In an era of Winnipeg planning chaos, 3 metres can be controversial
The Forks, seeking to add height to a proposed building, gets swept up in city hall maelstrom
In a measure of how much chaos is swirling around Winnipeg's planning, property and development department, one of the most careful and conservative players in downtown's revitalization has been caught up in the fray.
Over the past 31 years, the quasi-governmental agency known as The Forks has slowly transformed a former industrial yard at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers into the city's premiere tourist attraction and gathering space.
The work was done in stages, generally at a measured pace. The Forks National Historic Site was created in 1988, followed within a few years by the port, riverwalk, The Forks Market and the Johnston Terminal.
The Oodena Circle, Manitoba Children's Museum, festival stage and Citytv studio were added later in the 1990s.
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The Inn At The Forks, Esplanade Riel, a parkade and a skate park were all built in the 2000s, when The Forks also expanded its winter programming to include a river trail and warming huts. During this decade, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights was completed, The Forks moved its corporate offices into Union Station and the area formerly known as South Point became Niizhoziibean.
The pace of development within this very old section of the city has slowed, mainly because there are only a few more parcels of undeveloped land remaining between the CN Rail line and the Red River. The Forks has spent years planning the development of the surface parking lots collectively known as railside lands, which sit between the railway yard and Israel Asper Way.
The Forks is almost ready to lift the lid on the final plans for the parcel south of York Avenue, which the quasi-governmental corporation owns and will continue to own.
A series of low-rise commercial and residential buildings and public spaces are slated to be created over the next few years, once the city and province work out the final details of a tax-increment financing deal.
The piece of land on the north side of York Avenue, which the city owns, is more contentious. This is Parcel 4, the gravel surface lot that proved to be the bane of former mayor Sam Katz's existence when his administration tried to sell it, at an apparent discount, to a Saskatchewan hotel chain.
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The public backlash against that plan eventually led the city to place the future development of Parcel 4 in the hands of The Forks, which initially planned to develop it well after the southern piece of the railside lands was completed.
But this has changed.
A private developer has a proposal in the works for a commercial building on the north side of Parcel 4. People who play close attention to development in Winnipeg believe it would house new offices for Skip the Dishes, but the restaurant-delivery company, the city and The Forks have not confirmed this.
The Forks is not the developer of this project but it is reponsible for shepherding it through the corridors of city hall. On Sept. 25, planning consultant Tom Janzen of Scatliff & Miller & Murray, working on behalf of The Forks, wrote to Winnipeg planning, property and development director John Kiernan, asking for an amendment to the city's concept plan for The Forks, which is a framework for development within the neighbourhood.
The building proposed for Parcel 4 would be six storeys high, which is consistent with the plan, but would be about three metres taller. Janzen asked Kiernan for a minor amendment of the sort city hall routinely approves.
Three more metres on a building that would rise on a gravel parking lot with no residential neighbours — the only building in the immediate vicinity is Shaw Park — normally would not elicit a peep of dissent from city councillors.
The thing is, the fall of 2019 is not a normal time for Winnipeg's planning, property and development department, which has been stumbling from crisis to crisis for 20 years.
There was a damning real-estate audit during the Glen Murray administration, more dramatic property scandals during the Katz era — which spawned a second, even more damning real-estate audit — and more turmoil during Brian Bowman's time as mayor.
After promising to clean up the messes from the Katz era, Bowman has largely lost the confidence of Winnipeg developers through what they consider his rush to bring in growth fees and the firing of property inspectors for slacking on the job.
City councillors, especially those who are not allied with the mayor, have also lost confidence.
So when a motion to amend the concept plan for The Forks showed up at council's property committee on Monday, councillors Kevin Klein (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westood) and Janice Lukes (Waverley West) balked.
The committee did not wind up hearing the request and will now hold a special meeting to consider three more metres for a proposed building on the north side of what's now a gravel surface parking lot.
"My concern was not the issue itself — about the development — but how it came to council," Klein said on Tuesday, referring to the walk-on request that arrived with little context.
"We have a number of problems with that department and pushing through motions for city partners, if you will — and not other entities — sets a very bad precedent."
Technically, The Forks is a private corporation. In reality, it's what the British call a quango — a quasi-non-governmental organization.
The Forks has three shareholders: the city, provincial and federal governments.
This explains why The Forks is never in a rush to do anything. It is, in effect, a government entity run by a board whose main objectives include never upsetting the city, province and Ottawa.
It would be highly unlikely to see councillors reject this application by The Forks. But Klein and Lukes are fair in raising a point about the planning-approval process, which has long been an issue at city hall.
Brian Pallister's provincial government is musing about taking away some of those powers in a move that has a number of potential outcomes, both positive and negative.
In theory, planning approvals made without political oversight could be free of the parochial whims of municipal politicians, who do not always make decisions in the best interests of the city as a whole.
But developers would continue to attempt to exert influence over the process, even if the province creates a new unelected planning board. Such board also runs the risk of serving as a new level of bureaucracy and creating even more uncertainty for developers and residents.
The bigger elephant in the room is Winnipeg has yet to reckon with the real-estate scandals of the not-too-distant past, as identified by a trio of audits from the Sam Katz era.
A council call for a provincial inquiry has been rebuffed by Pallister on the basis the RCMP are investigating a single aspect of a single project, the construction of Winnipeg's police headquarters.
The provincial government commissioned a planning review of its own, but its methodology was widely panned. It also characterized two of the players in Katz-era scandals as being aggrieved parties under the Bowman administration.
While there's no question the planning department is ripe for an overhaul, it appears a lot of political games are underway.
That's why any walk-on planning motion, even something seemingly innocuous from The Forks, is bound be shot down right now.
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