I saw a question recently about whether Victoria City Council had enough time to absorb the Official Community Plan (OCP) update.
I want to set the record straight: In addition to knowing that it was coming, and being able to plan our time accordingly, Council has been engaged in the update for almost the entire term. We’ve had plenty of time.
Council began to set direction for the OCP – and all of our work and staff’s work – at the beginning of our term. We provided that direction via the Strategic Plan. We we started working on the Strategic Plan in January 2023, taking into consideration the preferences of the electorate who had voted a few months earlier. And you will see that key elements of the OCP update reflect the priorities (see figure) that we set in that Strategic Plan.
– https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/strategic-plan-2023-2026
Within each of those priorities, we set out a number of strategies, for example, Housing:
Staff of course took direction from the Strategic Plan in their work on the OCP update:
– https://pub-victoria.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=96300
Council also advanced an OCP mini-update in January 2023. At that time we discussed with staff the forthcoming, comprehensive OCP update that we are working on now.
A few months later, in April 2023, staff presented a 12-page report on the comprehensive OCP update and the key directions. These directions include more housing based on updated population projections, integration with low-carbon mobility, new villages, zoning renewal and bonus density, Subdivision and Development Servicing Bylaw update and much more – the bones of the OCP Update.
In February 2024, Council reviewed a 24-page staff report setting out at length the directions for the new OCP, along with details in 71 pages of attachments, and a 91-slide presentation. We asked questions, discussed it, and endorsed the key directions for the OCP, the emerging policy framework, the zoning modernization approach, the Subdivision and Development Servicing Bylaw renewal approach.
The formal window of public engagement took place in 2024, and it was extensive (of course the public was providing input before that formal window, and has continued since). More on the engagement in this post, but suffice it to say that there was a lot of material available explaining proposed changes to the OCP, zoning, other bylaws, and policies. I attended multiple information sessions and read the abundant materials that were posted online. All Council members had the same opportunity to do so, and one assumes they all did.
At each meeting with staff, Council members engaged in thoughtful discussion and asked questions. And we had the opportunity to ask questions at any time we wanted, for the last two years – in meetings, in closed meetings (e.g. legal advice questions), in conversations, and more.
We’ve also had two years to bring motions to direct staff to include things in the OCP Update, to exclude things, or to change direction – whatever we wanted.
Council has had the time and opportunity to question and carefully consider all the ideas in the draft OCP, and we will continue to do so as we work toward its adoption. Our focus remains on building a more livable, sustainable, and inclusive Victoria – as set out in our Strategic Plan, and the draft OCP Update.
In closing, yes the OCP Update was long – probably around 600 pages. However, each of us ran for Council knowing that there would be hundreds of pages to read for each week’s meetings. Last week for example we had an appeal of an staff decision that was over 800 pages long, along with all the other reading for that week’s meetings. It’s just part of the job. We read lots, and we deal with it. 🙂