Hamilton councillors eye digital divide on growth plan consultation

A pair of city councillors want to hit the brakes on Hamilton’s growth-planning exercise to conduct a city-wide mail survey.

Brad Clark and Brenda Johnson argue web-based consultation has left rural residents without internet service out of an important conversation about the future of their city, including a potential urban-footprint expansion.

Moreover, Clark says some poor constituents in his upper Stoney Creek ward can’t afford internet even if it’s available, notably during the COVID-19 pandemic that has made public library computers off-limits and in-person meetings virtual.

“The magnitude of this decision is so large, city-wide, that we should be reaching out to all residents,” he said Thursday.

At issue is how Hamilton should accommodate 236,000 more people over 30 years through planning policy. Planning staff say the city must redraw the line that separates rural and urban to meet the province’s projection of 820,000 people by 2051.

A report on a land-needs assessment and municipal comprehensive review — studies that will lead to official plan changes to meet Ontario’s new growth plan — is expected to be before the general issues committee March 29.

Clark’s motion will ask for that report to be deferred to allow for a city-wide mail survey with return postage envelopes. A second motion proposes to ask the province to push back its July 2022 deadline for updated municipal official plans to “ensure that the public can fully participate” in the exercise.

City staff have identified Elfrida, a farmland-rich area in Clark’s ward, as a possible candidate to steer growth, along with rural land by Twenty Road West in Glanbrook.

Clark says he has “always been concerned about the breadth of the expansion being proposed” for Elfrida, while Johnson says she’s not “100 per cent” convinced Hamilton needs to bust its urban boundary.

The Glanbrook councillor echoes Clark’s concerns that internet-based consultation leaves rural residents out, including some “computer-challenged” older adults. “I’m one of them, by the way.”

The city says 2,200 people visited its Engage Hamilton Land Needs Assessment internet page in January, resulting in 147 survey responses. As well, 96 people joined two virtual “open house” events on the topic.

The city also displayed information about the consultation efforts on two digital billboards and on digital signs at city hall and Gage Park in January.

Ads ran in local newspapers and online, while city social media accounts spread the message and hundreds of emails were sent. Staff also went on Cable 14.

In anticipation of Clark’s motion, staff are looking into how much a mail survey would cost.

John Corbett, a planning consultant who represents a consortium hoping to develop the rural parcel on Twenty Road West, says the city has “done a great job in creating the internet as a portal into their public participation process.”

But Lynda Lukasik, executive director of Environment Hamilton, wants more feedback. “Given the magnitude of the planning decision that we’re talking about, I guess I would ask what is the big rush?”

Environment Hamilton has launched an online petition urging council to “freeze” the urban boundary to prevent farmland-gobbling sprawl. As of Thursday afternoon, it had nearly 1,000 supporters, Lukasik noted.

Corbett, who notes his clients’ property isn’t prime agricultural land, argues policy delays will slow development that tackles Hamilton’s affordability crunch by increasing stock.

“The longer you delay dealing with the land-supply issue, the more critical that issue’s going to become.”

Lukasik contends more the development sprawls, the more it costs the city and its residents. “We know right now that it never pays for itself.”

And amid a climate crisis, the conversation couldn’t be more important, she says.

“If we don’t figure out how to build climate-resilient cities, we’re going to be in big trouble.”