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.

1 comment:

  1. Bill McCreeryAugust 1, 2015 at 11:52 AM

    TEAM did precisely that in 1973, twice. We held a 2 stage design competition for both the City owned False Creek South lands as well as for Jericho Park lands. The City's planning department at the time had similar limits to its capabilities. The 1st stage was a review of the design teams qualifications, experience and conceptual approach. We narrowed the field to 3, who were paid a nominal fee to present final concept plans. Both exercises were very successful. This kind of process brings in fresh ideas and approaches.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)