Quadra’s Official Community Plan (OCP) should be taking place with an overview of the entire island, not in isolated segments. The Local Area Planning (LAP) process — not recognized in the Municipal Act and never before used on Quadra — has divided the island into separate groups, each “visioning” independently of the others. Without the perspective of an island-wide overview, each group is likely to make narrow and inappropriate decisions disconnected from an overall consideration of the entire community. When such a planning process occurs without a sense of context, the results are prone to be simplified, short-sighted, conflicting and unwise.

In simplest terms, the LAP process is working badly because it is trying to function backwards. Instead of proceeding from a comprehensive development plan that is then supported by local plans, it is trying to move from local details to guiding principles.

The LAP process is presumably being used because past processes were not successful. However, these difficulties related to the establishment of by-laws, not the OCP. The 1996 OCP, the one that is currently in effect, was successfully concluded after five years of meetings by all islanders. Many of these meetings were informed by technical studies and assisted by facilitators. Accordingly, Quadra Islanders have agreed that the island should remain rural, with increasing population densities occurring in Quathiaski Cove and Heriot Bay, the island’s two nascent villages. Encouraging rising densities throughout the rural areas of Quadra essentially subverts this guiding vision of the OCP.

The psychology at work in the LAP planning process is also problematic.
Once people in each individual LAP group have spent considerable time and effort devising each plan, they have a vested interest in it and are unlikely to adjust it so it integrates with other plans. The result is a patchwork of uncoordinated neighbourhood plans.

Planning without reference to the comprehensive vision of the OCP also means planning without the crucial guiding constraints of an overview. The effort of each LAP group to accommodate change becomes additive, and an evolutionary change can easily become revolutionary.

Another flaw in this planning process needs to be noted. Because LAP groups are usually comprised of neighbourhood people, they inherently lack the collective wisdom more likely to be found in a single planning group derived from the entire community. Accordingly, LAP groups are inclined to make decisions directed by a narrower focus and are more likely to be guided by self-Interest. The broader the base of participation, information, insight, experience, opinion and oversight, the greater the likelihood that wise decisions will be made.

Yet another flaw in the LAP process is its “balkanizing” effect, the division of Quadra into neighbourhoods, a separating of residents into de facto municipalities chosen by planners for their own administrative reasons. Most people living on Quadra think of themselves as Quadra Islanders. As such, we each have an interest in the events that occur everywhere on our island. This sense of involvement and caring is an inherent consequence of living on a small piece of land surrounded by water, and it’s a bonding force that makes each of us a Quadra Islander.

Fragmenting our planning process into LAPs feels unnatural, uncomfortable and incompatible with who we are. No wonder it doesn’t seem to be working.