I watched the CBRM meeting on YouTube on Tuesday, March 23. I felt the relief that comes when something that should change seems to be doing just that.

Time was a planner would present a recommendation to council and our elected representatives would not ask relevant questions and seriously consider the issue at hand because, well the planners had already done that. And the planners knew best.

Councillor Glen Paruch, elected for the first time in our last election, serves the area where Doctor Margaret Fraser wants to move her medical clinic – specifically, Cottage Road.

The planners suggested that the Doctor Fraser be denied her request. Why?

“Recommendation: It would be best to re-evaluate residential neighbourhood functions and their range of uses within the context of CBRM as a whole, as part of the comprehensive review of CBRM’s planning documents; therefore, staff are recommending that Council uphold policy.”

As I wrote in Our Municipal Planning Strategy is Weird, Council is supposed to do a review of the MPS every five years, but it never has.

And now the planning department decided that there should not be a medical clinic on Cottage Road because a comprehensive review of the MPS is being done, without a deadline.

But Councillor Paruch challenged the planner’s report and information, pointing out that concerns over increased traffic do not really make sense because there is already a lot of traffic in this area, that the way data was collected via online survey was flawed; one person could submit several surveys, for example. And so on.

So, a shout out to Councillor Paruch, who seems to realize that planning decisions should be based on carefully gathered, relevant data, and that potential benefits to our communities are important considerations.

As a last point, planners make errors. When the Utility and Review Board was asked to evaluate one decision of the CBRM planning department, they pointed out that the CBRM planning department repeatedly stated that they do not have jurisdiction over any structure in water, but they do. The CBRM Council has never publicly stated that they understand that they do have this jurisdiction.

Link to the video of the CBRM Meeting ion Tuesday, March 23, 2021