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In the lead-up to the previous municipal election, Spacing identified the most pressing urban issues facing the city. In our urban planning feature we highlighted the need for the City to hire a new and energetic chief planner to replace the soon-to-be retired Gary Wright. We wrote, “A new boss who is willing to reform the planning and public consultation process is desperately needed in Toronto.”<\/p>\n
After a year of searching, the City of Toronto announced yesterday the hiring of Jennifer Keesmaat as the new chief planner<\/a>. It was a surprise hiring to many observers, including yours truly, as we believed the City would take the safe route and hire a warm body from within the bureaucracy. Instead, they chose an unapologetic urbanist who made her mark in private practice as a partner at both the Office For Urbanism<\/a> and Dialog<\/a>. She comes with a plethora of experiences and contacts from working with civic agencies and governments across the country.<\/p>\n Her hiring is commendable for a number of reasons. From the City’s perspective, she brings an outsider’s view into City Hall and her presence will hopefully infuse new energy into the planning department, which has often been described as professionally depressed. From Ms. Keesmaat’s perspective, she is leaving her role as a partner is a very successful planning and urban design firm at Dialog to go work at City Hall and bear the brunt of every NIMBYist in the city. A pay cut and a target on your back is not what most of want to inherit when we change jobs. She’s into the job for all the right reasons.<\/p>\n On a personal note, I’ve known Ms. Keesmaat for over five years and I’ve sought her advice and commentary on a number of city-building topics (she knows just as much about urban issues in Regina or Portland as she does about Queen West or North Toronto). She possesses a keen eye for detail (it was her who told me to look out for the awesome tree pit grates in Saskatoon<\/a>) while being highly tuned into the impact of large-scale projects on neighborhoods and communities (we’ve spent time debating the merits, drawbacks, and challenges of the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT).<\/p>\n Keesmaat and I talked yesterday afternoon about her new job (she starts in September) and the challenges that await her.<\/p>\n Blackett: What do you think are the biggest urban planning challenges for the City of Toronto?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Keesmaat:<\/em><\/strong> The obvious one to say, which is on the tip of everyone\u2019s tongue, is how we move around. It\u2019s about transit planning and transportation planning and the whole variety of different things that fall under that umbrella, including cycling, including creating great environments for pedestrians. We need to figure out the connection between transit planning and land use planning that produces a really strong rationale for a really great transit strategy, one that takes a long view but can be executed very quickly. I think it\u2019s pretty safe to say there\u2019s a lot of consensus that\u2019s a big problem we need to solve, and we\u2019re not there yet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Although we have a ton of ideas, we need to think about how we continue to accommodate density, while making great places. What I mean by that is there\u2019s a significant difference between building buildings and building a city. We\u2019re doing a phenomenal job of building buildings. We\u2019re also doing a pretty unbelievable job of building a city, but not always. Sometimes we are just building buildings. So thinking about the connected tissue, the public realm — those spaces where our lives unfold in common — is a really important part of city planning and it\u2019s a really important area where I think there\u2019s an opportunity to focus moving forward.<\/p>\n Your predecessors Ted Tyndorf and Gary Wright both envisioned a city similar as you — how can you make a difference on these topics that they couldn\u2019t achieve?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I know that I\u2019m going to walk in the front door and I\u2019m going to be on the inside and it\u2019s going to be pretty challenging. I bring some principles to the table from the planning practice in my work from mid-sized Canadian cities. One of those principles is around generating deep collaboration that is evidence-based, that is based on sharing information and sharing data and knowledge in a way that allows us to have a more sophisticated conversation about the type of city that we want to create. I don\u2019t want to imply in any way that Ted or Gary didn\u2019t do that, but I\u2019m going to do it in a very different way.<\/p>\n For example, Civic Action<\/a> is crossing all these boundaries in new ways so I also see that group as being a really important potential collaborator moving forward in city building. I think you\u2019re going to see the tentacles reaching out beyond 100 Queen Street in new ways \u2013 that\u2019s my objective, in part because I am not coming into this with all the answers. What I’m bringing to the table is an ability to facilitate and collaborate and identify good ideas and push them forward. There\u2019s a ton of great ideas. There\u2019s an amazing energy in this city. I see part of my role as being able to build on that, collect it and use those ideas to create the city that I think we all want. Where we used to lead, we now lag, so it\u2019s the moment for big things to happen. It\u2019s going to be how quickly can it happen.<\/p>\n You\u2019re the City\u2019s first female chief planner \u2014 I think it\u2019s amazing that we\u2019re going to have a female voice leading the local discussion on urbanism. Do you think this is a changing attitude in the world of planning that\u2019s been mostly dominated by men?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m very conscious that I act as a role model to young, up and coming female planners and it\u2019s one of the reasons why I lecture every year at Ryerson University, because I think it\u2019s really imperative for young women to see a woman in this role and how a woman goes about this role. But other than that I don\u2019t hang a huge amount of significance on it.<\/p>\n Do I have a unique perspective because I\u2019m coming to this role as a woman? You bet \u2013 I\u2019m a mom. The TED talk I gave is about walking to school and it\u2019s very personal<\/a>. That\u2019s the story of an urban planner, but it\u2019s also the story of a mom who\u2019s thinking about her children and other children and how we create a great world for our kids. Earlier today I was talking to another reporter about the Eglinton Crosstown because I live near Eglinton. Of course there is going to be a tremendous amount of construction over the next many years, and he said \u201cHow do you feel about that\u201d? and I said, \u201cBring it on.\u201d I love it because I\u2019m first of all I\u2019m going to take my kids out and we\u2019re going to be giddy watching it being built and I\u2019m going to say to them, \u201cSomeday you\u2019ll say to your kids, \u2018Remember when this was being built?\u201d But more importantly because I see everything that we do as a legacy and I\u2019m deeply grateful for the legacies that those who\u2019ve gone before have left in the city. I see the work that we do in planning, in city building as either being about creating a legacy \u2014 leaving something better than what we found \u2014 or about being irresponsible. So I think those are the ways in which I think being a woman is reflected in the way I think about my planning process.<\/p>\n My objective moving forward is about breaking down silos, getting people talking, creating new collaborations. I want to be open to ideas from a whole variety of different sectors and perspectives. I think there\u2019s a great opportunity to open up the unbelievable amount of excitement and energy and love for this city that currently exists. We need to bring that into our planning processes and to capitalize on it. There\u2019s a tremendous amount of shared interest in this city and I\u2019m hoping that we can build on that to address some of the very serious challenges we have in front of us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Is the planning in Toronto as bad as we all say it is, or this just the nature of the world of planning? You hear about a great planning process in one city and once you talk to locals you hear about all of their planning problems. Is it just the nature that we\u2019re negative about the planning process, or is Toronto as backwards as it is portrayed?<\/strong> Honestly, I\u2019m so glad you asked this question. This is a really important question. I have two answers to it and the first one is, if you look at the magnitude of what\u2019s going on in this city, it\u2019s a level of deep complexity. This is a city of 2.7 million people, bigger than most provinces. If you look at the magnitude of what\u2019s going on here \u2014 just the magnitude of the port lands alone \u2014 I think what you see in terms of what residents are so frustrated about, is the politics. The politics in Toronto are not that different from anywhere else, it\u2019s just magnified on such a scale that it feels much more dramatic.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always seen planning as being a really central part of the democratic process. I\u2019ve always felt this sense that I\u2019m participating in something really important and that is negotiating what we value, negotiating what we share, and the kind of lives we\u2019re going to create with each other. That\u2019s really what planning is about. But doing that isn\u2019t easy; it\u2019s a pretty intense thing to sit down and have a conversation with your neighbours about what you value, particularly when there are differences.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve had moments where we\u2019ve had a lot of discourse and I really think that becoming the mega city changed the whole conversation; it changed who we are as a city. Our whole genetic makeup as a city, our whole urban structure changed when we became the mega city. So in some ways you almost have to take that and recognize that from that point in time is when the conversations began.<\/p>\n What kind of things can Torontonians expect from you as a chief planner \u2013 are you going to be out front or be try to shun the spotlight?<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n As a bureaucracy you can\u2019t get too far ahead of those elected officials. I have great respect for elected office. At the end of the day, these are the leaders who were elected in this city and so there\u2019s this necessary tension: we make recommendations to them and sometimes come forward with ideas that might not get passed, but it might plant seeds for the future. I\u2019m cognizant that I\u2019m walking into that political theatre and I\u2019m going to figure out how to play in that tent. That being said, I have every intention of opening up as much as possible our planning processes and having a dialogue about urbanism.<\/p>\n In a post-Gary Webster world, there\u2019s a notion that bureaucrats are a little less willing to express their opinions for fear of their jons. It doesn’t seem like that\u2019s part of your M.O.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n No, and that\u2019s what\u2019s interesting having come from the private sector. I come from the private sector and I am completely comfortable with risk. I take risks all the time. I have to measure those risks and I don\u2019t want to do things that are silly because at the end of the day my goal is to build a great city here. There\u2019s some moment where I\u2019m going to have to take risks; that\u2019s a huge part of private sector practice, you take those risks. So it\u2019s not like I\u2019m coming into this saying \u201cI\u2019m becoming a bureaucrat, yay!\u201d I\u2019m a city builder and I recognize that there are going to be tensions and negotiations and there are some risks. I\u2019m going to have to embrace those risks and hopefully I can build up the capital and do a good job and earn the trust of council and residents in this city so that at the end of the day they\u2019ll put up with me.<\/p>\n photo by Leif Norman<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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