Welcome to the November postings of the CIT Information Resource!
When we launched the CITinfoResource blog a year ago our intention was, as Tim Pringle said at the time, to "stimulate and support the conversation about use and conservation of land amongst various land use practitioners in BC communities." How do we do this?
By highlighting specific projects and events that we're involved in;
By having CIT and Real Estate Foundation staff talk about the conversations they're involved in;
By engaging you as "land use practitioners" – the professionals and lay-people who are actively shaping land use practices across BC's non-metropolitican communities.
We're always interested in what you think. Please leave comments or email us!
Our engagement of land use practitioners tends to focus on two areas: coverage of land use related events and conferences, and guest columns and interviews.
BC communities are blessed with a wealth of talent and imagination when it comes to looking at how we use and conserve our land-based resources. Our guest columnists reflect a little of this wealth. In this posting, Janine de la Salle and Mark Holland address a recurring topic at CITinfoResource: food and land, and ways in which our urban centres, metropolitan as well as rurally-located, can play an active role in supporting sustainable agricultural practices.
The richness of talent amongst BC's land use practitioners is also reflected in the quality of conferences and events focused on land and sustainability. Interviews with participants and organizers is one way CITinfoResource extends the value of these events. During the past year, we have covered Reversing the Tide (Prince George, October 2008), moving to the Northern Housing Conference (Smithers, January 2009), the BC Land Summit (Whistler, May 2009), and most recently, Resilient Cities (Vancouver, October 2009). We've interviewed participants about their impressions of these events, how they "come to ground" in BC communities, and the medium-to-long-term legacy of these gatherings. Wherever possible, we follow the conversation over several postings of CITinfoResouce. For example, we've featured several interviews about the BC Land Summit in our June and September postings. In this posting, we continue that coverage as we talk with Judith Walker, planner with the Village of Cumberland.
As a closing column, I write about some of the challenges I see in trying to bring home the kinds of inspiring, sometimes sobering ideas and approaches to community sustainability that Resilient Cities presented so effectively.
Please share these resources
We are hearing from you that the CITinfoResource posts are helpful to your work. Thanks for that. One of the hallmarks of the Real Estate Foundation's 22+ years is collaboration and sharing of resources. We actively encourage the reproduction of CIT Information Resource articles and materials for non-profit educational purposes. In return, we ask that you please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.
You may also want to follow us on Facebook or on Twitter. (As an aside, the value of using Twitter to provide real-time coverage of a conference was evident for anyone following the Resilient Cities conference. A sample of this is viewable at the Gaining Ground blog here. Just another way that we're using social media to extend the reach and impact of a downtown conference to outside communities and individuals unable to attend.)
ps... Please note that on occasion we'll post outside of our usual 6x a year schedule. For example, audio posts of our #GGRC09 interviews were posted in previous weeks. In future you'll start to see video posts appearing as well. Tell us what you think of these ways of stimulating and extending the conversation about land use and sustainability in BC!
The Real Estate Foundation is involved in a wide range of projects and activities, all of them related to land use. In these notes I will talk a little about why we are involved with the leadership work being done through the Gaining Ground summits, my reflections from my recent time in China, and the positive work being done through an initiative funded in part by the Foundation.
The Real Estate Foundation and Resilient Cities
Between 1981 and 2001, Greater Vancouver experienced population growth of nearly 60%. If similar rates of growth continue, we will see a doubling of population in the next 40 years. This presents all of us living here with significant challenges. Vancouver is known for its vibrancy and quality of life. How do we sustain these in the face of the kinds of changes that are projected? We think that the Resilient Cities conference, the 6th in the Gaining Ground Summit series, speaks to this challenge.
As a theme, "Resilient Cities" is timely and appropriate for this year's Gaining Ground summit, the first here in Vancouver. The key elements of the conference align with the goals and values of the Real Estate Foundation:
innovation in sustainability governance and best current practices for managing sustainable urban systems;
capturing opportunities in the green economy;
strategies for building widespread sustainability collaborations that engage the community level.
The Foundation has been a leader in supporting projects with a focus on better, more sustainable land uses and practices. Resilient Cities is, in many ways, an excellent example of where our experiences with project partners over more than 20 years has brought us as an innovative granting organization. It represents important, cutting edge ideas and practices that are being used to make communities more sustainable, more resilient.
Because of the word "real estate" in our name, and perhaps also because we do much good work in communities on housing issues, the Foundation is sometimes seen as being primarily concerned with housing. But that misses our primary focus: a concern over that place where the built environment meets the natural environment, and the delicate balance between settlement and nature that is required for our communities to thrive. We're involved in this year's Resilient Cities conference because it speaks to that focus.
UBC Design Centre for Sustainability An example of how the Real Estate Foundation works with innovative organizations to meet society's growing need for better land use and development practices is the Design Centre for Sustainability at UBC. It is, to put it simply, a widely recognized academic leader in applying sustainability concepts to the development of land, cities, and community. An example of how this can be applied to our communities is the recent City of North Vancouver 100 Sustainability Vision, which I'll describe later.
We are fortunate at the Real Estate Foundation to be able to make different "investment" decisions than many public and private funders. Innovative projects often require long-term investment in order to reach the level of maturity at which they flourish and give the kind of ROI our communities need. In some cases, the Foundation Governors have chosen to make these kinds of investments. This is the case of with the multi-year, multi-project Sustainability by Design initiative at the Design Centre for Sustainability.
The project's operating principle is that sustainable solutions, applied at the scale of the neighbourhood, if widely replicated, may be the crucial ingredient for a sustainable region. This fits closely to the overall purpose of the Real Estate Foundation.
The Design Centre helps partner communities provide context to their planning and design process by framing sustainability collaboratively. They work with communities to identify or review: an overarching, long-term sustainability vision; guiding principles; general goals and more specific objectives in each issue or theme area (for example, transportation, energy, water, climate change, etc); associated indicators and targets; and, finally, implementable strategies and actions. These are then expressed in relevant policy and planning documents, such as the community's Official Community Plan.
Through a charrette process, the Design Centre engages a wide diversity of community members, municipal staff, professionals, and representatives from public, private, and not-for-profit organizations in the planning and design-process—from developing the community-specific sustainability framework to selecting appropriate indicators and targets and developing the concept plan.
The return on investment? As I mentioned, the City of North Vancouver's 100 Sustainability Vision is one of the ROI. The City is one of the first municipalities in BC to investigate the feasibility of meeting the province's GHG emission target established by the 2007 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act (80% GHG emission reduction from 2007 levels by 2050). The 100-Year Sustainability Vision illustrates how an 80% GHG reduction target may be met, and explores how the City will move towards net zero GHG emission by 2107, its 200th birthday. This project recently won the UBCM's Community Excellence Award. That's an ROI for us at the Foundation to be proud of!
Learning from China
Over the past few years I've had the pleasure and privilege of travelling to China as part of my previous teaching work through UBC. I recently got home from spending 10 days there in Beijing, Xi'an, and Shanghai. These 10 days, in these rapidly changing cities, brought home to me the value of what I see the Foundation supporting: the need to take an integrated approach to community planning, to consider transportation, food security, energy consumption, water supply, livability, parks, and healthy lifestyles all as important elements in our quality of life. It helped me appreciate even more the purpose and importance of the Resilient Cities conference that many of you will be participating in over the next several days. It also helped me appreciate even more deeply the work of the many organizations and projects – like the work being done by the Design Centre for Sustainability, for example – that we support through the Foundation.
I visited the Shanghai Urban Planning Center. It was rather amazing, in light of what we are doing in Vancouver, to see their focus on designing interesting (and big!) buildings catering to a rapidly emerging car culture. My personal experience was a little unsettling: sidewalks that abruptly end in the middle of going somewhere; not being able to cross the simplest of streets without the fear of being run down. Roads are getting wider and more abundant – while walking routes are being blocked or not considered. All of it contrary to what we are seeing as elements in more sustainable cities, particularly as it is being exemplified by our local brand, sometimes referred to as "Vancouverism."
And the irony for me is the visual quality of a place like Shanghai. The architecture in this city is some of the most interesting I have seen in the world. However, much of the beauty of building design is concentrated at the very top, where it is invisible because of the ever-present smog in Chinese cities today. The use of coal for heating, the rapidly increasing use of cars (SUVs are popular), over-farming causing dust storms – the reasons for poor air quality and visibility are endless, and the need for an integrated approach and long term vision of sustainable growth is imperative. Looking around, I could see so many examples of how dramatically and how quickly our environment can be negatively effected by our human development and settlement choices.
Happy to be home! Each time I travel, I learn. I see things done well; and I see things done not so well. Regardless of where I am, however, there's no place like home. I recognize how lucky I am to live where I do. As I step into my second year with the Real Estate Foundation of BC I am also grateful that I get to work with so many interesting and innovative people and organizations, all whom are striving in their different ways to find that balance between settlement and nature that brings quality of life to our neighbourhoods and communities.
about the author: Karin Kirkpatrick is the Executive Director of the Real Estate Foundation of BC. Prior to her appointment to that position by the Foundation's Board of Governors in November 1, 2008 she was Director, Centre for CEO Leadership at the Sauder School of Business at the University of BC.
by hans peter meyer with files from SmartGrowth BC
The CIT program at the Real Estate Foundation of BC is a response on the part of the Foundation's Governors to land use related issues that primarily effect non-metropolitan in nature. Established as a signature program of the Foundation, CIT works with a wide range of project and funding partners in communities across BC to help them plan for and make transitions.
A recently completed project in the City of Prince George relates to supporting sustainable land uses and planning for climate change. Sustainable land use planning and practices have been ongoing themes at the Real Estate Foundation through most of it's 20+ years.
Smart Growth on the Ground in Prince George
Project Proponents: Smart Growth on the Ground, the City of Prince George
Project Partners: BC Heritage Branch, BC Hydro Powersmart, Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Green Streets Canada, Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Canada, Northern Development Initiative Trust, Prince George Community Foundation, Ramada Prince George, Transport Canada,Vancity, and the Real Estate Foundation of BC.
Smart Growth on the Ground (SGOG) SGOG is a unique partnership program formed by Smart Growth BC, the Real Estate Institute of British Columbia, and the Design Centre for Sustainability at UBC. It was designed to help BC communities create more sustainable neighbourhood plans using community-specific solutions. Prince George joins Maple Ridge, Squamish, and Greater Oliver as the fourth partner community to set a new standard for community planning and establish leadership among the municipalities of BC.
Project Overview The recent Gaining Ground: Resilient Cities (GGRC09) event in Vancouver was a showcase of challenges facing communities and of innovative responses to these challenges. In the case of Cam Brewer's presentation on the outcomes of a recent Smart Growth on the Ground (SGOG) project in the City of Prince George, it was an opportunity to show how one CIT project is helping this northerly BC city take strong steps towards neighbourhood resilience and sustainability, in the process helping the City meet its targets for greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) reduction.
Cam Brewer is the Executive Director of SmartGrowth BC, the organization that, in partnership with the Real Estate Institute of BC (REIBC) and the Design Centre for Sustainability at UBC, delivers Smart Growth on the Ground (SGOG) projects around the province. In 2008 the Governors of the Real Estate Foundation approved two substantial grants to SGOG projects in Prince George: $65,000 to Smart Growth BC for research, education, and stakeholder consultation associated with SGOG in Prince George; $90,000 to REIBC for real estate economic analysis and stakeholder convening activities of SGOG in Prince George.
The news that Brewer delivered to the 600 participants of GGRC09 was that Prince George City Council had recently unanimously approved the SGOG Concept Plan. In his words, Council is advancing a "bold new vision for downtown Prince George." Created by the community, the SGOG Concept Plan outlines a compelling image of what downtown Prince George will be in 2035. It is a downtown with housing options, a vibrant public realm, bike lanes, and a permanent Farmer’s Market. Smart Growth BC sees Council's adoption of this vision as placing the City in a leadership role with regard to renewable energy and is support for all members of the community.
Central to the Concept Plan is a prominent green space with water feature that connect downtown to the Fraser River. Councillor Dave Wilbur was struck by the “grand, insightful vision” that identifies the rivers as core to the concept. "If we had that slip away, let the rivers just run by and not be identified, I think we would've missed a big opportunity," he said. "But [SGOG] didn't. You made it core to your concept plan and I appreciate that."
In his presentation to Council, Dan Milburn, the Manager of Long-Range Planning remarked on the collaborative nature in which this plan was created. “Throughout this process the partners have worked diligently to raise the necessary funds for this project, organize an extensive community consultation program, coordinate numerous researchers, and facilitate the creation of what I like to think of as a community plan for the downtown. For it truly was a community effort producing a community vision.” The Concept Plan is the result of a year-long public engagement process that involved participation of over 500 citizens. Through five public workshops participants set priorities, targts and discussed ideas for invigorating downtown. During a four-day, multi-stakeholder design event (a "charrette”) held May 12-15, 2009 over 40 people collaborated to create the vision. The charrette team included Mayor Dan Rogers, Councillors, City staff, community participants, researchers, and designers. Councillor Stolz, a member of the team, attested that “the people involved sweated blood and tears” to produce this vision.
The Concept Plan was approved along with a recommendation to amend the Official Community Plan to “align the downtown vision, objectives and policies with the key concepts articulated in the Downtown Prince George Smart Growth on the Ground Concept Plan.” This will entrench the vision in policy and will guide implementation projects.
Project Rationale "Smart Growth BC receives applications for projects from many BC communities," says SmartGrowth's Shana Johnstone. "We chose Prince George for the SGOG project for a number of reasons. Of particular note for us was that we are interested in working on climate change at a neighbourhood planning and development level. The City of Prince George was very keen on this, and were early signatories of the Climate Change Charter.
"We also chose Prince George because it is part of our mission at SmartGrowth BC to develop a suite of tools and applications for a variety of communities and situations across BC. As a 'northern community,' and as a community with a particular set of challenges when it comes to things like climate change, a resource transition economy, and a hub for other northern destinations, the City's proposal was a good fit."
We invite you to propose your own "guest column" with CITinfoResource. Currently we are hosting a discussion about food and sustainability.
Food production, access to affordable and arable land for food production – these are only part of a successful strategy for community sustainability. In our last CITinfoResource post we featured a guest column by George Penfold, BC's Community Economic Development Regional Innovation Chair at Selkirk College. There is currently great passion for local food self-sufficiency. George posed some sobering questions about our willingness, even our capacity, to seriously live out this passion. He suggested that there are significant choices facing us as consumers of food-stuffs and as local decision-makers if we are serious about developing locally self-reliant food systems.
The following article by Janine de la Salle and Mark Holland adds another challenge – and opportunity – by suggesting some of what urban areas – even small urban areas, including the many small cities and towns of BC's non-metro regions – can do to support existing local food production. We hope encourage you, both as readers of CITinfoResource and as consumers of food-stuffs, to chime in with your own experiences of supporting or working with the food systems in your communities.
Beyond urban agriculture and farm land preservation
by Janine de la Salle and Mark Holland
Food and agriculture have finally caught the attention of the planning and other professions – perhaps for the first time in modern history. At least that's what the 2009 summer issue of Plan Canada (Vol 49: No. 2) suggests.
This is a good thing. It shows that, as a profession, we are in a receptive mode, constantly learning how to balance the tools we have right now with the need to develop new ways to think about problems and their solutions. For example, urban agriculture and the protection of farmland are priority issues; but other opportunities and approaches are beginning to present themselves, and we must be quick to add them to the "food planning toolbox."
A comprehensive approach
The strategies for creating sustainable food systems in a city must take a comprehensive approach and consider the full range of elements of a food system – not just the current favourites like urban agriculture (eg: community gardens). Improving the food system has values beyond the production of food. We suggest that such improvement begins to give food the power to be an economic driver, a potent community building agent, and a key opportunity to decrease energy demands.
In order to capture these benefits, sustainability in food and agriculture must be approached with a systems perspective. This includes: addressing food processing, packaging, distribution, wholesaling, retailing, restaurants, procurement, education, culture, and food security. Easily 75% of the economic value and climate emissions associated with food come after its agricultural production. If we, as planners, fail to invest as much of our time looking at these other aspects of the food system as we spend on local food production and farmers markets, then we miss the biggest opportunity of all.
Agricultural Urbanism
A movement called Agricultural Urbanism is emerging based on planning cities and neighbourhoods around sustainable food systems. At it's outset, 10 principles have been identified for this movement:
Address the whole food system – Promote the greatest range possible of the elements of the food system in community planning and design;
Foreground the food experience – Make food visible and enhance the experience of the greatest possible range of the food system in the city;
Build the local and regional food economy – Build this food economy through land use planning, education, economic development, and cultural enhancement and celebration;
Provide access to food – Provide access for all everywhere, including food stores, restaurants, food banks and others;
Promote education on food – Embed food education in every aspect of urban life, both formally in the school system, and informally through wherever people access food;
Integrate sustainable food into institutions – Integration into all levels of government policy, programs, and institutional mandates;
Address food for other species – Incorporate urban habitat into all food production areas wherever possible to maintain a healthy ecosystem;
Waste no food – Support and develop the infrastructure and organizations to recover food that might be unnecessarily wasted from wholesalers, retailers, restaurants, and others and channel this food both to the poor and to composting and nutrient recovery programs;
Organize for food – Develop strong partnerships, stewardship groups, collaboration, and overall social capital to support a sustainable urban and regional food system;
Develop sustainable infrastructure amongst food systems – Develop innovative energy, water, wastewater, and solid waste management infrastructure and systems integrated with urban food systems.
When considered in the context of a food system, these 10 principles have many applications, with elements spread across an entire region. However, a concept is emerging in urban planning around creating special places in cities that are dedicated to sustainable food – food hubs and precincts.
Food hubs and precincts are a tangible way to address multiple food system elements and improve food system sustainability in a community. Increasingly, local governments and members of the development community are seeing great potential in food hubs and precincts. This is driving planners and designers to create new methods and techniques to implement food-inclusive or food-focused visions of vibrant cities – in a context where food has become an uninvited guest in city building practice.
What are food hubs and precincts?
Food hubs and precincts are centrally-located facilities that bring together the full spectrum of land uses and programs to support sustainable urban and regional food systems. These have largely been part of the urban fabric in cities and larger metropolitan areas. However, this concept may be appropriately scaled for the neighbourhood and/or town size. For instance, in any food hub or precinct, storage and processing space would need to be built to meet the needs and demands of the local agriculture, resident, and food industry needs. The fundamental characteristics of a food precinct include:
Commercial storage and processing facilities for local farm products;
A centralized distribution hub where multiple farmers may combine and distribute their goods. Among other benefits, this enables wholesale purchasers to obtain the quality and quantity of local foods necessary for restaurant operations and institutional procurement;
A permanent farmers' market where retail and direct marketing of locally farmed products may be sold;
Office space for non-profit organizations and small businesses associated with the local food and agriculture program of the precinct;
Visible community kitchens, labs, and community education areas for facilitating seminars on how to grow, process, prepare, and maximize fresh, healthy local food experiences;
Community event areas that provide space for celebrations and special event around food and agriculture;
Authentic architectural and landscape character where buildings, public realm, and landscape visibly demonstrate elements of each community associated with the precinct uses;
Residential features in areas where a neighborhood food precinct has been built into new development;
Food recovery and waste collection.
Benefits of food hubs/precincts
Food precincts are a central element of complete, resilient, and vibrant communities. Through establishing the necessary infrastructure and programs the food precinct/hub enables communities to connect not only to purchasing and experiencing local food, but also to learning how to grow, preserve, and prepare foods. Benefits of the food precinct and hub include:
Re-centre food in our lives through increasing active participation in the food system;
Contribute to a more resilient food economy through strengthening city-to-farm and farm-to-city linkages;
Serve as a resource centre for a wide range of community activities that develop and reinforce the role that local food plays in every aspect of our city life and culture;
Increasing capacity in essential food and agriculture infrastructure, such as processing and sales capacity to the small to medium farm economy;
Centralized distribution point(s) that enable purchasing by wholesalers, grocery stores, and restaurants from multiple farms and producers;
Community, professional, and academic learning opportunities around food and sustainability; and
A conscious planning and design approach to sustainable food cities.
Launching the New City Market, A Food Hub for Vancouver
In some cities, like Montreal and Halifax for example, food hubs and precincts are an important characteristic of the city fabric. In cities like Toronto and Vancouver, food hubs and precincts are just emerging as part of the urban scene. The Stop in Toronto is a new facility that provides a permanent home for farmers' markets and offers a full suite of education opportunities around growing and preparing foods for people of all ages and backgrounds. While city markets have historically been part of Vancouver and present day examples such as Granville Island offer much in the way of learning what works, a new vision for a food hub is emerging and generating a lot of excitement. Building on successful Canadian models like the Stop in Toronto, community champions are gearing-up for an all-in effort to vision, plan, and establish the New City Market, a food hub for Vancouver.
About the authors: Janine de la Salle is Director of Food Systems Planning with HB Lanarc Consultants Ltd. in Vancouver/Nanaimo. Janine recently developed a plan for an urban-farm park and a guide that will connect local farmers to schools.
Mark Holland is a Principal with HBLanarc. He is a LEED™-accredited planner who holds professional degrees in both Landscape Architecture and Community and Regional Planning. He recently authored and delivered the "Resilient Cities Manifesto" at the October 2009 Gaining Ground: Resilient Cities summit.
The BC Land Summit is an unusual gathering of land use practitioners as it includes hundreds of professionals and lay people, with interests in land use that range from architecture, planning, and real estate development and sales to assessment, stewardship, and conservancy. As part of the CITinfoResource's goal to stimulate and reflect the diverse conversations about land use and sustainability in BC we have featured several interviews from the 2009 BC Land Summit, and will continue to do so.
I talked to Judy Walker of the Comox Valley shortly after she returned from Whistler in May.
hanspetermeyer: Judy, please tell us a little about who you are and your relationship to land use, and why you were at the BC Land Summit?
Judy: I'm a planner for the Village of Cumberland and have been for three years now. I'm also a registered landscape architect. My primary interest in the BC Land Summit was that it combines a lot of the professions. We had planners, landscape architects, the Appraisal Institute of BC, the Land Trust Alliance of BC – it was a really good chance to get all those professionals together.
hpm: You are also involved in your local Neighbourhood Association aren't you?
JW: Yes, I'm on the Nob Hill Neighbourhood Plan Working Group. We're involved in a local area plan for Nob Hill.
hpm: You're also involved with the Comox Valley Land Trust, is that right?
JW: No, not right now. But yes, I was active with CVLT for quite a while. Now I'm just a member.
hpm: So you're intimately involved in land use issues and policies and practices in the Comox Valley area.
JW: Yes. Probably more importantly right now, I am on the technical advisory committee for the Regional Growth Strategy, and I also participate as senior staff with the Comox Valley Sustainability Strategy. These are two big projects in our region.
hpm: What were some of the highlights of the BC Land Summit for you?
JW: I was thinking about this yesterday. It really was Mark Holland's presentation that probably struck home to me, more than the big, broad brush issues, and particularly speakers like Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Richard Hebda. They were absolutely inspiring, but on a really large scale. Big picture kind of things which are fun. To sit in a room with eight hundred people and feel that kind of energy from those kind of speakers is really great.
But I like the more detailed level, the how-do-we-fix-it level of discussion. That's worth more to me, especially for a place like Cumberland. It's the day-to-day stuff, the details on to work with existing – and aging – situations, some of the things that Mark Holland was talking about, this is what interests me. Instead of waiting to invent a perfect plan, or a whole system for alternative transportation. At that level people are spending a lot of time developing these systems, meanwhile I'm thinking, "Yeah yeah, that's all nice, but can't we do something today? Can't we change some little thing right now and make it different?"
And Mark's presentation, well it was about this whole new thing that he's looking at to do with urban vitality, and what makes places really interesting. What it comes down to is that it's not the form of urban development that creates these interesting places – and I just love this: it makes all us urban designers and landscape architects cry because we've always thought that if we could just create the right formyou'ld create that energy. What Mark's talking about is that it's the activity that brings people together and creates these really vibrant places, and it's not necessarily the form.
I mean, I think you can support this activity and energy with the built form, but you need to look at the activities first. This made me think of Cumberland. I think Cumberland has examples of this in spades. Here's a community with this authenticity that so many places are trying to make up and pretend about and lets Disney-fy it and make it look really interesting – and Cumberland already has it. So then, OK, if Cumberland is authentic and that's really valued, how do we keep that? How do we not ruin it? How do we let it go on its own way? You don't have to design it, you don't have to pretend. That was really exciting for me.
hpm: Give me an example in Cumberland of how that's happening. So where are these activities that are bringing together these diverse parts of population?
JW: I would say you see it in things like how we got Village Square built. We got some provincial funding to get Village Square built and it's become this absolutely great hang out place for the skate boarders. I totally love to see them there. They can't wreck the concrete coming off the stairs and it's their hang out spot and it's great. The trouble is they're totally destroying the plants. And I don't think this is malicious; it's an the activity centre. But it presents me with a problem. We've successfully created a space where people congregate, and I like the activity; I just have to figure out how to work with it rather than having Public Works move them off to another location. I don't want to be separating the skateboarders from the other people using Village Square. I like the mix in that. And I like that people, the skateboarders, discovered that stuff on their own. And they're not hidden away somewhere.
hpm: So Village Square has bought the skateboarders downtown, is that what you're saying? Instead of pushing them off to a corner of the community, they are in the downtown. So, how are people interacting with that? Aside from the bushes that aren't doing so well. What about the other people who might be using the Village Square?
JW: When you see a group of fifteen teenagers hanging out with skateboards you're probably not going to take your sandwich and try and sit down in between them to have a snack. But it's mostly after school that I've seen the skaters down there. And I haven't really talked to them and I haven't engaged to see what's going on or anything. Public Works moved some tubes and stuff they had for jumping over and said "Hey, we'll move it down for you to the basketball courts so that you've still got a place to do it" – so it wasn't done unkindly. I don't know how other people feel, if they're thinking, "Hey, we got this great square designed for all of us to use and now it's been taken over by one group."
hpm: How did Mark Holland talk about that? That to me seems to be the rub: You can create all these activities and sometimes they do bring people together and sometimes they are sources of conflict. Was he talking about that?
JW: Well, he was talking about what he calls precincts and the kinds of mixes that happen. One of his best examples was Mountain Equipment Co-op in Vancouver. He said that about a block away from MEC there's a park that's never used. He asked, "Why doesn't that park have climbing walls? It could be a demo place for every bit of equipment that Mountain Equipment Co-op sells." So you could go down to the park and use all this equipment, and pretty soon it would be the hang out spot for everybody with their cramp-ons and bikes and whatever. If we allow that to happen it generates energy, as people are joined by an activity. It's different because it goes cross gender, religion, everything. Activities like gardening things are like that. People who garden are a really wide range of people from a wide variety of backgrounds and incomes but that activity brings them together. He was talking about small things, almost accidental things that have happened and were not particularly set up. He's starting to notice that these are the kinds of things that really vibrant places. So in Village Square here in Cumberland, eventually you'll see people connecting because they're in the same space, even if some are skateboarding and others are just sitting around watching, or eating a doughnut from the bakery next door.
hpm: There's a bit of irony here because I find malls not very exciting places for me, but for my dad, who is within walking distance of a mall, it's a social centre for him. He and his buddies get together there for coffee.
JW: Yeah, the mall is the new community centre. Mark actually brought that up and he talked a bit about malls and he said that as far as teenagers go, that is the place! It's the activity centre for a lot of them. They like hanging out and being seen. But he suggested that malls could probably be better set up to make more social interaction. I don't think they're generally set up to do that. The coffee shops are but not the interior of the mall.
Anyway, I what struck me most about Mark's talk was the struggle for authenticity and the places we really like being in are really alive places. Granville Island came up quite a few times in different parts of the Land Summit as a good example, and I thought that we have it right here in the Comox Valley. With Cumberland I thought, Why would you want to kind of sterilize it and clean it up? At the same time, somebody said that we don't want to make a "precinct of poverty," like saying, "Oh well we have an 'authentic' impoverished neighbourhood and that's great and let's make it – being poor – the unifying activity."
hpm: To go back to the Granville Market example, I find that with the local farmers' market it's way more than just a place to buy fresh vegetables. There's music happening there now and there's lots of stuff happening more than just buying food.
JW: I know someone who goes there to sell plants. But it's not so much that she needs to sell plants; she just likes the Farmers' Market. She likes to be there. So there's an activity that's pulling all those people together with that common goal and it makes for a really lively interesting place. And that's just a field. It's people that have made the place interesting and lively, not the form. It's interesting. We could design some very fancy Farmers' Market with all these beautiful things, with little coffee shops, and it might fail. Sometimes the stuff that just comes along and we put together without thinking, like skateboarders on the edge of a set of stairs, sometimes this is the most interesting. Another great thing that Mark picked up on is that when you get that level of activity, people like to watch what's going on and they don't actually engage but they like to be at that edge. So that even the people watching become part of what's interesting.
hpm: Thanks for that Judy. Now you were at the previous Land Summit in 2005. How does this on compare to that one, four years ago?
JW: There wasn't the "urgency" in that Summit; it wasn't as charged. This year it was very highly charged. It probably helps again that we were in Whistler and the there is a very different feel or level of activity when you go out in the street in Whistler than we had in 2005 when the BC Land Summit was at the Chan Centre at UBC. Here we stepped into streets full of restaurants and stores and hotels and there are a huge number of people who work there who are hanging out in that place. It's pretty high energy. In the middle of the week in May and everyone is out on the street and there is all this activity. It's pretty surprising when you come from Comox Valley.
hpm: Particularly Cumberland.
JW: It's already quiet when I'm leaving work at 5.00pm!
hpm: Anything else you want to say about the Land Summit?
JW: Just a note about Sherry Kafka Wagner, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Richard Hebda, three of the keynote speakers. Sherry was talking about stories about her dad and I would have listened to her tell stories about her dad forever. And then Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: One of the things he said was that they used to get called environmental activists and he said, "We don't call ourselves that anymore; we call ourselves 'free market activists'." He said, "We are for the free market" – which for him means no more heavy subsidies for the oil and gas people. He said, "Open a free market for energy and we'd have solutions for a lot of our energy problems." And then Richard Hebda came on and he kind of 'poo pooed' Kennedy's talk, about this big electrical grid over North America so we can run electric cars off it. Hebda was saying, "We are going to do what? Dig up land to put in this copper grid? What are we destroying while we are putting in this grid? And where's the copper coming from?" It was really great. I love it when high powered people are being critical. It makes you think a different way. Sometimes it's just those funny little things that you think are critical things. It's not about a particular solution, it's not about infrastructure and how are we going to pay for the next pipe or anything, but it's about how we look at stuff.
hpm: Is this going to change how you do things in Comox Valley?
JW: Yes. Absolutely. I don't spend three days at something like this and not take notice. That's a huge time investment on my part, I have to make this worthwhile. I just have to figure out how to do that.
hpm: Well, good luck with that. Thank you for the interview.
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In October 2009 about 600 people gathered in Vancouver for Resilient Cities, the 6th Gaining Ground summit (GGRC09). As with previous GG summits, the emphasis was on how we are "gaining ground" on the sustainability front. Communities in Transition Information Resource will be conducting and posting a series of interviews over the coming year looking at the impact of GGRC09. These will be posted as audio, video, and transcripts whenever possible.
hanspetermeyer: Michelle, how long have you been on Kelowna's City Councill?
Michelle Rule: This is my second term, so going on four years now.
hpm: What got you involved in local government?
MR: It was an interest in developing the community in a sustainable manner. It's interesting, I've lived here all my life and over the years I've watched the community grow and it's more than doubled in population since I was a teenager. I saw that we were putting a lot of effort into our economy here, but not paying much attention to the environment or social issues. I thought we needed a voice that could speak to that on our council, so I ran.
hpm: You recently attended the Resilient Cities conference, the 6th Gaining Ground summit, in Vancouver. Is that the first Gaining Ground conference you have participated in?
MR: Yes it is.
hpm: What prompted you to get to Resilient Cities?
MR: When I saw the agenda for the list of speakers, I thought, "What a great way to learn about what is really going on in sustainability and resiliency for cities in a short period of time." There was just so much to listen to and so many people to meet, which is what drew me to it.
hpm: So there were obviously some big names on that agenda. Were there some surprises, people that you hadn't expected to get what you thought from?
MR: I thought all the speakers were excellent. I had never heard Sam Adams speak before, the Mayor of Portland and I was really interested in what he had to say at the conference. I think it's very exciting, the work they are doing in Portland. That was one of the surprises for me. I was also very interested in Sarah Severn www.focusthenation.org/about-us/board.../sarah-severn of Nike, who talked about business the "one planet economy." I thought that was an excellent presentation about corporate responsibility.
hpm: A lot of what Resilient Cities is about is cities, and while Kelowna is certainly a city it's a small city. The Communities in Transition program at the Real Estate Foundation focuses on the non-metropolitan parts of BC. How do you see the "big city" topics and speakers at Resilient Cities relating to smaller cities and non-metro area, like Kelowna?
MR: It was focused on the big cities, but in Kelowna we feel like we are a little bit on the verge of being a big city. We have an opportunity to do things right from the beginning, so a lot of the topics at Resilient Cities gave me information on what Vancouver of Portland or big cities have done. It's an opportunity to think about how we better start planning for things like this. For light rapid transit, and other things we don't quite have the population base for yet, but we will, and we need to plan now if we are going to have that in the future.
hpm: It's been 3 weeks since you got back from Resilient Cities. I imagine you have talked to other Counselors, city staff. What kind of response are you getting on these ideas in Kelowna?
MR: People I talk to are very interested in what we learnt from the conference. Especially our staff. I bought back tons of information for them and linked them up with a number of people. I was able to link with all kinds of people from different communities while I was there. I've gone back now and emailed those people and we've started conversations so my Council certainly see the value in sending me to the conference. I think what we are going to see next year is a few more from my Council are going to want to go.
hpm: That's good to hear. Did any of your staff attend?
MR: No, unfortunately none of our staff were able to attend but again I think that based on what I was able to tell them we will possibly see some more interest in the future.
hpm: One of the things that I've noticed that happens at these events, and at Gaining Ground particularly, is what you just said: People connecting, not just with information from the speakers but with each other. Were there other local government, councillors and mayors from BC communities there that you connected with?
MR: Yes certainly there were some elected officials. I connected with a lot of staff from other communities. It's just who I ended up sitting next to. I met the Social Development Manager from Prince George. We made a very strong connection. We both have an interest in youth engagement so we had great conversations.
hpm: If there were 3 things to take away from Resilient Cities that really spoke to you about things that Kelowna is dealing with, what would they be?
MR: One of the things that really jumped out me was Jim Dier's talk on neighborhood power from Seattle. That just totally – his neighborhood planning program, where the plans were made available to the community groups based on how many in the community were interested and then the neighborhood really took ownership of the plans and took responsibility. That was amazing to me. One of the examples he gave from San Francisco, with the parking spots where they put parks on parking spots and people put money in the meters. I just thought, "Wow, what an incredible way to engage the local neighborhood in the planning of their community and then the implenation of that plan." So that was one of the things that I took home where I thought, "We could easily do something like that here."
I have a whole bunch of things starred on my notes, things like listening to Eva Kras from CANSEE [Canadian Society for Ecological Economics] and her talk about trust and co-operation, that really came home to me. Again, everybody has to be working together. We have a regional district here for central Okanagan, and we also have a north and south Okanagan regional district. When she was talking it really spoke to me about the need to pull the three together so even though we don't have any connection in terms of ability to govern or anything like that, as a large group we could be working better. That then broadens our population base. We go from the 160,000 we have in central Okanagan to over 300,000 if we were able to connect the three and work through that process. That really got me thinking about that, and again with an eye to the future and the planning that we need to do now.
hpm: About 6 months ago I interviewed Victor Cumming, who hales from Vernon. He was talking about regional economic development on that basis, and he specifically cited that the three Okanagan districts actually have a lot more in common than they are allowed to have because of their jurisdictional separation, and the strength from working together like that is not something that is tapped into enough.
MR: Exactly. One of the other things that I took home has to do with something we've been having a big discussion about: electric cars and preparing our streets for electric cars and plug-ins where people can recharge their cars. It was interesting that one of the speakers, I think it was Richard Register, and he said even a better car isn't good enough because you are still paving the world. That was one of the real take-home ones for me. I thought, "Wow, we are putting all this focus on hybrid cars and electric cars and then he said that, and I thought he was right because you still have to build more roads". There won't be less cars, they are better for the environment in the sense of GHG emissions but you still have to build roads.
hpm: is the GHG emission thing something that Kelowna City Council is really wrestling with? Does that come up as a big topic for you folks?
MR: It has, because provincially we've been told that we have to be carbon neutral by 2012. Kelowna was one of the first cities to sign on to the Climate Charter. We absolutely agree that we need to do something about climate change and reducing our carbon footprint, but it's a struggle for our community to figure out how to do that. Again, a lot of it is because we are still so automobile focused, just because of the way we have developed over the years. We are having the discussion and looking for solutions.
hpm: My last question for you Michelle, I think it's my last question, is who were your 3 stand out speakers at Resilient Cities?
MR: In one of the workshops I heard Gian-Carlo Sairrenen speak from Calgary and he was amazing. His discussion around the sustainable neighborhood that he's been working with in Calgary, and the way that they pulled all that together. I was really impressed by him. Of course, Mike Harcourt is always entertaining and I know him personally so it was nice to hear him and hear his continued passion for taking care of all our communities, big and small. And not just our communities, but the people who live within them, including the marginalised.
Mark Holland has done work for Kelowna with our Official Community Plan, and I thought his "Resilient Cities Manifesto" was amazing. I'm hoping they did an audio of that, and that it will be available to hear because that is something I would like to play here for my council. So, those three were great. And Nola-Kate Seymoar from Sustainable Cities, she was fantastic. She spoke to the larger group and she also spoke at one of the smaller workshops that I was at. Her intelligence and her breadth of experience is always so impressive. I guess I named 4! And I could go on, because as I said earlier, that the thing that drew me to the conference was the amazing array of speakers and no-one was disappointing. I thought they were all great.
hpm: I do have another question and it has to do with your colleagues across the province. When you go to places like UBCM or your regional local government association, are the kind of topics addressed in Resilient Cities becoming more and more part of the conversation or are they still marginalized?
MR: No, I think it becoming more of the conversation and part of that is from the urging of the province with the carbon neutral goals. We are all faced with similar predicaments in the rural areas where we are so automobile based. So there is a lot of discussion around that and some of it is not so happy because the smaller municipalities feel like they have been told to do this, but not necessarily provided with the tools. We do talk a lot about it at UBC. There were a number of sessions on climate change and reducing GHGs. They were well attended. I think generally we all want to do the right thing. There aren't too many people anymore, at the municipal government level anyway, who don't think there's a problem. We kind of got passed that stage. Now it's just a matter of figuring out what we can do about it. How to message that to our population and get the buy-in from the grassroots level, because that's where it really all needs to start. We need to be leaders, and we have to have the tools to get that message out. Those are a lot of the discussions we are having.
hpm: If you had one thing you wanted to see at the next Gaining Ground summit in light of what you have just said, what would it be? Do you have any thoughts on that?
MR: Yes, I think depending on your audience, if you are hoping to attract more elected officials to the conference, then a session on how to get that message out in a positive way to our citizens. That would probably be really helpful. And maybe a common social marketing plan that we could work on together. Maybe have a workshop at the conference where we could sit down and plan together and then that way the citizens would be hearing the same kinds of messages, whether they live in Kelowna or Cache Creek or Smithers. I think that would be a really helpful session.
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In October 2009 the 6th in the Gaining Ground Summit series attracted 600 people to Vancouver to learn, talk about, and build connections around the theme of "Resilient Cities." Communities in Transition Information Resource editor hanspetermeyer talked to Tim Pringle of the Real Estate Foundation of BC shortly after the conference about his impressions of GGRC09. What follows is an edited transcription of that conversation. An audio version is available here on the CITinfoResource blog. Tim is Director of Special Programs with the Foundation, and has participated in a number of the Gaining Ground events. The Real Estate Foundation has been one of the partners in the series for several years.
hanspetermeyer: Tim, you were there for pretty much the full three days of Resilient Cities, plus some shoulder events is that right?
Tim Pringle: Yes, I attended all of the plenary sessions which were the morning part of the program and then a couple of the afternoon workshops.
hpm: What were your overall impressions of this event?
TP: This is the 6th Gaining Ground summit. Three in Victoria since 2006, and two in Calgary. Now Resilient Cities this year in Vancouver is the sixth one. I think that it continues to build and really support a community of interest around the theme of settlement change that is more sustainable or holistic. That was certainly one of the themes that came out of the conference: to present a holistic perspective where a number of view points and roles of players or actors have to be integrated.
hpm: Give me an example. What kind of range did you see?
TP: Our cities are made up of a lot of players that do things that shape what happens on the ground. On one side you have the development interest, land owners developers, and the people who finance that process. You also have the local approving authorities: regional governments plus provincial authorities that approve what form development may take. And then you have the stewardship and conservation sector, the community and people at large who are concerned about how their places change. The best outcomes are the ones that get all of those actors involved in the process, at stages so there is a conversation about change, so values can be expressed and outcomes are better aligned with what the community feels is appropriate for its place.
hpm: Who was representing the development perspective at the Gaining Ground Resilient Cities?
TP: John Knott was there for example. He is from a family that has more than 100 years of involvement in the building trades and the craft of building. He is currently working on a large project called Noisset in North Charleston, South Carolina. He made a few comments which I thought were very telling. He talked about his company being in the "human habitat business."
hpm: "Human habitat business." Sounds like a bit of marketing talk there.
TP:Not in this case. He also feels that they are in the "community development business" so he definitely doesn't think of their work as only real estate focused. He makes the point by noting that in the case of Noisset what he is trying to create is social durability. They have a place in Noisset which is quite a large area of North Charleston, originally settled in the late 1700's. It has gone through several remakes and has been derelict for a number of years. The history is notable because they have a Frederick Law Olmstead plan for parks.
hpm: He's one of the big names in 19th century park planning?
TP:Yes. Also, another one of the great urban designers helped lay out the plan for this part of Noisette. I can't remember his name right now. The point is that Knott's company had significant heritage to work with. They took that into account and started with that as the key form maker for the way that they would re-develop or re-new. They did a master plan and gave that to the City of North Charleston. That was their contribution, in part, to the public or to the commons. Under that master plan, once it was approved and amended, then various developers have taken roles in re-developing and re-furbishing certain areas. John Knott's company itself, the way they have expressed their commitment to the social or community building, is that they are not only doing the development; they have established a conservancy, a foundation, and a sustainability institute. Each has a role: with non-profits, with people, with the physical heritage and the environmental heritage of the place. All of the development that takes place in this project in North Charleston provides some revenue that goes into these non-profits. This is evidence of a respect for the commons and an active role for the commons in helping re-make the place.
hpm: So, John Knott represents a pretty progressive type of development contractor. Were there any developers from BC presenting?
TP: There was another one in the plenary session, and that was regarding the Elkington Forest near Shaunigan Lake on Vancouver Island. Doug Makaroff made that presentation. It's an example of what he called "conservation development." The idea is that the natural features of the place and the ecological value shape the extent and kind of development that might take place. The housing development is there for the purpose of generating enough revenue to maintain these values over time, to conserve, steward the value of the Elkington Forest. I believe the total area is about 1100 acres. A small portion of this is developed and those revenues are used to establish a trust that will support the stewardship and conservation of the remaining area.
hpm: We've got some progressive development content then at GGRC09. What about local government? What kind of presentations moved you from local government or from that kind of perspective?
TP: The only one from local government was the opening presentation by Gregor Robertson, Mayor of Vancouver and he was presenting the city's action plan for a green economy. He named ten goals – I won't go into them all – but he believes that Vancouver can be a leading green city and would like to see it become recognized as one of the top cities in the world, not only for the physical aspects of green development and ecology, but also for creating jobs in green industries, education that flows from what Vancouver is and what it does, and green building and design technology that's transferable. He is looking at those kinds of things.
hpm: As I understand it, Mayor Robertson's announcement was part of the confluence of interesting and positive things that were part of the Resilient Cities conference. How did people respond to Robertson's ten points?
TP: All I can say is that he recieved enthusiastic applause. I also think there was pretty good press coverage of his plan. Certainly at the conference his announcement was a position that aligned well with what Portland and Seattle are doing. There was a local government team from Portland at the conference, and discussion about the City of Vancouver and the City of Portland looking at a memorandum of understanding to work together on certain things on the theme of being lead green cities in the world and on the west coast.
hpm: Were there any other highlights for you at the conference. It seems to me that the John Knott presentation was a strong one.
TP: Yes, it was very good. The other one was Paul Hawkin. Many people already know Paul Hawkin quite well. He is well known for his work on Natural Capital and his more recent book, Blessed Unrest which I haven't read yet. In Blessed Unrest he talks about the ingenuity of nature and the organisms of the earth to understand there is a need for change and to heal itself. He thinks that humanity is going that way as well. Not a fast program, but he thinks that's the case.
He did make a strong case in his presentation about cities as part of that intuition, that cities are necessary for survival, for lessening the impact on the environment, by giving people the chance to have well-being without necessarily relying on traditional patterns of growth that we have seen. Certainly since North America was settled by Europeans. He believes that the literacy about the environment and ecology needs to be improved tremendously, and there there is a growing interest in that. Hawken made a key point for me when he talked about Gaining Ground and the community of interest around it, that this is where there is a feasible level for action that people can get inspired and can find collaborations to be engaged in and learn how to find information they may want so they can make decisions about where to be involved and how to move ahead.
hpm: Did you see any of that happening?
TP:Yes, there is always a lot of networking at the Gaining Ground events. This one was no exception, and I did hear a number of comments from people, that they found it very useful that way. The Foundation is working with some other organizations around this, and we had a meeting at the shoulder event the day before the conference started. We're looking at an open directory kind of strategy to accelerate the uptake and interest of knowledge about managing settlement change more sustainably. For us Gaining Ground and this kind of strategy represents a place where we can access a community of interest and pursue initiatives together.
hpm: Can you give me a summary as to why I would want to go to a Gaining Ground Summit? What did Resilient Cities inspire in you?
TP:It provides a wide range of view of generally very active people, places, cities that are working on changing for the better. You get a good dose of what they're doing, how they're doing it, what they plan to do next, who they are working with, and the fact that this all takes collaboration. You get usually a very strong message about the Gaining Ground conference. I think for me in this one, the message was that people need to re-connect with the place and feel more rooted. Out of that comes the ability to love your place and the desire to protect it or be a steward or being engaged in making it better. I think the modern North America has been too willing to re-locate when things got difficult, and we have abandoned places that have been messed up, as it were, by our inept city building and urbanism in the past. I can see now that that's changing.
hpm: If you were going to tell me to follow 3 people after the conference, who would they be?
TP: I think in BC it would be Mark Holland of Holland Bars Lanarc because he is a leader in this field, in his work and in his personal convictions. I didn't mentioned it, but he delivered a manifesto at the conference which was a very brave and outstanding document. Very much worth people finding. [editor's note: CITinfoResource will be talking to Mark Holland about posting his "Resilient Cities Manifesto" here.] Paul Hawkenis a thought leader for sure, as are a number of other people. I think if one goes and looks at the program of Resilient Cities online, depending on what you are doing, you might want to follow any of plenary presenters because they are all strong leaders in their particular approach in the issues they are addressing.
hpm: But Tim Pringle's "3 to follow" would be Paul Hawkins, John Knott, and Mark Holland?
TP: Yes.
hpm: Thank you very much Tim. Do you have anything you want to add to this conservation about Resilient Cities?
TP: It's a long conversation Hans, but this is a start on it.
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