Tuesday, December 29, 2015

E&N Train Station — @SketchUp animation

#Nanaimo E&N Train Station Google Sketchup annimation http://www.thesidewalkballet.com/2013/12/functiond-s-id-var-js-fjs-d_29.html

Posted by Frank Murphy on Sunday, December 29, 2013

Friday, December 18, 2015

Environmental studies complete,
Ministry of Environment clears downtown waterfront lands for development

Ministry of Environment has given approval for @CityofNanaimo’s south downtown waterfront lands lands to be subdivided,...

Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Friday, December 18, 2015
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Thursday, December 17, 2015

#Nanaimo South End Community Association AGM minutes. SECA continues to set the standard for effective inclusive...

Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Thursday, December 17, 2015

@CBCUnreserved tweeting all
94 @TRC_en recommendations: 1 - 11

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From Project for Public Spaces —
Detroit's Eastern Market
Great Public Spaces nominee

Eastern Market is a pedestrian oasis in the middle of a still largely car-focused (but rapidly changing) city. With over 150 vendors in the central market sheds and many other market-related businesses in the surrounding area, Eastern Market has a great variety of places where visitors can find meat, fruits, vegetables, baked goods, jams, honey, apple cider, cheeses, spices, herbs, plants, flowers, and much more. While the wholesale market dominates most of the week, there is also a retail farmers market on Tuesdays and Saturdays and a street market on Sundays. Outside this core, the district also features housing, art space, restaurants, galleries, and other businesses that draw diverse visitors to the area every day of the week. The market is a great source of civic pride for Detroit. Read more: Detroit Eastern Market - Great Public Spaces
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@CBCUnreserved tweeting all 94
Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

From American Planning —
The Role of Public Markets
in Community Building

Since 2007, the American Planning Association has designated 245 Great Places in America. As a part of the Great Places program, APA has often recognized public markets, old and new, for adding vibrancy, character, and functionality to communities across America.
Public markets increase access to healthy foods, honor historical legacies, and highlight the local culture of the communities in which they are found. These markets bring together community members, local business leaders, and visitors to celebrate and recognize the importance of these Great Public Spaces, and their roles in helping to create communities of lasting value.
Here’s a look back at the public markets we’ve recognized as Great Public Spaces over the past eight years: Read more: American Planning: The Role of Public Markets in Community Building 

Monday, December 14, 2015

From Better Cities and Towns —
The new theory of traffic engineering

Dumbaugh cited, at the time, at least 10 studies that contradicted the wisdom of the traffic engineering profession on this subject, and he conducted his own study designed to test the theory of what he calls “forgiving design.” Without a doubt, this concept leads to more injury and death in populated areas. All of the data pointed to a better theory: In urban places, obstacles and constrictions make streets safer, because they cause motor vehicle operators to drive more carefully.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

From Centre for Livable Cities —
Jan Gehl on planning cities using our biological history as walking animals

Interview- Jan Gehl on planning for people-oriented cities
Jan Gehl of Gehl Architects talks about planning #cities using our biological history as walking animals.
Posted by Centre for Liveable Cities on Thursday, December 10, 2015

Friday, December 11, 2015

From Connecting Dots . . . —
The Three Community Characteristics
of Highly Successful Transit Systems

Think quick! What are the most important elements of a really great transit system?! Chances are if you just answered that in your head right now, you might have said things like: frequency, directness, reliability, easy fare payment, easy to use and understand information, consistency, comfort or safety.
Some of you might have answered “convenience,” which I would then have gotten you to define and you probably would have used a lot of words in the above list. Read more: The Three Community Characteristics of Highly Successful Transit Systems – Connecting Dots . . .

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Transit hub proposed for South Waterfront —
What exactly is that?

From Toronto's Eglington Avenue Crosstown Project: What is a Mobility Hub?
Mobility hubs are major transit stations and the surrounding areas with significant levels of planned transit service and high residential and employment development potential within an approximately 800m radius of the transit station.
They are places of connectivity where different modes of transportation – from walking to rapid transit – come together seamlessly and where there is an intensive concentration of working, living, shopping and/or playing.






Monday, December 7, 2015

Calgary Municipal Land Corporation task — "kick-start Calgary urban renewal"

Today we topped off the LRT enclosure and begin the vertical construction of the New Central Library. We celebrated this...
Posted by East Village Calgary on Wednesday, September 30, 2015
The Calgary Municipal Land Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the City of Calgary was incorporated in 2007 "to implement and execute the Rivers District Community Revitalization Plan – a public infrastructure program approved by the City of Calgary and the Province of Alberta to kick-start Calgary’s urban renewal.".
An "entrepreneurial group of hands-on doers and place-makers," their mandate is to 
  • Redevelop, implement and activate public infrastructure to meet the needs of the community and the City of Calgary as sole shareholder
  • Manage the investment in land and infrastructure for optimal financial return
  • Demonstrate leading practices for sustainable development
  • Demonstrate innovative and effective operating processes and practice
This is one of many examples in Canada of a municipally owned development corporation mandated to work with senior levels of government and commercial and cultural partners to redevelop urban lands in the commercial and, of critical importance, the social and civic best interests of the community.
This development corporation model was the recommendation of the Nanaimo South Downtown Waterfront Initiative Committee. Because they were unable to get any common agreement between the primary public stakeholders, they requested the City of Nanaimo suspend their activities until such a time as these parties are able to identify shared interests and are prepared to make a commitment to proceeding with the redevelopment of the Nanaimo south downtown waterfront.

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Twitter list — Walking, cycling, transit

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From Business in Vancouver —
Traditional infrastructure funding
throws money down the sewer

PETER LADNER Amid all the excitement about the Christmas bounty of infrastructure spending coming at us from our deficit-happy new federal government, it’s a good time to ask how we got ourselves into this infrastructure hole. 
Charles Marohn, the Republican civil engineer behind the U.S. Strong Towns movement, has an answer. He likens traditional suburban development to a Ponzi scheme. Tax revenues from low-density development don’t come near paying for maintenance and depreciation on costly infrastructure. He estimates suburban property taxes bring in only $0.04 to $0.65 for every dollar of liability. So cities embrace new developments to keep their cash flowing, or they go into debt, or both. At every stage, they pile on future liabilities.
“When people say we’re living beyond our means, they’re usually talking about a 40-inch TV instead of a 20-inch TV,” Marohn told Time magazine. “This is like pennies compared to the dollars we’ve spent on the way we’ve arranged ourselves across the landscape.” Municipal servicing costs in low-density sprawl can be 2.5 times those in compact, high-density neighbourhoods. Read more: Traditional infrastructure funding throws money down the sewer | Economy | Business in Vancouver

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Thursday, December 3, 2015

The road to better business starts with a plaza

Senior management posts not filled,
Council fractious, Committee suspended — City of Nanaimo staff proceed with
South Downtown Waterfront Lands
master planning process regardless


The @CityofNanaimo, shortly after the South Downtown Waterfront Committee Chair, VIU VP Dave Witty, in frustration,...
Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Thursday, December 3, 2015


Dave Witty's PP presentation to Council: here.

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Tuesday, November 24, 2015

From Better! Cities —
An animated Donald Shoup explains
How cars took over cities

The TruTV show Adams Ruins Everything ran an episode on cars that is a good history of our favoritism toward automobile transportation and why that hurts people. The show stars Adam Conover, who mixes comedy and education on real issues—in this case the form of cities and the impact on how we get around. The episode was posted to You Tube this week. Below is a short segment that features an animated representation of UCLA professor and parking expert Donald Shoup.



Read more: Comedic history of how cars took over cities | Better! Cities
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"The formula is simple: go to the city,
observe, and listen. And then join
together to effect change." — Jan Gehl

Portrait of Jan Gehl, The City Whisperer— @smart_magazine @PPS_Placemaking @citiesforpeople

Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Tuesday, November 24, 2015
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Sunday, November 22, 2015

Nanaimo needs a Vancouver Island University downtown campus

Friday, November 20, 2015

From Georgia Straight —
David Suzuki: Natural infrastructure is
good for the climate and communities

From @georgiastraight — David Suzuki: Natural infrastructure is good for the climate and communitieshttp://www.straight.com/news/579126/david-suzuki-natural-infrastructure-good-climate-and-communities
Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Friday, November 20, 2015

David Suzuki: Natural infrastructure is good for the climate and communities | Georgia Straight Vancouver's News & Entertainment Weekly

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

From Congress for the New Urbanism — Urban freeways an endangered species

Saturday, November 14, 2015

#Nanaimo South Downtown Waterfront Committee Chair @VIUniversity VP Dave Witty presentation 2 @cityofnanaimo Council....

Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Thursday, November 12, 2015

From The Congress for the New Urbanism —
Reclaiming the median in Salt Lake City

The width of streets in Salt Lake City are legendary. According to a popular story, Brigham Young, who led the Mormons in founding the city, wanted a team of oxen to be able to turn around in the street with room to spare. Today, without the oxen, those over-wide streets mean wasted space, expensive maintenance, speeding cars, and major barriers to walking. So James Alfandre of the Kentlands Initiative had a creative solution: Develop the middle of the street.
Now, Granary Row, a seasonal pop-up festival that has operated for two years, uses old shipping containers to create retail stores and a open-air stage, and a beer garden has been fenced off—all in the middle of the road, along a block-length section an old industrial area. On Friday and Saturday nights, the place is hopping with live music, food trucks, crowds of people, and beer supplied by Salt Lake’s Uinta Brewing Co.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

From @grescoe —
In the 20th century, "modern"
meant bringing cars into cities.
In the 21st it means keeping them out.

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Monday, November 9, 2015

Nanaimo SDWI Chair Witty asks Council
to suspend his Committee until the key partners can give "clarity in direction"


#Nanaimo South Downtown Waterfront Committee Chair @VIUniversity VP Dave Witty presentation 2 @cityofnanaimo Council....
Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Thursday, November 12, 2015

I have both huge respect for the fresh approach VIU VP Witty brought to this initiative and huge concern that Nanaimo's institutional dysfunction extends to the key partners mentioned here. This inability to work to a shared vision of mutual self-interest continues to freeze Nanaimo in a state of paralysis.
On Nanaimo City Council Committee of the Whole agenda this afternoon, a report from South Downtown Waterfront Initiative Committee Chair Dave Witty. He suggests that the Committee has accomplished all it can and should be suspended until —
"the  key partners (City of Nanaimo, Snuneymuxw First Nation, and Nanaimo Port Authority) agree to the mutual benefit of preparing an integrated approach to the planning, development, and implementation of the South Downtown Waterfront Area."
And that "the two objectives of recommending a Charter document and a Development Corporation for the South Downtown Waterfront Area, should be further reviewed at [that] later date." 
A link to Witty's report to Council appears at the foot of this post. Related, I yesterday sent this to Mayor and Council —

 To: ‪#‎Nanaimo‬ Mayor&Council@nanaimo.ca
Subject: South Downtown Waterfront Initiative
Mayor McKay and Nanaimo City Councillors, on your agenda tomorrow is a report from the South Downtown Waterfront Initiative. You may want to also consider, as a way to build on the critically important work done by Dave Witty and his committee, in the interim period referred to in the report, an open design competition. Links here will take you to one example of an open design competition, this one done by the City of Vancouver to gather innovative ideas for the lands under the Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaducts.

 http://www.thesidewalkballet.com/…/reconnect-registration-v…

 One of the globally most experienced and respected experts in central city railyards redevelopment is Canadian architect and urban planner Ken Greenberg. Our former head of planning Andrew Tucker spoke highly of his work. In his book Walking Home 

http://www.thesidewalkballet.com/2011/07/walking-home-life-and-lessons-of-city.html 

 he details over his career several such industrial sites and their redevelopment.
As I’ve said before, I think former City of Vancouver Co-Chief Planner got it right when he participated in Witty’s initiative at a public event: the careful redevelopment of this site is potentially “transformative” for Nanaimo.
 Frank Murphy

Thursday, November 5, 2015

From Project for Public Spaces —
The Impact of Public Markets and
Farmers Markets on Local Economies

On August 17, 1907 Pike Place Market opens in Seattle @WhatWasThere

Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Monday, August 17, 2015
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Sunday, November 1, 2015

Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps commits
to building #minimumGRID
safe bikeways in one term

From The City Fix —
Bus Rapid Transit has a bright future

Serving more than 32 million passengers daily in 197 cities across the globe, #BRT has a bright future @WRIcities
Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Friday, October 23, 2015
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Thursday, October 29, 2015

—@slowstreets showcasing their research at @SFUPublicSquare Researching the City Oct 30. 5:30-6:45pmhttps://slowstreets.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/slow-streets-who-we-are-and-researching-the-city-showcase/

Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Thursday, October 29, 2015

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

@WorldVIU Days Nov. 2-6 —
Free keynote by Charles Montgomery @thehappycity

—@WorldVIU Days Nov. 2-6 features free keynote by Charles Montgomery@thehappycity @viunews

Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Wednesday, October 28, 2015
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Tuesday, October 27, 2015

We approach the 1st anniversary of #Nanaimo City Council, a Council more broadly representative of our community…

Submitted to @NanaimoBulletin as a guest column — (declined).
We approach the first anniversary of our new City Council, a Council more broadly representative of our community than previous ones. Our aboriginal community, the non-profit sector, a small business entrepreneur, a neighbourhood and anti-poverty activist. There’s been tensions, there’s been missteps. Interesting times, and you know what they say about interesting times.
It’s reminding me of the inner city high school where nothing much ever happened. It had been a stable, even boring place. Students attended, played on sports teams, graduated much as their parents had before them. It took pride in its uniformity and conformity. But then the neighbourhood changed. The high school found itself attended by students from different backgrounds, with different attitudes and styles. It was dynamic, anything but boring. To the school’s Principal and administrators it was also dangerous. It was unruly and rebellion was in the air.
The Principal, who previously had only to somewhat regally walk the well-behaved halls, appear at ceremonies and to cheer on the football team, found it suddenly hard to cope. In a panic a crisis meeting was called in a kind of war room. It was decided that order must be restored. Dress and behaviour codes were quickly put in place with warnings of harsh punishments for non-compliance. All student creativity and any excess of youthful energy were to defer without question to the authority of the classroom teachers..
And as you can imagine things quickly got much worse. The poor Principal and most of the administrative staff went into a kind of bunker mentality, many left for work in less challenging environments.
The story ends happily though. Wise replacements at the highest levels understood that the new dynamic presented great opportunity. Rules that benefited all were established with general buy-in by the students. Old rules that mostly existed to bolster the institution itself were loosened or jettisoned. The school became a place students looked forward to going to and staff were proud to work at.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if Nanaimo’s current upheaval had a similar outcome.

Frank Murphy

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Monday, October 26, 2015

From Slow Streets —
Elements that Make Pedestrian Streets Work

We currently dedicate an excessive amount of our street public space for the movement and storage of automobiles. We can bring dignity to our streets where people live, work and play by reclaiming it for people. It has been shown that cities are significantly quieter when there are lower traffic volumes, or even when the vehicle traveling speeds slow down to a human speed (40-30kph). There are also fewer automobile related injuries and fatalities. It can also make us happier since we can spend more time outside and meet more of our neighbours.
So how can we reclaim some of this space? Pedestrian streets offer one way to do this, but it has been demonstrated that pedestrian streets in North America have failed in the past (see Buffalo’s Main Street, Ottawa’s Sparks Street, and other examples). But many cities feature widely-visited, vibrant pedestrian streets in different city scales, climates and cultures throughout Europe including Northbrook St. in Newbury, UK (pop. 31,331 in 2011), Calle San Jacinto in Seville, Spain (pop. 702,355 in 2012), Exhibition Road in London, UK (pop. 8.3 million in 2013). They also exist in various sizes either as a short section of one street or a network of car-free streets such as in Delft, Netherlands or the Stroget in Copenhagen. This article explores several of these successful pedestrian streets and breaks down several of the elements that make them work. Read more: Critical Elements to Make Pedestrian Streets Work | SLOW STREETS
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Saturday, October 24, 2015

Walking, Cycling, Transit
Tweets from a list by TheSidewalkBallet


Friday, October 23, 2015

From @StrongTowns —
Want growth? Get People

Thursday, October 22, 2015

From Project for Public Spaces —
Streets as Places -


Like few other places, streets are a public stage where life unfolds. From town parades and trick-or-treating, to markets and public gatherings, they’re where we celebrate and come together with our neighbors. They’re where we bump into friends, and one of the few places where we routinely encounter people who are different from ourselves. They’re where people have gathered to protest injustice for centuries. That’s why Project for Public Spaces has advocated for the idea that streets are more than just a means of mobility. Streets themselves are critical public spaces that can lend richness to the social, civic, and economic fabric of our communities. Read more: Streets as Places - Project for Public Spaces
A recent UN-Habitat report shows how “those cities that have failed to integrate the multi-functionality of streets tend to have lesser infrastructure development, lower productivity and a poorer quality of life.” With these issues in mind, how do we ensure that streets in our communities are living up to their potential?

From CityLab — The Invention of Jaywalking The forgotten history of how the auto
industry won the right of way for cars.

Twenty years ago, an out-of-control driver plowed through New York’s Washington Square Park, killing 5 people and injuring 27 others. That horrific incident caused a public outcry and galvanized advocates in what has become known as the livable streets movement. But the driver, a 74-year-old woman, was not charged with any crime.
It wasn’t always like this. Browse through New York Times accounts of pedestrians dying after being struck by automobiles prior to 1930, and you’ll see that in nearly every case, the driver is charged with something like “technical manslaughter.” And it wasn’t just New York. Across the country, drivers were held criminally responsible when they killed or injured people with their vehicles. So what happened? And when? Read more: The Invention of Jaywalking - CityLab
The Invention of Jaywalking - CityLab

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

From Bicycle Diaries / David Byrne —
"Our cities are alive, just like us..."


Our cities are alive, just like us; they have both a deep intelligence that guides them and a physical presence....
Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Tuesday, October 20, 2015
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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Nov. 4th: #Victoria
Walk the Talk with @BrentToderian
@GVCC @VicPlacemaking

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Saturday, October 10, 2015

@APEGBC Victoria Branch Seminar —
"Waterfronts and Livable Cities"
with @BrentToderian

Friday, October 9, 2015

"...a textbook example of how to create a centre and sense of place, a task many Cdn towns, cities trying to confront"

ALEX BOZIKOVIC For decades, the main spot to find your neighbours in Newmarket was at the mall. This town of about 86,000, just 50 kilometres from Toronto, saw the same pattern of car-oriented growth that gutted many of Canada’s Victorian streetscapes. Upper Canada Mall, which opened in 1974, prospered; the dense, handsome Main Street, which dates back to the 1850s, was full of vacant stores. Now, the town’s leadership sees a need for change, trying to create public spaces where citizens – both millennial parents and youthful retired boomers – will want to hang out together. Read more: Urban park signals renewal in Newmarket
Ontario Association of Landscape Architects

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Pedestrian friendly street redesigns in Halifax


Thursday, October 1, 2015

From Waterfront Toronto — Plans for protecting and revitalizing the Port Lands


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Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Nanaimo needs a public market!


With two big cruise ships in port - so many visitors to the @sjcitymarket today from all over the world!
Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Wednesday, September 30, 2015
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Monday, September 28, 2015

From The Globe and Mail —
Rotterdam transformation
"a place of non-stop design and innovation"


Temples of gastronomy are not something you necessarily expect in Holland. In general, the country’s food rep leans to the stodgy and the tuberous. But the quirky idea of building a food market shaped like an inverted U that incorporates apartments in its arch – residents’ windows peeking out of a giant raspberry or avocado in the hallucinatory ceiling mural – is thoroughly Dutch, a typical mix of playfulness and practicality. Read more: Rotterdam: Holland's infamous port city may be the hippest place in the country - The Globe and Mail

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Union of BC Municipalities Convention
live tweets #UBCM

Friday, September 18, 2015

Pedestrian upgrades underway
in the Old City Quarter

Pedestrian upgrades in the Old City Quarter are scheduled to be constructed this Fall. Improvements include curb extensions at Fitzwilliam Street & Selby Street and Fitzwilliam Street & Wesley Street. The improvements are intended to create a safer environment for pedestrians by making them more visible to motorists when they are waiting to cross the street. The project also includes installing a rain garden at the southeast corner of the Fitzwilliam Street and Selby Street intersection. Rain gardens are an engineered landscape feature which is designed to absorb and filter rain water through soil layers and plantings, thereby increasing infiltration of rain water into the ground. More at City of Nanaimo: Pedestrian Upgrades underway in the Old City Quarter
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Thursday, September 10, 2015

From Winnipeg Free Press —
From parking lot to urban paradise


It is rare for a city to be given an opportunity to build a brand new neighbourhood in the heart of its downtown. When it happens, it is usually the result of an industry that was once the economic engine relocating out of the modern core.
In Toronto, the railway lands along Lake Ontario have seen a multibillion-dollar transformation into a forest of highrises, altering the city's postcard skyline image into something resembling lower Manhattan. False Creek was once the industrial heart of Vancouver, but today it is home to 60,000 people living in a signature West Coast condo tower neighbourhood.
When the rail yards at the intersection of the Red and Assiniboine rivers were closed 30 years ago, Winnipeg was given that same opportunity -- but went in a different direction... Read more: From parking lot to urban paradise - Winnipeg Free Press
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Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Speed Kills: Streets should provide access,
not move people thru quickly. @slowstreets

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Monday, September 7, 2015

“…the managing of traffic should never have been given to engineers. They aren’t trained to understand it, in part because they aren’t trained to understand people or cities.” @BrentToderian



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Wednesday, September 2, 2015

SFU Vancouver downtown campus —
"the intellectual heart of the city"

Saturday, August 29, 2015

From @PPS_Placemaking —
7 major mistakes cities make
when developing their waterfronts


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Saturday, August 22, 2015

Was it something I said?

Friday, August 21, 2015

From @100architects —
Urban intervention in Santiago

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Thursday, August 20, 2015

From @BrentToderian —
4 classic #roaddiets in one 2-minute video
via @JeffSpeckAICP

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From @JeffSpeckAICP — Street too wide?
what you need to know, in 30 seconds.

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Wednesday, August 19, 2015

From @andrewtrevjones — An idea for #Nanaimo vacant former hotel site

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Sunday, August 16, 2015

Saturday, August 15, 2015

From LandArchs.com —
Top 10 Seaside Regeneration Projects

From @YongeSt — Finalizing the redesign
of Riverdale Park East playground


Thursday, August 13, 2015

From Walkable Livable Communities—
Road Diets, a livability factsheet

Most drivers base their travel speed on what feels comfortable given the street design. The wider the road, the faster people tend to drive and, the faster the car, the more severe the injuries resulting from a crash.
Research suggests that injuries from vehicle crashes rise as the width of a road increases..
To protect both pedestrians and drivers, many communities are putting their roads on “diets“ by reducing street widths and vehicle lanes. The gained space is being reallocated toward other ways of getting around — such as walking, bicycling and public transit. Pdf here.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

From CityLab — Design traits that most encourage pedestrian activity in smaller cities

CityLab on Twitter: "What are the design traits that most encourage pedestrian activity in smaller cities? http://t.co/GPDQkjqXT0 http://t.co/HM2OP748lX"

Sunday, August 9, 2015

City Hall's definition of "density"
may differ from yours or mine

Friday, August 7, 2015

From National Main Street Centre —
Enhancing the Corridors to Your Downtown


Enhancing the Corridors to Your #Downtown @NatlMainStreet
Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Sunday, August 2, 2015
Enhancing the Corridors to Your Downtown... - National Main Street Center, Inc.



Thursday, August 6, 2015

From BCBusiness —
How Kelowna reinvented itself

Sure, it’s the heart of wine country and home to some of B.C.’s most spectacular natural wonders. And yes, retirees and tourists still come here in droves. But with a burgeoning tech sector, an acclaimed university and a boom in housing, the Okanagan’s biggest city is now taking on a decidedly younger flair. 
Read more: BCBusiness on Twitter: "Why everyone loves (the new) Kelowna: http://t.co/O5kO5BRhmN http://t.co/Hw3GfRpUiA
"

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

¡más calles así! Via @jen_keesmaat


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Tuesday, August 4, 2015

@jen_keesmaat —
complete street, Queens Quay, has taught us
a lot about redesigning streets for people


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Monday, August 3, 2015

From The Tyee —
In the scramble for residential land,
should industrial areas be sacrificed?

Like many Vancouver residents, Noah Choy was looking for a home for his family. Someplace with a sense of community. Spots for kids to play. A place he and his wife could call their own with more room for their one-year-old than their small condo in Kitsilano.
He found his answer in River District, a planned community just south of where Choy grew up in Champlain Heights. The 130-acre development is what's called a "brownfield" site -- former industrial land near Kerr and Marine Drive where, in the last century, sawmills received logs floated in along the Fraser River. Read more: In Vancouver's Port Land Makeover, Industry Takes a Blow | The Tyee

Friday, July 31, 2015

Time for fresh ideas Nanaimo —
South Downtown Waterfront needs
an open design competition

I have concerns in regard to the South Downtown Waterfront Lands process that began in 2013 under the leadership and guidance of VIU VP Dave Witty. The early months included a greater degree of civic inclusivity than Nanaimo had experienced before. The site opened up for boots on the ground information fair and shuttle bus tours of the site. A visioning process that included a well attended public presentation by former Vancouver Co-Director of Planning, Larry Beasley. A design charrette composed of many and disparate stakeholders. The formation of a City advisory committee, chaired by Dr Witty to "aspire to establish a set of Guiding Principles and a high level vision for the general area”. The committee’s report “Framing the Future” was presented to Council in early 2014. The committee last met on May 1 of this year and minutes of that meeting are not on the City’s website.
The report —
http://www.southdowntownwaterfront.ca/p/home.html
strongly urged Council to consider the establishment of a public development corporation governed by a detailed charter, to oversee development of the site which Larry Beasley described as having “transformative” potential for Namaimo and which former Councillor Fred Pattje called “Nanaimo’s last urban frontier.” From the report—
There is a long tradition in Canada and the United States of local governments creating special purpose public development corporations. These corporations are designed to implement longer term public policy objectives, particularly for special areas of a municipality that require extraordinary attention, and a unique combination of public and private sector participation. Clearly legislation in British Columbia provides for such entities, and there are many variations across the province.
On July 20, three months after the last committee meeting and five months after the last meeting minutes were posted, Staff presented the following Master Plan Terms of Reference report to Council—
http://nanaimocommons.blogspot.ca/2015/07/httpswwwnanaimocauploadedfilespathsites.html 
The recommended charter and development corporation are rejected by Staff. They make it clear they intend to control every aspect of the site working with Staff friendly consultants. From the report to Council—
The Planning and Design Section will be responsible for this project, with consultants engaged for key plan components including land economics, stakeholder engagement, land use and transportation planning. The necessary Request for Proposals will be prepared for issuance in July 2015.

Has the committee been disbanded? • Why were its key recommendations rejected by City Staff? •  The "potentially transformative" site needs not only to follow Dr Witty’s guidance, it requires an open design competition. 

Time for fresh ideas Nanaimo.

In these sleepy days of summer I have been unable to get clarification from any of the principles who were involved with the excellent work done Dr Witty’s committee but I will continue to try get feedback. Has the committee been disbanded? Why were its key recommendations rejected by City Staff?
The site needs not only to follow Dr Witty’s guidance the further development of the site requires an open design competition. Time for fresh ideas Nanaimo.

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