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This Guardian editorial is at least the second news report I’ve seen that states incorrectly that the Idle Wheels property “has been rezoned”. It has not been rezoned. IRAC has ordered the City to rezone the property, but in its order, IRAC states, “there is insufficient evidence and argument at the present time to persuade the Commission that an automatic rezoning should follow in these circumstances.” In other words, it’s not rezoned until council rezones it.

I agree that residents should have been made aware of the appeal, but unfortunately most of council — including the councillor who represents the area — was not even aware of the appeal until the decision was reported in the media. Consequently, we could not notify residents of something we ourselves did not know. This also caused us to miss the window to appeal the decision, but we are pursuing other avenues because council feels it is not entirely appropriate for an appointed commission to be ordering elected officials to make planning decisions, particularly when the order clearly states “that the City did follow all the procedures required in its Bylaw.“

Canada Day is coming back to Victoria Park. All the complaints that traditional family-oriented celebrations have taken a back seat to other activities at the Festival of Lights have prompted City Council to revive this popular event. We are not intending to compete with the FoL, but the idea is to run a parallel, scaled-down alternative that will offer simple fun and entertainment for the whole family, a proper flag raising, singing of Oh Canada, and whatnot. That’s the gist of it for now. We have eleven months to plan exactly what will take place, but we’ve committed to the idea.

Members of the downtown business community recently asked for a meeting with City Council to discuss the future of the Festival of Lights. The meeting took place last Tuesday evening with about 60 to 70 business operators attending, as well as representatives from Tourism Charlottetown Inc., the agency that produces the festival. Council heard one passionate plea after another, asking us not to tinker with the festival formula. Most of those in attendance are hotel/motel/bar/restaurant operators, with some retailers, and a few service companies. Everyone spoke about the importance of the festival to their business, some going so far as to claim without the festival they would seize to exist. Problems were recognized, but we were urged to deal with them rather than doing the unthinkable such as moving the festival out of the downtown core, or heaven forbid, ending it altogether. I sensed a real fear that council was about to do something drastic.

TCI presented a bulleted list of “solutions” that are intended to reduce the kinds of problems that are re-occurring each year. Number one on that list is to “aggressively advance” the development of a new venue for the festival concerts in the downtown, namely the old Imperial Oil tank farm land at the base of the Hillsborough Bridge (“This location satifies the needs of the business community while moving the festival further away from residents”).  Other items dealt with security, transportation, garbage clean up, and alcohol. It was proposed that no alcohol be served on the concert grounds on Canada Day.

Next Tuesday, July 22nd at 7:30pm Council will meet with downtown residents at City Hall about this issue. The meeting was requested by specific residents, but it is a public forum closed meeting* and I believe the word has travelled quickly through the downtown neighbourhoods. I expect another large crowd — perhaps larger than council chambers can comfortably handle — and I’m certain we will hear drastically different opinions about the festival than we did this week.

*UPDATE (July 21st): Just received word from City Hall that this is a closed meeting.

The Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission has ordered the City to overturn a decision last February to deny a rezoning application. The CBC reports that current occupants now fear forced removal from the property. The crux of the IRAC’s decision is a ‘Future Land Use’ map in the City’s official plan showing this property under the proposed zoning.

I won’t quibble with the decision, but it does remind Council that even as elected officials we don’t necessarily have the last word on planning decisions.  IRAC did, however, make the order to rezone “subject to a development agreement” between the City and the developer which leaves some room for Council to deal with the concerns of residents in the area before a building permit is issued.

The City has received many complaints about the recent Festival of Lights from residents of downtown Charlottetown. I’ve heard others call these people “whiners”. I can tell you, these people have very legitimate complaints. I’ve heard some horrible stories about the things residents had to endure over the course of this event.

On the other hand, I’ve had members of the business community tell me how important and successful this festival is, and how we need to maintain it downtown.

In my opinion, something needs to change — either the demographic the concerts cater to, or the location of the concerts, or both. I recently spoke to a friend who played a leading role when the Festival of Lights was originally conceived. It was also his opinion that the festival had “gone off the rails”.

Certainly the people of Charlottetown and PEI are divided over what constitutes “success” where the Festival of Lights is concerned. But consider the email below, received by the Mayor, from a managing editor of a Southern California magazine who was here to write a travel article (the email is published with permission but name is withheld by request):

Dear Mayor Lee,

I was in Charlottetown during the recent Festival of Lights. This was my first visit to your city and to PEI. I was an assignment for [name withheld] Magazine, for which I serve as managing editor. I stayed at the Rodd Crowbush Golf & Beach Resort in Lakeside, Dalvay-by-the-Sea, and Hillhurst Inn, and have written a travel article for the magazine’s August issue.

I must admit I was quite dismayed by the crowd that was attracted to the Festival of Lights. I have traveled widely throughout the world, but I cannot remember encountering a ruder bunch of people than I did in Charlottetown. Anywhere I went in town, my ears were assaulted by young people using the “F” word with every breath. Moreover, young people called out to pedestrians as they drove by, making fun of how they looked or dressed and assaulting them with crude comments. Not only is this rude behavior in general, but I was very surprised that I encountered such poor manners in Canada. I have made perhaps 15 trips to your beautiful country over the years and have always been met by friendly, kind, generous, well-mannered citizens. The behavior I noted during the Festival of Lights was rather shocking.

I would suggest that you re-evaluate the way you celebrate Canada Day in Charlottetown. I am sure that the citizens are not so rude–Scott, Heidi, and Fiona at Hillhurst Inn are wonderful people–but you are attracting to your fair city people who just don’t know how to behave because of the musicians you are headlining during this weekend.

Best regards,

[name withheld]

Something needs to give. I’m not suggesting the Festival of Lights be scrapped, but in a province so heavily dependent on tourism — and in a world where everyone is a potential travel writer — we need to re-focus this festival to showcase the best of our community, not the worst.

My boys and I attended the ribbon cutting ceremony last week for the new bicycle lane at Victoria Park. We cycled from one end to the other and back, and as Brodie said, “We won.” I’ve used the lane several times in the past week and I’m happy to see that bicycle traffic is picking up. This morning in the 6 or 7 minutes as I was jogging around the boardwalk I spotted at least a half dozen cyclists in the bike lane.

The City is soliciting comments from residents about the cycling lane using a short online survey. Please take a moment to tell us how you feel about it.

 Who knew we held the solution to Toronto’s parking woes?

While Miller declined to offer any details, an example of an alternative system is used in Charlottetown, where ticketed drivers can pick up a dispute form from the police department or city hall. Submitted forms are then directed to the deputy police chief for a decision.

The driver is notified by telephone within three days of a decision.

I had no idea this process was in place here. Have you, or anyone you know, ever disputed a parking ticket this way?

It was recently brought to my attention that my previous post about the City’s decision to discontinue the Charlottetown Airport’s grant in lieu of property taxes did not sit well with certain people, particularly the Board of Directors of the Airport Authority. I have to admit, after reading that short entry again, it does sound unnecessarily flippant or cheeky. That was not my intention. It was meant to be a simple statement of fact, and the brevity was more to do with time constraint than anything else (You may have noticed there have been very few updates on this site recently — I’ve been very busy.)

What I said was true — one of the factors Council considered when we made our decision was the apparent success the airport has achieved over the last four or five years.  The City’s budget process was very challenging this year with the property tax assessment freeze, among other factors, making it necessary to review all of our expenditures. Grants in particular, having reached a million dollars annually, were scrutinized closely. Dozens of non-profit groups depend on the City for operating revenue each year. Many have no other source of revenue than grants, subsidies, and donations, and in many cases they serve the most vulnerable in our City — seniors, the disabled, youth at risk. In the end, there were very few who did not receive less than in years past.

All things considered, the consensus of Council (unanimous if I recall correctly) was that the Charlottetown Airport had weathered the difficult transition after Transport Canada handed small airports to independent local authorities. Unlike many grant recipients, Council felt the airport was a successful commercial operation with access to growing streams of revenue. There was also some discussion of the fact that Charlottetown was foregoing a significant amount of revenue for what is, in effect, a regional airport. It serves the entire province but, to my knowledge at least, Charlottetown was the only municipality contributing significantly to its bottom line.

I never meant to suggest that the Airport Authority was flaunting its success, and we therefore pulled their grant. Absolutely not. I think all Islanders are very proud of the airport’s recent success and improved service, and we all feel that pride each time we read about new passenger records. But those announcements created a perception on Council that perhaps the City’s assistance was no longer required. That perception may not be reality. I realize the air transport industry is extremely volatile.

The City has only served notice of intent to opt out of our agreement with the Airport Authority. They will not begin paying taxes for two years, if I recall correctly. If the City’s decision significantly threatens the longterm success of the airport’s operations, I expect they will be approaching Charlottetown, the Province, and other municipalities, to negotiate some other type of arrangement. I would suggest, in the remaining two years of the agreement, that they come to Council, as many other grant recipients and applicants do annually, to inform us why our assistance is important to them. It’s probably best if we’re not making decisions based on media stories, but in the absence of that communication we may have nothing better to go on.

I want to apologize for upsetting people with my previous comments. Blogging and politics can be a dangerous mix. Occasionally I tend not to be as guarded with my comments as when I’m speaking to “real” media. There was no ill intent, but clearly my comments should have been accompanied by some further explanation. And lastly, I’m willing to discuss this issue — with an open mind — with representatives of the Airport Authority at any time.

It was years of headlines like this, that resulted in a headline like this.

The recently released Downtown Charlottetown Parking Strategy makes several mentions of supporting alternate modes of transportation to help manage the demand for parking in the core. Today the city announced a special offer to all city staff — permanent, seasonal, and casual — to rebate 50% of the cost of a monthly transit pass. This is a pilot project running until September 30th. The intent is to provide leadership to other organizations, and we are hopeful that more employers will follow the City’s lead.

Well known local developer, APM president Tim Banks, weighs in on his blog regarding the rezoning application for the property at Upton Road and Trans-Canada Hwy:

“I tried to go commercial with this site but once I heard the opposition from the Community I knew it was time to withdraw our application and that is exactly what we did. Steve may have to do the same if he wants customers?” 

A couple of weeks ago a consultant from Hatch Mott MacDonald presented the final report of the parking strategy that was commissioned by the City last year. The report was stamped CONFIDENTIAL at the time. At a Committee of the Whole Council meeting last night I asked that the report be made public. It was agreed that the Mayor will officially receive the report at next Monday’s monthly public meeting of Council, and the document will become public. It should be available by download from the City’s website next week.

UPDATE: The report is now available for download.

After some prodding from local residents — including gentle reminders of the recommendations in the City’s own comprehensive Parks Master Plan that was completed last year with extensive public input — Council has decided to close the inner lane of the Victoria Park road for the use of cyclists and other forms of “active transport”. This is a pilot project. The closure is temporary, beginning in July and ending in September. It will be used to measure interest and determine what effect, if any, it may have on other users of the park, particularly seniors, who rely on cars for their enjoyment of the park.

At the meeting, the Manager of Parks and Recreation presented a number of excellent recommendations from the Active Transportation Committee, which should be rolled out in the future as logistics are worked out. The Victoria Park initiative is the only one that is confirmed at the moment, but I’m confident others will fall into place as the necessary planning takes place. Judging by the comments and the poll results on the Guardian’s website, residents have strong feelings about the Victoria Park road closure. This is not a surprise as the idea has caused an uproar in the past. I encourage everyone to make their opinion known.

The temporary lane will be just that, temporary, and as such the design and implementation will not be perfect; however Parks staff are determined to make it a success for all park users. In her presentation last night, the Manager made reference to a video I sent her earlier in the week entitled “The Stupidest Bike Lane”. She has committed to doing everything in her power to create Smart Bike Lanes.

To celebrate Jane Jacobs Day, May 4th 2008, you are invited to participate in Jane’s Walk 2008, hosted by Catherine Hennessey as she tells the stories of the places and people of her downtown neighbourhood. Jane’s Walk is a series of free neighbourhood walking tours given by residents who care passionately about where they live, work and play.

Read more about Jane’s Walk.

The first time I realized urban planning was a serious discipline was more than twenty years ago when I was visiting friends in Toronto who were neighbours of Jacobs. I was 16, and I was a guest of my friends at Jane’s 70th birthday party in her home across the street on Albany Avenue in the Annex. I remember being very surprised that someone could be so famous for “thinking about cities”, but at the time I don’t think I had a clue what was involved in urban planning. Jane’s Walks are a great way to honour her legacy and promote her ideas for creating vital, livable cities.

The boys and I were at the Victoria Park playground last night. A section of the upper level rail has come undone on the blue/green piece of equipment. It is well anchored by the climbing pole that is attached but, nevertheless, could be dangerous and needs to be fixed ASAP. I’ve contacted Parks & Recreation staff to make them aware.