Do you guys remember all this jazz? When I went to City Hall for the first time to try and wrap my brain around the Municipal Development Plan?
Part of my efforts to do so included sending an e-mail to all the City Councillors, in search of answers to some of my questions. In the end, I talked to a few folks, far more than I ever expected would return my calls – but about two weeks ago, I received an e-mail from the the City’s planning and development department, letting me know that Councillor Bryan Anderson had passed my questions on to them.
They asked for clarification on some of my concerns, because, y’know, I’m barely literate – and then last week I received this incredibly thorough answer sheet from Councillor Anderson’s assistant, Erin Poulsen (no relation).
Wow, you should totally read it, because it’s written in PLAIN ENGLISH, which meant Jeff didn’t have to play English-to-Sally interpreter for me, as he usually does. The first page is filled with my questions, and the next two are all the answers.
If you aren’t so inclined, or if you don’t have the time, here’s the Coles notes of the things I found important. It’s mostly the MDP backstory that I didn’t know.
-The Municipal Development Plan (MDP), because it has not yet been approved by Council, is still in the draft stage.
-The very first draft of the MDP was presented to Council in November of 2008. A multitude of folks came out to throw their two cents in, and the MDP project team took their concerns and looked into them. Based on this research, some changes were proposed to the document- and those changes were discussed at the hearing I went to back in June.
In September, Council is going to discuss and vote on these proposed changes. After that, the new, amended version of the MDP will be reviewed again at another Public Hearing in November.
(To see copies of the draft MDP, the draft Transportation Master Plan and the City’s 10 Year Strategic Plan, go here. Minutes from the Council meeting that I went to are available here.
The rest of the answers pertain specifically to food security, and are largely a retread of ground we covered here. But it’s still totally worth reading, if only to marvel at the fact that people with real jobs took time out of their day to answer me.
Seriously, team, we are going to be so g.d. informed when September rolls around. This is going to be the first City Council issue ever where I actually know wtf is going on. Thanks City of Edmonton!