A public meeting on 'a different planet'?

So there was an interesting moment during Tuesday's special council meeting when it seemed like the coming public meeting over the rezoning of Water Street will have absolutely no meaning.

During the course of the debate over the agreement with Blockhouse Square Development Ltd., the discussion turned on the desirability of a public meeting before council approves the deal.

Some people figured the public meeting that will be required to rezone the land, once the deal is inked and it gets to that point, should be enough.

Not for Councillor Mary Jean McFall, however.

City solicitor John Simpson pointed to the clause in which the city pledges to support the project in principle.

That support, added Simpson, would entail liability for the city should council decide, at that public meeting stage, not to support the necessary rezoning for the project.

In McFall's eyes, this seemed to render the whole public meeting at the rezoning stage pointless.

“It's not the same as having a public meeting before you sign this contract,” she said.

Indeed. Consider this for a moment. The city supports the project in principle, yet the city is supposed to hold an impartial public meeting into any and all concerns from the public about the rezoning required to build it.

Not only that, but should the city change its mind, the developer could sue, because it would be a breach of a promise of support made in a contract.

City manager Bob Casselman later backtracked on this. The clause, he rightly points out, simply states the city supports in principle “the proposed development as outlined in Schedule A.”

Schedule A then describes the project as outlined in my story linked above.

So, now the city supports the project in principle, provided it passes the planning test.

In another clause of the agreement, the city appoints Blockhouse Square Development Ltd. as its “agent” for the rezoning process, the same way landowners usually hire consulting firms as their agents to get council to rezone lands.

Which means the city is approaching itself to rezone the lands in order to get the project done.

In essence, then, all the public can expect from its input at the coming public meeting is the odd planning tweak here or there, if council deems that necessary.

As Mayor David Henderson told me in the question period, “you would have to be living on a different planet” to expect council to vote against the project at the rezoning stage.

The project, of course, has its merits. If successful, it will bring more people downtown, realign a street that does need tweaking and finally bring the city that long-sought downtown hotel.

But a planning process where the city is approaching itself for a rezoning it has every intention to approve does seem a little, well, self-referential, and not at all encouraging to anyone inclined to express a dissenting opinion.