Leadership in Municipal Planning
by John Dingwall
GERRY THOMPSON IS A WONDERFUL EXAMPLE OF A LONG-SERVING PUBLIC EXECUTIVE. CAO FOR 13 YEARS OFWATERLOO REGION, THE RECIPIENT OF THE 2003 LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR’S MEDAL FOR DISTINCTION IN PUBLIC SERVICE, HE HAS THE CONFIDENCE OF POLITICIANS AND THE RESPECT OF HIS STAFF, WHO TOLD US “GERRY IS ALWAYS ABLE TO LAUGH, INCLUDING AT HIMSELF. WE THINK THE WORLD OF HIM, IT HAS BEEN AN HONOUR TO WORK WITH HIM.” ASSOCIATE EDITOR JOHN DINGWALL SPOKE WITH GERRY JUST BEFORE HIS RETIREMENT AFTER 31 YEARS WITH THE REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF WATERLOO.
Gerry, congratulations on the outstanding contribution you have made. Would you tell us about your approach to leadership.
To begin with, it’s absolutely essential to have a good working relationship with regional council. I’ve tried to be very upfront and a bit outspoken with ideas, while respecting the political prerogative to choose, modify, or reject suggestions. I’ve made a point of trying to understand the overall intended thrust of the councils that I’ve served with over the years and to translate these sometimes general aspirations into concrete initiatives.
In working with regional council, it’s always important to be absolutely upfront. In all my 31 years in municipal and regional government, I have never lobbied individual councillors. I don’t take that approach. I think that an open and straightforward style pays dividends and makes a great difference in building credibility – especially over a long time span. People know what I think, and they know that I won’t go behind anyone’s back. So that’s the style that has served me well and that has helped me to build credibility over three decades. And over these years, I have consciously recruited people that hold similar values. They may have a somewhat different approach to things, but they have similar values.
With people who have complementary strengths, we have been able to build a team that functions together in a collegial way, supporting each other. In terms of developing effective approaches to leadership, I have been quite a fan of the Harvard Business Review. For me, it’s a real treasure trove, and I’ve often drawn on it, both as CAO and in my teaching at Western. They describe all kinds of leadership styles and models, but my favourite has been what they call the Human Resources Model, with the leader as mentor and teacher – someone who spends a lot of time connecting with people and putting them in positions where they can have tasks delegated to them. This involves a tremendous amount of contact with people.
In my own headquarters building here, if I can help it, I don’t phone people. I go and talk to them. And in our other locations, if I can make a trip and see them, I’ll do that rather than call them on the phone or write them something or certainly rather than e-mail them. Personal contact is central to the way I work.
You were a pioneer in the development of a regional official plan – one that has become a classic.
We were the first region to publish an official plan – back in 1976. It was forward-thinking in two key ways. One was that it did not focus on specific designation of land uses, but rather on the more general policies with respect to development – so we called it a policies plan. It was a process-oriented plan, as opposed to a set of maps. And it also focused on environmental protection and stewardship. As a result of those two approaches, which were innovative at the time, it won awards. That plan has guided our philosophy ever since then. It has been revised to take account of changing requirements and circumstances, but it has been the guiding spirit for all the planning we have done over the years.
And various councils have bought into it along the way?
Yes, all the councils have provided strong support for the fundamentals, which have been embodied in all the subsequent plans. Our region has had a strong and longstanding commitment to environmental stewardship and a deep interest in quality-of-life issues, which have found expression in growth management – keeping the urban area fairly compact, and not spilling into the high-grade agricultural land that surrounds the cities within our region. Looking back over more than three decades, it’s really quite amazing to see that the principles of planning established back in the early seventies have been sustained and have served us so well through all those years.
How does transportation fit into your planning?
One thing relates to the other, and we have had an integrated approach to planning since the beginning. It helps that we have opted for a compact urban form. This makes a difference in having a viable transit system. In the first official plan, in 1976, we identified a central transportation corridor to be the home for transit technology, which would help us to maintain a fairly compact urban form. That feature of our planning has stayed intact – and in the last two or three years we have ramped up our efforts to develop light rail transit within that central transportation corridor, resulting in the federal and provincial announcements that were made recently.
Funds have been put aside for studies and for environmental assessment; federal and provincial ministers have shown strong support. The first phase would involve a 14 km. light rail transit line at a cost of about $260 million. Eventually, the system will expand to 30 km. We have a linear urban geography, which is ideally suited to a system like light rail which goes the length of the urban area – from Waterloo to Kitchener to Cambridge. We want to stay with a compact urban form, and a light rail system is part of our growth management strategy. It will certainly help if we can encourage redevelopment along the transit line and if the higher density in turn encourages ridership on the transit system.
We are looking to keep the urban form compact through redevelopment and not have urban growth radiate too far outward. We have to accommodate a great deal of growth in this region and we are looking for the best ways to do this. As for relevant examples elsewhere, we spent a fair amount of time looking at Portland, Oregon, and Charlotte, North Carolina. Portland is a living laboratory for the kind of thing that we are trying to accomplish here, so we are in touch with them on a regular basis.
How does this tie in with some of your other goals?
There certainly is a tie-in with environmental stewardship, quality-of-life, and public health. Studies show that people who live in more compact urban environments walk to more of their destinations and thereby get more exercise. We want to encourage that. The way we phrase it is, “Let’s make the easy choice the healthy choice.” If we make transit easy for people to use, then we are also making it easier for them to do more walking and bicycling – especially if we have smooth interfaces among these ways of getting around.
We have a bicycle master plan that we have been working away at. For example, when we reconstruct roadways, we build bicycle lanes into them – and we also have a trail system that hooks into these. We make our buses bicycle friendly, by equipping them with bicycle carriers. We have tried to link all this in with green space, pursuing an integrated approach. We have emphasized the connectedness of green spaces and environmentally sensitive areas, and have not looked at them simply as isolated pockets to be protected. A centrepiece in this approach is the Grand River Conservation Authority. As the largest municipality in the area, we provide about 60% of its funding.
All that should also save the province some money on health care.
That’s absolutely right. The more exercise people get, the healthier they are. In that sense, investments in transit can pay off in lower health care costs down the road – particularly for any diseases that are caused or aggravated by obesity and lack of exercise. We have looked up some of the numbers and have found that these costs are very significant. If we can encourage people to exercise more as part of getting around on a day-to-day basis, we are not only improving their quality of life, we are making quite an impact on the health care dollar as well. We were the first urban area in Ontario to enforce no smoking bylaws. Public health is a priority, and we want to promote it in every way we can.
What is the connection between quality-of-life and economic development?
Many of the people that we really need for the development of this region – for example, people with the scarce skills needed in high-tech industries and the universities – can go pretty much anywhere. They are a highly mobile group. The kinds of things they are looking for in a community are what we have been investing in as a high priority in connection with our focus on quality-of-life issues.
You work closely with the universities?
Yes, we work very closely with both of our universities and our community college for that matter. For example, we have been working with the University of Waterloo on a large project (over $200 million) to develop a research and technology park. The regional government has been the spearhead for this project, and there has been a great deal of collaboration between us, the university, the city of Waterloo, and the federal and provincial governments on this. We also have a very collegial and collaborative relationship with Conestoga College and Wilfrid Laurier University. Their business school has been a good source of management expertise.
How do you plan to further enhance the quality-of-life in your region?
It’s bound up in an integrated way in all of our planning. We don’t treat it as a separate topic, although it’s very much on our minds as an objective in an overall sense. It’s bound up in our land use and growth management work – in the work that we’re doing to try to increase intensification within the urban area and to shape the urban form in ways that will enhance social interaction within our communities. It’s definitely bound up with investments like the Light Rail Transit system, and with our initiatives on air and water quality. It really pervades most of what we do. It’s the background objective for the things that we engage in – and it’s a check against whatever we do. We are always thinking about how something will enhance, or impede, or is neutral to what we are trying to achieve on quality-of-life.
It is also important to be vigilant in protecting what we already have. Water quality is a good example of this. We are the largest inland community in Canada that draws mainly from ground water. The avoidance of any ground water contamination has been a pivotal issue since the urbanization of this area. On this issue, we are working closely with the University of Waterloo. We help fund a chair in water resources there. We need to know as much as possible about anything that could affect ground water. This is absolutely strategic with us.
Do you have measures for the quality of life? Is that something you track?
We have certainly struggled with that one. We know that some communities have come up with some measures, but when you take a close look at them, you wonder just how real they are. Now we have catalogued educational and recreational opportunities, and those sorts of things. And we also keep track of air quality. But other than that, we don’t have a specific set of benchmarks on quality-of-life.
What mechanisms do you have for citizen involvement in planning and strategy?
Around our planning process, we have done a tremendous amount of consultation – whether it be through public meetings, open houses, the distribution of communications materials, and through our web site now that this technology is available. We try to go the extra mile in terms of providing information and responding to people. Over the years, we’ve had consultations and reports to the community over a very wide range of general policies that are being developed and directions that are unfolding, as well as on specific projects, such as public works and social services projects. And we have welcomed public input at our council and committee meetings, encouraging people to show up and voice their opinions. It’s important for them to feel comfortable in appearing before council or a committee. We also make use of public advisory committees. These are very active – and there’s never been a shortage of people who would like to serve on these committees. They come up with some great ideas.
Gerry, thank you so much, for this interview, and for your contribution to good public service. (Note, Gerry is now sailing).
