Burlington Sustainable Development Advisory Committee Meeting

Minutes

Meeting #:
Date:
Time:
-
Location:
Room 247, Level 2, City Hall

1.
Members Present:
 

Tim Park, Jim Feilders, Carolyn Barnes, Susan Mattine, Herb Sinnock, Mathew McAuley, Hashem Hosseini-Mousavi, and Councillor Paul Sharman

2.
Others Present:
 

Lynn Robichaud (staff)

3.
Regrets:
 

Glenn Portch, Katie Rauscher, Chris Maynard, Herb Lewington, and Virginia Linaja

4.
Declarations of Interest:
 

None.

5.
Approval of Minutes:
 

5.1
Approve minutes from meeting held June 20, 2018 (Tim)
 

Minutes approved from meeting held June 20, 2018.

6.
Consent Agenda:
 

7.
Regular Items:
 

7.1
Updates from previous events
 

a.
Halton Climate Collective – Burlington Charrette
 

Susan and Mathew both attended the climate charrette held at Central Library which was facilitated by Amanda Kennedy to engage citizens on their thoughts about climate change and taking action.

b.
McMaster Centre for Climate Change - 21st Century Global Freshwater Security
 

Lynn attended this session which featured Jay Famiglietti, Professor & Director, Global Institute for Water Security, U of Saskatchewan. His presentation was on his research showing the change in groundwater levels globally using satellite technology over the past 15 years, which in some areas has been significant, either on a decline or replenishing.

7.2
Upcoming events/news (All)
 

7.3
Council & Staff Updates
 

a.
Councillor Sharman
 

There was some discussion about the future of the new Official Plan and the risks of it not being approved. Downtown Burlington was designated an urban growth centre under Places to Grow and the current OP was not in compliance. There may be a report on the new OP at regional council in December. Also, it is anticipated that the OMB will be brought back by the Province to replace the LPAT.

b.
Lynn Robichaud
 

December Social – December 19th – Industria Pizzeria, 1860 Appleby Line @ 6:00 pm – Lynn will circulate menu options for members to choose from before the 19th.

SDC Workshop – Clerks has advised that there will be a much larger workshop with all advisory committees invited. It will be facilitated by the city’s in-house facilitator Stephanie Venimore using Innovation in a Box. There has been a lot of discussion and issues with other committees with concerns about not being effective, council not listening and staff not listening. The workshop will take place in January; timing to be determined. There was a question whether the social media platform ‘Linked in’ could be used by the SDC to share information. It was agreed that this question could be raised at the workshop for discussion.

If the committee feels that the workshop does not address some of their technical issues, there will still be the opportunity for the SDC to have a smaller workshop sometime after the larger workshop. Danielle Manton from the Clerks department will be reporting to council following the workshop with the advisory committees.

Clerk’s Update – Recruitment – Interviews will be scheduled for new members in January. The council rep for the SDC, once confirmed (in December), will be invited to participate in the interviews.

Budget Update – Lynn provided a year end update of the SDC budget. $2,324 was spent from a budget of $9,250.

SOER update – Lynn & Fleur are working on the research for the SOER. Will plan to report to the Awareness sub-committee in January on status.

7.4
Business arising from the minutes
 

None.

7.5
Awareness sub-committee update (Katie)
 

The fall library event on fall maintenance of trees and gardens was successful. The Siemens tour was well attended and their work environment was interesting, although information about the sustainable aspects of their building was not included.

It is anticipated that Spencer will be able to provide some time to continue working on the carbon app over the holidays.

A potential topic for the spring library event will be on solar and wind opportunities for residents – greening their homes.

A couple ideas were suggested for future SDC tours. One is the new net zero building at Mohawk College. The other is an energy from waste anaerobic digester in Cambridge which takes organic waste.

7.6
Policy and Development subcommittee update (Tim)
 

Leah introduced her replacement, Suzanne McInnes, while Leah is acting manager of Policy.

Rob Peachey, Manager of Parks and Open Space, made a great presentation on the Urban Parks Strategy.

There are no new development applications to review.

7.7
Reports from external groups and conferences
 

a.
Community Energy Plan (Herb/Lynn)
 

Lynn advised that there is a stakeholder advisory committee on December 7th and Paul Acchione, a former engineer with Ontario Hydro and OPG will be speaking on the electricity sector and options to reduce the carbon footprint. Lynn is working on the data for the CEP update and will be speaking to stakeholders on their priorities. BurlingtonGreen has provided some feedback. Lynn suggested that if the January SDC COW meeting is available, she could engage the committee on ideas for the CEP.

b.
Bay Area Climate Change Office/Council (Carolyn)
 

Carolyn provided an update and some background about the Bay Area Climate Change Council. She is the rep for the SDC along with a number of other stakeholders, including BurlingtonGreen, BEDC, the conservation authorities, Environment Hamilton, Sustainable Hamilton Burlington, Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, the United Way, among others. They have received funding from TAF to develop a 3 year work plan by the end of February. Lura consulting is providing strategic assistance to develop this plan. Carolyn will be on for a 2 year term after which she will need a replacement. She will also be asking for an alternate to fill in when she cannot attend a meeting. SDC reps may be asked to sit on implementation teams depending on the actions identified in the work plan. Jim asked about having a sub-team to work on helping to identify actions. Carolyn will report back to the P&D sub-committee in January where feedback can be provided depending on the status of the project.

c.
BurlingtonGreen (Jim)
 

Jim advised that their green screen was being held tonight on waste. Their movies are available. BG is enjoying their new space at NUVO and is interacting with tenants in the building. Have worked with a waste contractor to introduce organics collection to the building.

d.
Halton Climate Collective
 

 Lynn advised that a meeting is planned with the regional partners in December regarding next steps and will report back in January.

e.
ITAC
 

Burlington Integrated Transportation Advisory Committee – Tim provided an update for this committee. Jeff Black from the Transportation Department attended to speak about traffic operations and signals. Burlington has three smart cameras which can detect what’s going through the intersection and can communicate digitally with each other. Fire trucks are able to change the lights to give them priority. Buses may also have the same ability in the future to help with route timing. Colm Lynn advised the group that a Transit Master Plan is not going to happen this year.

8.
Other Business:
 

8.1
Upcoming meeting dates
 

Action: Lynn to book meeting rooms for 2019 and will push the January dates by one week to avoid the first week of January when many people are still on holiday.

9.
Adjournment:
 

Chair adjourned the meeting at 8:20 p.m.

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