Big Questions for Urban Planners

Posted by Andree Iffrig Jun 14, 2009

The chorus of voices calling for more density in cities is growing. Even a city as married to the automobile as Calgary, Alberta is poised to increase housing density with a new municipal planning document and transportation plan, Plan It Calgary.

Not everyone accepts that density is necessary, especially in their neighborhood. Developers are fighting it tooth and nail. Some planners are suggesting the difficulty is not the concept of densification, but rather the way it is being implemented.

One of the chief concerns is that planning documents like Plan It Calgary and smaller-scale area redevelopment plans don't have the right level of detail. The introductions to these plans begin at a high level, like a bird in the sky, and then plummet into people's backyards.

Developers complain that the mechanisms for implementing densification are not sufficiently clear. Business people like reliability: to know they can develop and replicate a particular kind of development model, rationalizing costs and investment of time.

Existing mechanisms for everything from engineering standards for roads to requirements for tree planting facilitate the execution of urban development projects. Developers seeking reliability are frustrated by planning documents like Plan It Calgary because they can't easily discern what these new mechanisms or regulations are, and how they will behave.

Citizens reading the detail in these plans react strongly to any hint that their community will be the site of denser development. The level of detail in these documents further conspires against community acceptance because it becomes difficult for people to see the forest for the trees. Readers become fixated on small details, sometimes losing sight of the benefits of the whole.

The big questions for planners and community leaders writing these documents include:

• What is the right level of detail for citizens, whose support for these plans is critical?
• What is the best way to write a plan so that it engages rather than instructs community readers?
• What kind of detail, by way of bylaw changes and other regulations, is required for the development industry, so that they support changes to existing planning documents and mechanisms?
• How can community associations ensure that their own area redevelopment plans go beyond platitudes about community, to planning information that will have teeth with local municipal planning departments?