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Earlier this month, Ottawa Council planning committee chair Jan Harder lamented the lack of public interest as the city began consultations on a new Official Plan, the blueprint for future growth and development.

“I feel like I am at some kind of wake. I don’t know what’s going on,” Harder complained. “I want people to wake up. I want people to get engaged. Intensity fires the process.”

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Coun. Rick Chiarelli also chipped in, pointing out that some 10,000 people wrote to save a mechanical cow mounted on the rooftop of an Orléans cheese store, but only a tiny fraction of that participated in the last Official Plan consultations.

It’s surprising that Harder and her colleagues are surprised by the lukewarm response to so-called public consultations on official plans. If they don’t know why fewer and fewer Ottawa residents are bothering to participate in such exercises, the shabby manner in which the planning committee recently treated Old Ottawa East residents over the housing development at 10 Oblats Avenue should enlighten them.