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The R.L. Hearn Generating Station on Unwin Avenue in the Toronto Port Lands, right, and the new Port Lands Energy Centre next door.Peter Power/The Globe and Mail

The Ford administration's new vision for the Port Lands, bandied about behind closed doors with unnamed parties, marks a return to the kind of "backroom planning" that plagued waterfront development in the past, says the city councillor for the area, who was not involved in those discussions.

Such secret sessions should be a thing of the past, said Paula Fletcher, the east-end councillor whose ward includes the waterfront site where the mayor's brother is talking of building a massive mall and hotel complex.

"We have public planning standards and public engagement standards that are new and are great," Ms. Fletcher said. "We can't go back to the backroom. We have to stay out at the kitchen table with the public."

Councillor Doug Ford spent Tuesday talking in detail to the media about the new plan for the eastern waterfront at the mouth of the Don River and the 450 acres the city owns there.

Mr. Ford, who is promoting the project for the administration, has yet to release plans for the site. In one radio interview, however, he referred to a meeting where they were shown to a group he did not identify.

"We had 15 people in the room and everyone's jaw just dropped when they saw it," he told CBC radio.

Later in the day, he promised reporters to make the plans public in the coming days.

"It is not backroom planning, it's called backroom vision," he said in response to Ms. Fletcher's remarks. "Then we bring our vision to the table and we share it with all of the councillors and we share it with the community."

Waterfront Toronto, an agency formed by the city, province and federal government, already has a plan for the land in question, but Mr. Ford says the city needs to move faster. A staff report released last week proposes that the city take back control of the area and give it to the Toronto Port Lands Co., a city agency.

Paul Bedford, a former head of the city's planning department who worked under eight mayors, says waterfront development has been the stuff of special deals practically since John Graves Simcoe governed the area. He said the establishment of Waterfront Toronto and the agreement of three levels of government to work together marked a "turning to a new page," when it was established a decade ago.

"We tried to learn from our past mistakes and the experiences of other cities in waterfront development," he said.

Mr. Bedford said it takes time to develop a space as large as the Port Lands, noting that the whole area, which stretches east to Leslie Street, is bigger than the downtown core. "I guess you could say it takes longer than anyone wants," he observed.

Ms. Fletcher said the job of planning waterfront development does not belong to one councillor or one mayor. "This is not a back of the napkin thing," she said. "I think all ideas should be on the table."

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