INC NEWS - FW: New WTO Rules Could Threaten City Planning

[Pat Carstensen]

I'm not sure whether this is "look at what kind of wild stuff folks can speculate about if they don't have something real to do" or "thank goodness someone has space to look into the details and alert us about bad stuff that is likely to smash our faces in" -- but it shows we can never feel too safe in the protections we have.

Regards, pat

> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:43:57 -0700
> From: John.Holtzclaw at sierraclub.org
> Subject: New WTO Rules Could Threaten City Planning
> To: CONS-TRANS-CHAIRS-FORUM at LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG
> 
> 
> Apologies for multi-copies, but this development could quash city and
> regional green building standards and green transportation standards.
> 
> New WTO Rules Could Threaten City Planning
> 10 July 2008
> Ellen Gould
> 
> "A new WTO proposal on domestic deregulation could have a significant
> impact on the ability of planning departments to undertake zoning and land
> use planning activities, restrict signage, and create guidelines and other
> design-related criteria. Ellen Gould and Andrew Pask examine the
> implications, using their city of Vancouver as an example.
> 
> "The proposal introduces a new set of “domestic regulation disciplines”
> that will impact how governments can regulate. At the local government
> level, this could open up to challenge a range of municipal regulatory
> tools, financing mechanisms, and standards – undermining the ability of
> local governments to effectively manage land-use activities within their
> boundaries.
> 
> "At the end of January 2008, the chair of a little-known WTO committee, the
> Working Party on Domestic Regulation, issued a draft text for new binding
> restrictions on how governments can regulate. These restrictions are called
> “domestic regulation disciplines” and will take the form of an amendment to
> an existing WTO agreement, the General Agreement on Trade in Services
> (GATS), which applies to all levels of government including municipalities.
> Local governments in Canada (as well as elsewhere) could be particularly
> impacted because the federal government has already agreed to have GATS
> apply to municipally-regulated services like construction, retail
> distribution, sewage, outdoor advertising, and waste disposal .
> ...
> 
> "The development of standards and guidelines are the hallmark of much
> innovative municipal policy. Yet under the proposed disciplines, the notion
> of standard is so broad as to include everything from zoning bylaws (a form
> of land-use standard relating to the permitted uses and characteristics of
> development on a given site), sustainable and “green” building standards,
> design guidelines and more."
> 
> The whole article on Planetizen   http://www.planetizen.com/node/33910
> 
> 
> No reply necessary.
> 
> John Holtzclaw
> 415-977-5534
> John.Holtzclaw at SierraClub.org
> Sierra Club Building Healthy Communities Committee (stop Sprawl)
> Building Healthy Communities  -- http://www.SierraClub.org/sprawl
> Healthy Growth Calculator -- density saves resources & reduces pollution --
> http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/density/
> pix of my world   http://picasaweb.google.com/john.holtzclaw     & try
> Slideshow

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