^^ If every development has to tick off all those boxes, nothing will get built. And for what's its worth, an answer can be made for almost all those points with the project.
Perhaps, but strategic policy exists for a reason at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels of government and if you ignore one or two policies over the long term, the results can and will be seen over a longer time period. Operational policy guides things in the short term, but strategic policy guides Edmonton or Alberta or Canada and how all of those will look 50 years from now. There is a reason that Canada was and still is seen as a peacekeeping force - strategic policy. Likewise, why rapid transit has flourished in cities like Calgary and Vancouver, but have stagnated in Edmonton - strategic policy. Like I said in my other post, if you ignore too many policies, you will end up down the road like Grande Prairie, Red Deer, etc, which have had relaxed development policies in the name of growth. The same argument applies in Edmonton as far as the explosion in the suburbs goes. It is what it is, but the existing policies we had in place allowed for extreme growth outward.
You're not wrong in saying that extreme policy stifles growth; however, it also allows the city to control how and what things are built. The mechanisms that guide those policies are EDC, SDAB, DO, etc.
I can't speak for Dave, but my anger doesn't come from what could have been, but rather, if we have policy in place, we should follow the policy, because it exists for a reason. If we are simply finding workarounds (over ruling the rules) to policy all the time, then why do we have the policy in the first place? If the city wants to simply allow whatever to be built, they need to revisit all "The Way We..." policies to revise them and change the overall mandate for the future. Otherwise, you will continue to have people pointing the finger like Dave is rightly doing.
