Urban Planning
& Smart Growth |
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Introduction - Why Is This
Topic Of Interest?
Why Do We Need To Grow Smart?
Did You Know…
Urban Planning Indicators
Introduction
- Why Is This Topic Of Interest?
Because it’s about
where and how we live and how that environment
can and should change.
Urban Planning: The City of London Planning
Division manages the growth and physical form of
the City. The Division reviews and processes
development approval applications in conformity
with the policies of the Official Plan. Planning
staff gather public input and conduct research
to develop and review plans, provide planning
advice and monitor and develop policies that
protect and enhance our urban environment. They
also provide support for City Council and its
committees and provide information to
community-based working groups.
Smart Growth is an approach to development, the
goal of which is to balance economic progress
with environmental protection and quality of
life. Smart growth welcomes growth for its
ability to generate new businesses, jobs and the
revenue necessary to support the services we
value. Growth, however, must be managed so
everyone in the community benefits and our
environment is protected. Smart growth asks us
to take a longer-term view in planning and calls
for being strategic about where public money is
spent and to make responsible choices in order
to maintain the quality of life our citizens
require.
A major component of growing smart is the
promotion of compact development to accommodate
growth and development in a way that uses land
more efficiently. Promotion of increased
densities and mixed land uses in new communities
helps make it possible to use methods of travel
other than cars. We’re encouraged to take public
transit, walk and cycle and this activity
increases the vitality of streets and public
spaces. Smart growth encourages the development
of lands and buildings within the City that are
already serviced and either abandoned or
underutilized. Greater infill development,
brownfield redevelopment (former industrial or
commercial lands), downtown revitalization and
the conservation and re-use of cultural heritage
buildings are essential to realizing compact
form and livable communities. The best methods
to achieve the Smart Growth goal of protecting
and enhancing the environment are to clearly
identify natural heritage features and areas,
and prime agricultural lands, while steering
growth pressures away from those areas.
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Why Do
We Need To Grow Smart?
It’s a fact – London is
growing! The following graph shows historical
and projected population in the City of London
to 2031.
Because of this continued
growth and accompanying development, City of
London Staff and Council have increasingly heard
concerns from the public regarding what they
perceive as urban sprawl. Typical concerns cite
the seemingly haphazard development of treed
areas or farmers’ fields that have, until
recently, been untouched by urban uses. Urban
sprawl is a term that really applies to
unplanned growth and development in areas where
servicing may not exist and are often not
intended to exist for a number of years. Where
planning is current and controls well in place,
urban sprawl cannot exist – this is the case in
the City of London. Smart Growth planning
ensures the land use is in accordance with a
community’s long term goals and objectives and
these goals and objectives are the result of
community input and public policy. As new
subdivisions are built they will sometimes look
out of place as they may be situated away from
current built up areas. Often new services need
to be provided for the development before the
entire area can “fill in” according to plan.
This is not so much considered sprawl as the
outward expansion of urban growth that is
necessary to keep up with an expanding
population. Thus the City of London is tasked
with growing “smart”. Many
Smart
Growth strategies have already been employed
and successes realized.
The following indicators provide some real
measures of the development that has been
occurring in London. They tell us where the
growth has been occurring, how it is being built
and what the City is doing to “guide” this
growth in a sustainable manner.
Did You Know…
- ...that 80% of Canada’s
Population lives in urban centers?
- …that since 2001 for every
$1 in public investment in new construction in
the Downtown, the private sector has invested
$37?
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