As many of you may know, the city has received planning applications to redevelop the Waterfront Hotel site. In response to the submission of applications the city knew were coming, city council requested city planning staff to restart and complete the Waterfront Hotel Site special planning study. You may recall that this study was put on hold immediately after the municipal election in 2018. Further to council’s direction, city Planning Department staff, with the assistance of its independent planning consultants, commenced a new effort to bring forward a new recommended planning policy framework to be used to evaluate the applications that had already been submitted. The applicant submitted its development applications in October 2021, well before the Province of Ontario approved ROPA 48 (the region’s Official Plan amendment that proposed to relocate the city’s only urban growth centre from the downtown to the Burlington GO station area) and before the Waterfront Hotel Study had been re-started.

In an effort to beat the clock, city Planning brought forward the proposed planning framework and planning rationale based on the input it received from its planning consultants (or so one thought). At the same time, in order to meet the statutory application review timeline in the Planning Act (120 days), city Planning staff brought forward a concurrent report recommending that the planning applications that were submitted by the landowner be refused.

Today, all hell broke loose at committee and council as a letter from the city’s consultants was revealed to the public. No one could have ever reasonably speculated on the contents of this letter.

A letter dated April 4, 2022, from the Planning Partnership states in part: “ … As you are aware, during the process of preparing the Planning Justification Report for the Waterfront Hotel Planning Study, we were directed by City staff to implement a building height of 22 storeys. We have drafted the implementing instruments based on this direction. Given the direction from staff, and the lack of any technical assessments and supporting studies to confirm any specific building height on the subject site, The Planning Partnership cannot provide professional planning and/or urban design support for any specific building height through the remaining approvals process, including at any potential appeal to the Ontario land Tribunal…”

In other words, the consultant fired the client.

City Planning staff responded with a memorandum dated April 12, 2022, that disputes the claims of the Planning Partnership. The city did not reveal who the city staff member may or may not have been that may or may not have given direction to the consultant, but this will not end well. Was the direction given by a staff member, a former city staff member or a city council member? We will probably never know, but the 22-storey height restriction is the exact same failed position that the city presented at the Ontario Land Tribunal hearing to fight the high rise development at Lakeshore and Pearl. We all know how that worked out for the city. The city’s case was destroyed.

The city’s planning consultant had no reason to write to the city regarding its concerns except to do the right thing professionally and to protect itself from liability. The consultant is clearly not convinced that 22 storeys is appropriate, justified or legally defensible.

Where does the city go from here? This remains unclear but the city’s proposed policy framework and the basis of the refusal report (not to mention the professional integrity of the city Planning Department) appears to be in question.

Unfortunately, the City of Burlington appears to be gaining a reputation and possibly not a good one. We will not speculate as to how and why all of this transpired but it appears that the city’s ability to plan our city’s future may be in serious jeopardy. Combine this with the city’s dismal track record at appeal hearings and what appear to have been unrealistic and poorly contrived populist election promises, this latest debacle may haunt us all for years to come.