|
...planning in the province of Ontario. The design decisions made by the OMB have a significant and lasting impact on the physical fabric and visual make-up of cities in Ontario. This research assesses six Board decisions to explore how design decisions are made, identify factors used to evaluate the design quality of development proposals, and examine whether such a decision-making model has helped enhance the quality of the built environment. The study suggests that the OMB model has both pros and cons but is certainly not fully conducive for reviewing and adjudicating designs. It further suggests that the OMB makes conscious attempts to recognize urban design as an important and integral part of planning and supports less rigid design control measures despite being mainly concerned about the "measurable" impacts of a design on a community. Overall, this adjudicative process attempts to balance private and public interests but while doing so may not have led to the best design solution.
Keywords: urban design, decision-making, Ontario Municipal Board, Toronto
Resume
Cet article analyse le modele de processus decisionnel canadien concernant le processus d'evaluation de design urbain. L'etude se concentre sur la Commission des Affaires Municipales de l'Ontario (CAMO), un tribunal administratif qui est incontestablement un puissant organisme de processus decisionnel en ce qui concerne les questions d'amenagement urbain en Ontario. Les decisions de design urbain, effectuees par la CAMO, ont un impact significatif et durable sur le tissu urbain des villes en Ontario. Afin d'explorer le processus decisionnel nous avons evaluez six decisions de la CAMO. Il s'agit d'identifier les facteurs utilises pour evaluer la qualite des designs urbains et d'examiner si ce modele de processus decisionnel aide a rehausser la qualite de l'environnement urbain. L'etude suggere que le modele de la CAMO comporte des aspects positifs et negatifs sans etre pour autant completement adequat pour effectuer l'evaluation et l'allocation des designs urbains. L'etude suggere egalement que la CAMO reconnaisse l'importance du design urbain comme une partie integrante de l'amenagement urbain. En effet, la CAMO doit imposer des mesures de controle moins rigides malgre le fait que la Commission est principalement concernee par les impacts mesurables du design urbain sur la communaute. En general, le processus adjudicatif essaye d'equilibrer les interets prives et publics, ce faisant, la Commission n'a pas toujours opte pour le meilleur design urbain.
Mots cles: design urbain, processus decisionnel, Commission des Affaires Municipales de l'Ontario, Toronto
Introduction
The design quality of development proposais is reviewed and decided in different ways. There are municipal-level review committees such as in British Columbia and Quebec in Canada (Kumar, 2002) and all across the United States (Lightner, 1993) that review design aspects of development proposais. National and provincial governments also appoint special committees to review designs in their respective capital cities. The National Capital Commission (1) (NCC) in Ottawa and the Wascana Centre Authority (2) (WCA) in Regina Saskatchewan are examples of such committees in Canada. The staff of local municipal authorities also review designs of development projects and are usually the first people who get to review and make decisions. Kumar's (2002) survey of urban design regulations in Canada reveals that a different form of decision-making model exists where there is no design review panel. This model constitutes provincially-appointed quasi-judicial boards that play a significant role in making final design decisions in case of appeals and by far could have the greatest impact on the built environment and communities in their respective provinces.
This study investigates the design decision-making model in which the provincially-appointed body is the final authority in the design- and planning-related appeals process. The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), an administrative tribunal in the Canadian province of Ontario exemplifies such a model. The OMB is an important and powerful decision-making body in Ontario with respect to urban planning- and urban design-related matters. No provincial board in Canada has as extensive a jurisdiction over planning and urban design matters as the OMB (Chipman, 2002). Its decisions have a significant and lasting impact on the physical fabric and visual quality of cities in Ontario.
In recent years, the public and media perceptions of the OMB have become distinctly negative. Local Toronto media has chastised OMB for its ineffectiveness and questioned its relevance many times (For instance, Stein and Swainson, 2000, regarding OMB's decision to allow development on the Oak Ridges Moraine; Immen 2002, on allowing condominium development near Fort York, a revered historic site in Toronto). It has labelled the Board as "a rogue regulator that has been terrorizing Ontario towns and cities," "an affront to democracy,.... pro-developer," and a "paternalistic relic" to name a few (Barber, 2002a; Barber, 2001). Many Ontario municipalities have also expressed their frustrations with the costly and sometimes lengthy appeal process. These dissenting voices in the recent years have become widespread and much louder, asking for major reforms and even the abolition of the OMB.
Architecture critics Christopher Hume (2003) and Albert Warson (2001) compare urban design in Toronto and Vancouver and conclude that Toronto is far behind Vancouver. Hume says that this is partly because the OMB appeal process is largely driven by lawyers rather than planners, who are more attuned with the city building practices than the lawyers. He further argues that the decisions of the design review panel in Vancouver have led to better designs and generated a better built environment in Vancouver than what OMB has achieved in Toronto. Punter's (2003a, 2003b) study of Vancouver's design review panel supports Hume's argument. Punter attributes the success of Vancouver's design review panel to its early intervention into the design process, the quality of its critique, the independence of its advice, the transparency of its process, and its ability to support design innovation and imagination.
Design review (3) by design review panels as a successful model of decision-making is highly debatable. Barring Vancouver's, the design review process is often contentious and unsatisfactory (Scheer, 1994; Delafons, 1990; Hough, 1994; Punter, 1994). Several reasons for the ineffectiveness of design review are documented in literature, though mostly by American scholars (Lai, 1994; Scheer, 1994; Wallis, 1994; Zotti, 1987; Williams, 1977; Poole, 1987). Concerns arise primarily from the lack of due process, fairness, and objectivity. Design review is also perceived as a rigid process that discourages innovation, since innovation conflicts with established legal standards. Kumar (2003) details how lack of access to and misuse of information makes the review process unsatisfactory. Kumar and George (2002) explain how design review process is fraught with the fallacious arguments, which gives rise to inconsistent decisions.
Scheer (1994), who has been at the forefront of studies on design review committees in the US, raises some important questions about decision-making in design. She points to fundamental questions such as who should judge design, whose tastes should matter, and whose interest it is to control the design quality of buildings. For her, the purpose of design review is not to deliver justice to the parties involved, but to deliver the best environment to the community. She strongly argues "the explicit and fair process might not be the one that delivers the best environment." She also asserts that striving for objectivity in decision-making stifles design excellence.
While assessing the provincial decision-making model, the study also intends to test the veracity of critics' claims about the OMB and OMB design decisions. It finds answers to the questions such as: What are the characteristics of the Board's decisions? Which factors were considered while making design decisions? Has the OMB process in anyway enhanced the quality of the built environment in Ontario cities? Is this a "good" model of decision-making in urban design? This study intends not to look at the administrative, procedural or political challenges and issues that the OMB faces and neither does it view the OMB and its adjudicative process from the lens of legal ideologies, theories or parlance. The focus of the study is on the role and procedures of the OMB and characteristics of its recent design decisions.
To answer these questions, a select set of six board decisions, which encased significant discussions on the design aspects of the development proposals, has been analysed using content analysis. The analysis also relied upon documents such as submissions made by the main proponents and opponents of the proposals, witness statements, city staff reports, and consultants' reports. To further enrich the data, four OMB members and four private and public urban designers were interviewed.
The study suggests that the OMB has made conscious attempts to recognize urban design as an important and integral part of planning while being cognizant of its special...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
More articles from Canadian Journal of Urban Research
Understanding the university-community alliance: the waterloo experien..., December 22, 2005
Le logement communautaire a Montreal: satisfaction residentielle et in..., December 22, 2005
Citizen decision-making in socially sensitive housing processes: a cas..., December 22, 2005
Changes in aboriginal settlement patterns in two Canadian cities: a co..., December 22, 2005
Ethnicity, immigration and housing wealth in Toronto., December 22, 2005
Looking for additional articles?
Search our database of over 3 million articles.
Looking for more in-depth information on this industry?
Search our complete database of Industry & Market reports by text, subject, publication
name or publication date.
About Goliath
Whether you're looking for sales prospects, competitive information, company
analysis or best practices in managing your organization,
Goliath can help you meet your business needs.
Our extensive business information databases empower business
professionals with both the breadth and depth of credible,
authoritative information they need to support their business
goals. Whether it be strategic planning, sales prospecting,
company research or defining management best practices -
Goliath is your leading source for accurate information.
|
