plan103 final exam

Question 1

define, understand and reflect on municipal finance and planning admin

Answer 1

Planning: where stuff goes
Administration: how do we carry out a task and organize ourselves

Question 2

understand and critically reflect on why we plan and the need for contemporary planning

Answer 2

• To avoid conflicting land uses
  
  • Protect public goods
  • To provide public goods
  • Coordinating and pooling resources for collective projects

Question 3

understand costs and benefits of planning

Answer 3

○ Costs:
§ Direct cost of planning system
§ Land (housing) prices
§ Productivity, business activity
○ Benefits:
§ Env and social issues from market econ
§ Balance of benefits among diff stakeholders
§ Econ development benefits from coordinated/compact development
§ Avoid duplication
○ Net
§ Not straightforward

Question 4

planning administration

Answer 4

○ More bout the processes and the legislative framework
○ Less about how to design a community or how and why we plan for a specific land use

Question 5

public finance

Answer 5

• About the revenue ans expenditure decisions of municipal government
  
  • What goods and services to deliver
  • How to pay
  • How to deliver them
  • What are the implications of these decisions
    ○ Who pays? Who benefits?

Question 6

public interest(s)

Question 7

infrastructure gap

Question 8

traditional vs. performance based zoning

Question 9

statutory power

Question 10

what is the planning heirarchy

Answer 10

• First is the planning act which enables planning (adminsistered by the ministry of municipal affairs and housing)
  
  • Also other acts which could include the building code
  • After planning act there is the provincial policy statement (PPS): more direction from the province as to what to include in plans (ex. Planning for diveristy of housing tyoes and proctecting natural environments), broad direction
  • Municipal plans (offical plans): must be consistant with both the planning act and PPS (is figure 7.1)
  • There are also provincial plans that stem from other acts (Environmental impact assessment): start to talk about where and what and how to plan specifically

Question 11

federal roles

Answer 11

○ International
○ Trade
○ Defense
○ Macro economic policy
○ Funding,
○ Owned lands (parks, real estate)
○ Infastructure
○ housing

Question 12

provincial roles

Answer 12

○ Health care
○ Transportation
○ Education
○ Resources
○ Local governments
○ Funding,
○ Owned lands (parks, real estate)
○ Infastructure
○ housing
○ planning legislation

Question 13

municipal roles

Answer 13

○ creatures of the province
○ Funding,
○ Owned lands (parks, real estate)
○ Infrastructure
○ housing
○ planning legislation
○ carry out planning

Question 14

planning and reconciliation

Answer 14

• Reconciliation in planning has a minimum of 4 dimmensions
  
  1. Uphold indiggenous ways of living and planning
  2. Respond to action items from truth and reconciliation commisions
  3. Acknowledge role of historic and current planning practice on
     Indigenous peoples and Nations (and work to undo them)
     
     4. Educating the public and specific stakeholders involved in the process
• We must build parralel systems in order to have indigneous planning as we should not try to aviod conflict in and of itself
• Conflict can help us understand where people are coming from…discomfort is important

Question 15

ontario planning act

Answer 15

• Enables planning
• Gives planners the legal authority to plan (ie; able to create zoning by-laws and the authorty to prohibit land)
• Gives municiplaites express authority to carry out planning
• Normally deal with five matters
  
  1. Creation of plannig units
  2. The establishment of organizational machinery for planning
  3. The content, prep, and adoption of plans
  4. The format for enacting zoning, building, and statutory plans
  5. The system for subdividing lands

Question 16

official plan/community plan and some characterisitics and roles

Answer 16

• Municipal policy on land use
• Goals and objectives of the community
• Location (amount) of different land uses
  ○ Housing, industry, commercial retail, community facilities
  ○ Services (infrastructure, schools, fire stations)
• Phasing of development
  ○ About where and when things go places

Key features of community plans
1. Focus on the natural and built environment
2. Long-range and forward looking
3. Comprehensive in viewpoint
4. General and broad-based in perspective

Question 17

indigenous planning methods

Answer 17

1. Community driven, inclusive, and representative
2. Empower community members to share and find solutions
3. Reflect emotional experiences embodied in stories of people and traditional knowledge of their culture
4. Prioritize land stewardship, striving for responsible development

Question 18

What is zoning? What can it and can it not regulate?

Answer 18

○ Land use type
○ Lot size
○ Height
○ Set backs from lot lines
○ Density, bulk
○ Floor area ratio
○ Conventional zoning: desity use, FAR, stbacks, parking requirements, maximum building heights specified
○ Zoning design guidelines: conventional zoning requirements, plus frequency of openings and surface articulation specified
§ What you would like things to look like on the exterior
○ Form-based codes: street and building types (or mix of types), build-to lines, number of floors, and percentage of built site frontage specified

Question 19

What are the differences between a secondary plan and a site plan?

Answer 19

a secondary plan is for new areas that are undergoing growth and site plans are individual design of a lot specifying things like driveways, walkways, greenspace, etc.

Question 20

What is a plan of subdivision? How does it differ from a severance?

Answer 20

plan of subdivision plans exactly where the lots are going to go and severence is the process of separating land from existing property to create a new lot

Question 21

Assume that you are to build a ten-unit condominium building as an infill project (i.e., inner city densification or intensification). What financial and planning considerations might you take into account in determining the feasibility of such a project?

Answer 21

• average selling price of units
• potential revenue (how much money made)
• profit (20%) of revenue
• maximum cost of project (revenue - profit)
• the costs (land, legal, construction, planning applications studies)
• land and price of land
• can we carry out the project (land econ, business case, affordability)
• How could we make it work potentially?
  ○ Density
  ○ Selling price
  ○ Profit
  ○ Severance
  ○ Development incentives/susides
  Planning concerns of infill
  
  • Parking
  • Noise
  • Sewage treatment
  • Drinking water

Question 22

secondary plan

Answer 22

Made for new areas that are undergoing growth

Question 23

design gudielines

Answer 23

A document that uses text, graphics and images to convey to potential developers and the public examples of desirable aesthetic details and layout of roads, public spaces, building facades etc.

Question 24

land subdivision

Answer 24

A plan or process that denotes details of how an existing, undeveloped property is to be divided into multiple lots for sale

Question 25

severence

Answer 25

The process of separating land from existing property to create a new lot

Question 26

minor varience

Answer 26

A small variation from the requirements of the zoning bylaw

Question 27

legal non confroming use

Answer 27

When the use of one’s land, building, or structure is not permitted by the current bylaw, but was permitted by the previous bylaw

Question 28

plan ammendments

Answer 28

An application process that can change policies and/or land use designations in an official plan

Question 29

The difference between single versus two-tiered municipalities (and difference between Regional and Local Official Plans in two-tiered municipalities)

Answer 29

- Single ○ One geographic boundary ○ One council ○ Approves local OP ○ Higher level plan ○ Overall urban structure § Growth areas § Transportation routes § Protected areas § Urban vs rural lands Growth boundary - Two tiered ○ Upper layer ○ Smaller layer ○ Ex. If only plan for Kitchener in the very inter-connected region of waterloo, how could you do good planning ○ Sometimes its better to think about things from a broader regional scale ○ Needs to fit within regional OP ○ Local focus ○ Form of city § More detailed land use designations § Transportation Basis for more specific area plans (ie. Secondary plan)

Question 30

The process of obtaining a minor variance

Answer 30

- Pre-application consultation meeting - Public notification - Public hearing Committee decision and appeal

Question 31

The general process and input into creating a secondary plan (Rosenberg community, Southwest Kitchener)

Question 32

What kinds of plans, planning tools and processes did we discuss ? How do these relate to the planning hierarchy we learned about before?

Question 33

What is public participation? How do we define it? What does it involve? What is the role of the planner in participation?

Answer 33

- Including all affected parties in public decsiscion making process - Defining who stakeholders are who have a stake in the outcome of a decision - Define the public as those stakeholders who are not a part of the decision making entity or entities - Define public participation as any process that involves the public in problem-solving or decsison making and that uses public input to make better decsions - Indetifiying that the public is affected by decsions but also that there are multiple publics - Why are there multiple publics ○ There are different people ○ We cant just take all of our views and just average them out ○ It is not a mathematical problem, but it is a qualitative problem ○ Must recognize that you as a planner have your own perspective on the world and we must compensate for the fact that we alone cannot decide what is best for the world ○ "Planning with" rather than "planning for"

Question 34

What is the ladder of public participation? What are the different levels?

Question 35

Who is included in public participation? Excluded? How do we work toward greater inclusion? Is "co-production" possible?

Answer 35

- Find ways to engage in "co-producing processes, policies, and programs" - Transcend "being there" with a role in decision-making Create continuing connections - There have been many changes made to the ways in which the planning process occours but that hasn't fundamentally changed the way that we plan If your process doesn’t inherently allow for the participation to create really results, not only is particpation for nothing, but it can also foster a worse relationship with the community for wasting their time

Question 36

What are the skills planners require to lead successful public participation?

Answer 36

- Education/knowledge and educating - Experience - facilitation - Communication - Mutual learning - Mediation - consensus building - Persuasion/marketing ○ Promoter of "right" ideas ○ Sometimes our job is to change people's minds § Eg. Living downtown - People skills (planning is about people) - Expect the unexpected - Professionalism

Question 37

What is intersectionality? Why is it important to consider in the context of public participation?

Question 38

What is NIMBY? And why is it important?

Answer 38

- Not in my backyard - Issue percived as damaging quality of life, investment in property - Can be a reaction to not being informed - Important for planners to seek an understanding of the reaction Can be a result of racism, classism, poverty shaming, other forms of exclusion and discrimination

Question 39

What factors shape the context within which municipalities make revenue/expenditure decisions? In what way?

Question 40

Where do municipalities gain revenue? How do they spend their money?

Question 41

Vertical and horizontal fiscal imbalance

Question 42

Themes in municipal finance (amalgamation, types of tax collected, fiscal imbalance etc.)

Question 43

Ways in which COVID-19 has impacted municipal budgets/spending

Question 44

What are three common sources of municipal revenue in Canada?

Question 45

Which revenue source has traditional been the largest component of a municipality’s total revenue stream in Canada?

Question 46

What limits how municipalities are permitted to collect revenues?

Question 47

Why is there a growing fiscal gap in municipal budgets?

Question 48

What are the differences between revenue, capital and reserve funds?

Question 49

What are the differences between line-item and program-based budgets?

Question 50

What are select principles of “sustainable finance” used by the City of Kitchener that we covered in the lectures?

Question 51

What are some common trends in municipal finance in the Canadian context? What are their implications for municipalities as it relates to budgeting and planning?

Question 52

What are the benefits of financing expenditures from current budgets versus incurring debt?

Question 53

What is participatory budgeting? How and where has it been used? What lessons have been learned?

Question 54

Why is budgeting important?

Question 55

how price influences demand for different types of goods

Question 56

elasticity

Question 57

externalities

Question 58

how and why do prices matter in planning

Question 59

Describe characteristics and definitions of sprawl and development charges

Question 60

Describe and analyze relationship between sprawl and development charges

Question 61

Understand and be able to calculate examples of marginal versus average cost pricing

Question 62

subsidies

Question 63

cross-subsidies

Question 64

marginal vs. average cost pricing (mis-pricing)

Question 65

Sprawl as "excessive growth"

Question 66

Three approaches to planning for growth

Question 67

Suburbanization as a process (and a place based definition)

Question 68

Diversity of suburban ways of living

Question 69

Dualism in traditional definitions of suburbs vs city

Question 70

bundled goods

Question 71

Pricing strategies (cost, equity, rationing)

Question 72

not pricing externalities

Question 73

sprawl as excessive growth

Question 74

Practical examples of pricing strategies used

Question 75

Limitations and concerns

Question 76

Managing transportation demand (and costing for municipality)

Question 77

inclusionary zoning

Question 78

brownfield redevelopment

Question 79

Long term occupant subsidy programs

Question 80

Stormwater management

Question 81

P3s

Question 82

DBFO's

Question 83

Vancouver Canada Line and Olympic Village