the Eastwood area and I'm just wondering whether taking that approach to downtown would do the same," Locker said. "It's just the density is just too high for the comfort of people that, you know, like the freedom of being able to walk out without walking into dozens of people."
Coun. Charlene Lafreniere had a different take.
"I like the idea of integrated design and having high and low densities mixed together and commercial and residential mixed together," she said. "We all need housing. We need housing for all income levels no matter what income level you're at and quite honestly I don't think we should think we're better than anybody for making more money than them or making less money than them and I just felt like that needed to be said at this table from this chamber."
Outgoing councillor Oswald Sawh, who did not stand for re-election on Oct. 27, asked Hester how AECOM came up with its population growth estimate, which projects Thompson's population to reach 17,300 people by 2030.
"We went through five scenarios for growth," said Hester. "We went through what we call a high-level or high-growth scenario which wasn't that high but basically exceeds the Manitoba average growth which has been quite high in recent years, right down to one that we would call the catastrophic scenario where the mine, I mean, Vale closes. What we looked at, though, was a balance. We can't be planning for absolute miraculous growth in terms of going way beyond normal. We're not going to plan that there's going to be a disaster happening in the community."
Harold Smith, who also didn't stand for re-election last month, acknowledged that the process of coming up with the plan wasn't always easy.
"There have been times when it's been tough," he said. "We've had some disagreements. We have given you fits, there's no doubt about it. Sometimes we would have been better off hanging up the phone and cooling down for a few minutes because it's been a lot of work to hammer out these ideas."
Still, he said he was happy with the final product and believed it would give the next council a better starting point than he and his fellow councillors had in 2006.
"I can tell you what the plan was for growth scenarios and land development at the start of this council and I'm partly to blame for this because I was on previous councils," said Smith. "At the beginning of this council there were two things: one, the city's going to double in 10 years; two, we're out of land on this side of the river. Any other development must go to the other side. Both of them were wrong. An analysis of the growth over the past five years show that ... a good five-year census number is two per cent. What we had was no creativity and no imagination and no willingness to look at what is happening elsewhere. [The next council] can start by looking at this document and saying somebody's put some thought into it under adult supervision and have actually put pen to paper and said 'We have a plan.'"
Coun. Erin Stewart asked Hester about the next stages in the process.
"I just think, for me, 20 years is not really that far into the future. As much as it's a guide to the next 20 years, is there some type of benchmark for when the next sustainable community plan should be initiated?" she inquired.
"Development plans should typically be looked at every five years," said Hester. "Things change and they change sometimes quite dramatically within a short timeframe and sometimes there's not that much change."
Former city councillor Adrian De Groot also suggested the plan didn't look far enough forward during the public question period.
"I've been a part of this process a number of times. I have to say I failed. I failed as a member of this community and I failed as a former member of this city council for 29 years," he said, "I always felt that 20 years is not adequate. You've got to go 50 years; you've got to go 100 years if you want to take a look at the future. The reason that I feel that I've failed is that the document doesn't go that 50 years. The document doesn't talk about the other lifestyles, the opportunities outside of the traditional lines that we saw here. I don't want to talk about a conspiracy theory but it always amazes me when I go to Flin Flon or when I go to The Pas, when I go to other communities we see development outside of the normal traditional boundaries of the community and its always kind of bothered me. Why don't we have it here? I think we need to create that visionary document, that statement that says we know we want to go forward."
Volker Beckmann asked Hester how the plan envisions beginning the process of development outside the current city boundaries, specifically north of the Burntwood River.
"At what point do you trigger development over there?" he asked. "Do you just let it happen by itself or do you go and seek it or do you wait until somebody shows up to say, 'Wow, this is the trigger now that allows for major expansion?"
Hester said that sort of development was not something he saw the city initiating, especially considering the cost of bringing water and sewer services north of the river.
"If a developer comes along and wants to put in the servicing to go north then you might consider it," he said, noting that in such a case the city would still become responsible for maintaining that new infrastructure. "I don't see the City of Thompson actively pushing that direction. I see it, though, as an option that is open to a developer coming in, making a good case and being able to move it forward."
Mayor Tim Johnston said the importance now is acting on the information that the sustainable community and master parks plans provide.
"The challenge now is to make sure we adhere to the plan," he said. "If it only becomes a plan of the City of Thompson that sits on a shelf than the exercise really hasn't been very worthwhile."
PDF versions of the sustainable community plan and master parks plan can be downloaded at http://www.thompson.ca/dbs/cityhall/dyncat.cfm?catid=4139.
