City Wetlands protection debate at 3pm – some background
We’ve seen quite an upsurge of interest on social media (here for example) about proposed changes in the way undeveloped wetlands around the city will be protected in future (or not). The council is going to vote on whether to approve their new rules in the council meeting Tuesday 11th at 3pm. This link will show the video of the debate when it starts and meanwhile provides links to relevant council documents, including staff summary of public reaction so far.
To briefly (and hopefully correctly!) summarize – there is quite a bit of un-developed wetland within the City of St Johns’ boundaries, and the city is trying to devise a (relatively) low-cost method to allow it to decide which parts of it should be protected from future development. Current regulations state no development is permitted on “in a waterway, wetland, pond, lake or the Buffer adjacent to a body of water or in a Floodplain”.
Staff took a tool academics developed – the WESP-AC (Manual for Wetland Ecosystem Services Protocol for Atlantic Canada (WESP-AC)) – and used it to evaluate several wetland sites around the city. The WESP-AC does not specify what their score should allow or not allow – it is just a relative score. City staff recommended a score of 5 as the threshold to trigger protection of these and future wetlands. It found 13 of the 68 sites they studied would be protected from development with a target score of 5 – but of those that would “fail”, all but eight are part of stream systems which would therefore mean they would be (partially?) protected by rules protecting flood plains. Crucially for what followed, none of the areas studied that fell between 5 and 6. In future, areas that were not studied would have to be studied using the WESP-AC and scored before it could go forward, and there would also be public consultation. No wetlands-related consultation on areas that have just been mapped and scored would be needed, however.
Update: The Environment & Sustainability Experts Panel was not consulted before staff were asked to decide what amount of development would be acceptable. One of the first responses to the most recent public engagement was a letter from a provincial wildlife biologist who helped write the formula that was used, saying it was not appropriate to use his measure to justify development in that way and could set a dangerous precedent.
Here is an overview of how things have gone in council:
This proposed change was first discussed in November in the Committee of the Whole – you can view the debate and accompanying documents here starting at 13:50. Sheilagh O’Leary, Cllrs Ellsworth and Burton were not present.
https://pub-stjohns.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=cc348222-c95c-4ced-8c82-79a9605b484e&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English&Item=24&Tab=attachmentsSummarising:
Cllr Hickman introduced the idea that the staff-recommended threshold of 5 should be changed to 6 (or 5.5). Korab agreed with him. Cllr Ravencroft suggested 5.5 on the grounds that we need to be able to build more housing – “I question whether 6 is pushing it”. Cllr Bruce “5.5 I would be willing to entertain but not 6”. Korab moved the amendment to 6 and Cllr Hanlon (who had not spoken) seconded it. Cllr Froude said staff recommendation was a good balance and that moving it to 6 seemed arbitrary. Cllr Ridgeley did not speak but voted in favour of raising the number to 6.
Cllrs Froude, Bruce and Ravencroft voted against the change in the number, but nobody critiqued how the numbers were arrived at.
It came back to council at the end of November – the debate started at this link from 30:31 in the clip.
https://pub-stjohns.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=b8142306-0628-469b-9146-3d3203a7e962&Agenda=PostMinutes&lang=English&Item=34&Tab=attachments
Deputy Mayor Sheilagh O’Leary said that she was “very satisfied to support the conservative measure of five originally set out by staff [or even 5.5] but not six. “I really feel that we need to be more conservative in our approach.”
Cllr Burton said, “there is a huge range of possible outcomes between the numbers of five and six. … So to me, this wetland study is more a how to develop in the wetland, versus to how to keep a wetland from being developed. … I saw five as an extremely arbitrary number… I wouldn’t encourage council to accept the staff recommendation, the original staff recommendation of five as it is already an arbitrary number and doesn’t reflect the the the extraordinary need to protect wetlands within the city as I see it.”
Cllr Ravencroft said, “I think 5.5 was kind of a nice midpoint. If we set it high, now, we’re not gonna be able to take it back later.”
Cllr Korab, “it’s tough when we say we need more affordable housing, we’re in a housing crisis, which isn’t going to be corrected anytime in the short term to turn around and limit the land that can be developed. Now we can’t go crazy. But I feel six is a better number it leads to possibly more development as outlined.”
Cllr Hickman: “I’m quite comfortable with six, because it doesn’t impact any lands that could be seen as of concern. We need neighborhoods, complete neighborhoods, we’ve talked about many times, and we need stores, churches, schools, etc, to support that. We cannot expect that if we don’t make land available.”
Cllr Ridgeley: “With the crisis that we have now with housing, every lot that we take out of development increases the cost of the developer. And those costs will be reflected back to the people that are purchasing the land and the home. So for that reason, I’m I am comfortable, quite comfortable with six”.
Cllr Bruce spoke briefly in favor of 5.5 not 6, Cllr Hanlon in favor of six.
The councillors voted as follows:
For (5) Mayor Breen, Councillor Hickman, Councillor Hanlon, Councillor Korab, and Councillor Ridgeley
Against (4) Deputy Mayor O’Leary, Councillor Burton, Councillor Ravencroft, and Councillor Bruce
Abstain (1) Councillor Ellsworth (because of potential conflict of interest)
The formal public engagement process ended at the end of the month but of course you can still contact councillors directly.
Cllr Burton said (and subsequent councillors on both sides appeared to agree) the number provided in this formula is “arbitrary”. The academics who drafted the formula in the first place and the Environment & Sustainability Experts Panel also agree.
Would you be happy finding you had bought a house built in a natural wetland? As the foundations settle the high water table could invade and erode any small crack.
One small but crucial point that I’d like to shout out, is that there is actually no basis, whatsoever, for considering any number, such as “5”, “5.5”, or “6” (or even “2” or “8” for that matter) as a “midpoint”. It’s a classic mistake arising from not understanding “distributions”. The number “5” is only a midpoint if the distribution of samples is approximately equal on either side of that value. People often assume, incorrectly (or pretend to assume, on purpose) that, given samples that might take values in a range between 0 and 10, that those samples are evenly distributed in that range.
That is NOT the case here. Rather, a statistical analysis should be done on the existing data to determine the min, max, and *median* of the data set. Better yet, just plot the histogram for people to see! Only then will we be able to judge what a reasonable number might be. Without that, everyone is fooling themselves, or trying to fool others.
Of course, none of this commentary is meant to diminish the need to ensure that the scoring system *itself* hasn’t already fixed the numbers by suppressing certain factors and boosting others. There’s no point playing the game of “what number should we pick” when the underlying rules are already rigged.