HomeMy WebLinkAboutLetter to Jan Harder regarding community development planning \,..........„,
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OTTAWA-CARLETON
DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD
Office of the Chair of the Board
15 February 2019
Councillor Jan Harder
Chair, Planning Committee
City of Ottawa
110 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, ON K1P 1 J 1
Dear Councillor Harder:
Thank you for your letter of 21 December 2018. My apologies for the delay in
responding, but I wanted to review the work and interactions that have happened to
date. It is important that all perspectives be heard on this matter, and we offer the
following for clarification.
On 21 December 2017 the four Ottawa publicly-funded school boards wrote to John
Smit, Director, Economic Development and Long Range Planning at the City of Ottawa
(letter attached) to confirm that the boards were generally supportive of the principles of
the Building.Better, Smarter Suburbs initiative. In this letter, we gave our commitment
to work with the City in a positive fashion to continue this dialogue and, wherever
possible and mutually beneficial, to put those principles into practice when building new
communities.
You indicated in your letter that the schools working group is not active. Indeed, we
have not met and our last correspondence on this matter was the letter to Mr. Smit in
December 2017. I would disagree, however, that there have been no opportunities to
continue this discussion. In fact, on May 24, 2018 the four school boards held their
annual Community Planning and Partnership meeting to discuss the collaborative use
of surplus school space and joint planning initiatives for future sites. The meeting was
widely advertised on each of the Board's websites as well as through the Ottawa Citizen
and Le Droit. To our disappointment, although the City of Ottawa was sent
personalized advance notice of this meeting, no City officials attended or sent regrets
indicating their interest in participating in such dialogue at another time.
We would appreciate clarification of your reference to inconsistent approaches in
advancing collaborative planning. We have attempted to be up front about our needs
whenever we work with City staff on Community Development Planning (CDP), and in
this process, the needs of the school boards have, to my understanding, been
acknowledged. Nevertheless, of late we have had unfortunate examples where those
approved community development plans have not translated to acknowledgement of
our needs at the plan of subdivision stage; ironing out these disconnects has required
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additional after-the-fact conversation and consultation with City staff and has entailed
some compromise on our part.
Indeed, the CDP process speaks much louder than would any Memorandum of
Understanding, and you have our ongoing assurance that, site-by-site, we will continue
to work with the City to develop efficient and sustainable sites that meet community
needs. As you are aware, the Ministry of Education prescribes the size of school sites,
based on the number of pupil places provided at a school. The pupil places are
reflective of the long-term settling-out of school populations, even though a new school
may operate far in excess of its capacity for a number of years after its initial
construction.
I hope this letter has clarified our position to you, and to City staff. We are very open to
sitting down with you to discuss this matter further. Our partnership with the City is
pivotal in creating a sustainable, workable community.
Sincerely,
A i
Lynn Scott
Chair
Ottawa Carleton District School Board
c.c. Mike Carson, Chief Financial Officer
Karyn Carty Ostafichuk, Manager of Planning
Corporate Records
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