Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Too many of us work downtown

Scan any headhunter's website or the business books section at Chapters and it seems as if everyone is writing about the leadership attribute of "integrative thinking."

Simply put, it's the ability to find meaning and a pattern in disparate and seemingly unrelated events. And exceptional leaders make strategic and advantageous policy decisions based on this pattern.

Which brings us to the present transit strike, today's expected snowstorm, the city's ongoing Official Plan review and the Public Works RFI (solicitation number 5225-2-2008-10), which closes on Jan. 30. Don't fret; it will become clear in the next 500 words or so.

Regardless of how bus drivers, mechanics and dispatchers vote tomorrow on the city's contract offer, the lasting lessons from this strike are as follows: Too many of us work in or around the downtown core; lengthening daily commutes (strike or no strike) are stifling productivity; and the origin-destination studies of major traffic flows around the national capital region must have an even greater influence on local planning decisions in Ottawa and Gatineau.

The extra hours today spent idling in traffic with a cold coffee only serve to bring these lessons into starker focus.

And this brings us to the city's Official Plan review. In the interest of transparency, I have a tangential client interest in the long-term implications (think 50 years out) of this process. But the greater issue is the city's desire to, in effect, curtail almost all growth outside the greenbelt and force intensification inside the greenbelt and, specifically, the downtown core.

The theory is that the "stick" of property zoning and land-use decisions can drive growth inside the core, and reduce suburban sprawl, highway traffic congestion and lead to a more vibrant inner city. Fair enough. However, this runs counter to the reality of other city, provincial and federal policy initiatives.

For example, local public health officials are encouraging our greying population to age in place as opposed to moving to an apartment or condo. Aging in place leads to better health outcomes and lower health system costs. And the provincial focus, especially with major cancer service expansion at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital and a possible move of the Ottawa Hospital Civic campus to the Hunt Club corridor is in response to putting services closer to where people are, which is not the city core.

Finally, there is federal solicitation 5225-2-2008-10, posted on the MERX procurement system in mid-December. Public Works is looking for information from developers for just under 4-million sq. ft. of office space for lease availability from 2011 through to the 2026 to 2035 period. And guess what? They are primarily interested in spaces outside the greenbelt such as Orleans, Kanata and Aylmer.

Several downtown government complexes are in serious need of retrofit and repair. Moreover, departments like DND and Health Canada are scattered across the city which is inefficient in the extreme. And then there are operational and security concerns with having too many government installations in the core and susceptible to blackouts, massive demonstrations or worse.

The immediate integrative leadership opportunity for senior city staff, is, at a minimum, to integrate the "live" lessons we are learning from the transit strike, align our Official Plan review to what the feds are thinking with respect to their future installations and actively encourage the local development community to respond to the feds' RFI with complexes on or adjacent to future transit hubs in our master transit plan.