http://www.clear.london.ca/Urban_Planning.html#UrbanPlanning
Urban Planning & Smart Growth
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.
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.
- …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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