Wednesday, December 13, 2017

South Downtown Waterfront Lands
draft master plan

The South Downtown Waterfront Lands draft master plan is on Monday’s Council agenda. PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GlCFRwLXhHT_EPUT36IxZ0s81e9EPUWa/view

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Nanaimo City Hall —
from a parking lot to an urban square

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Democratic Values in Planning —
Urban Design for the Public Good:
Assignment 7, Structure Transformed

5. Uses This was a massing and mixed-uses study for a portion of a City-owned south downtown property. A mostly single-use City-owned multiplex hockey arena was proposed and defeated in a referendum. Objective here was to imagine a productive mix of mid-denstiy low-rise residential with commercial and institutional components.


4. Buildings The short-block street grid illustrated here allows for a dynamic range of land ownership possibilities including the long-term leasing of some sub-divided parcels by the City on which it could partner with non-profit organizations to build non-market housing, social, co-op, assisted, etc. Some properties would be divested to the marketplace bringing a range of uses and new capital for development. An institutional presence, Vancouver Island University, the Snuneymuxw First Nations, Federal and Provincial governments should be encouraged.



3. Public Space The precinct is anchored in the adjoining acreage between here the harbour, the Strait of Georgia (the Salish Sea). This area in its entirity should be maintained in the public domain in perpetuity and should become a brilliant new urban plaza on the waterfront. The 4 and 5 storey office and  institutional buildings in the southwest corner of the site have generous setbacks from the street allowing for green space and public use.



2. Urban Plan A visioning and guiding principles process was completed in 2013 and its reports presented to Council. The guiding principles establish the importance of connectivity, the working harbour and “bold, resilient and visionary” land use. There are rail rights-of-way on the site but it is not presently used for rail freight.

1. Terrain The site is relatively flat and has been used for industrial purposes of many years. Some remediation work has been done and it has been cleared for development with some restrictions. Its elevation is just above sea level, restricting some below grade possibilities. 
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Thursday, August 3, 2017

Democratic Values in Planning —
Urban Design for the Public Good: Assignment 6, Modelling in Urban Planning

1. Shadow analysis in SketchUp showing shadow impacts of a 10 storey building at Fitzwilliam and Selby Streets. June 1, 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM



2. The ideal map. As 2D mapping transitions to 3D, enabling more and more layered information, the new Google Earth is currently, arguably, the best mapping format available. These are examples of the kinds of data (more is being added every day) available with this kind of mapping technologies —
  • Distance measures by car, bike, walk.
  • Ruler tool for detailed measurements.
  • Info cards link to points of interest details.
  • Layers for user inputs.
  • 3D building models.
  • Street view.
  • Photo galleries.

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Wednesday, August 2, 2017

From Streetsblog San Francisco —
Cities and Autonomous Vehicles

Hundreds of people from the automobile and technology industries gathered at the Automated Vehicles Symposium in San Francisco this week to exchange notes and speculate about the ways autonomous vehicles might change our lives. If this year’s symposium is like others, few of the attendees will be from city agencies like transportation and planning departments.
That’s a shame....

Read more:
Cities and the Autonomous Vehicle Revolution – Streetsblog San Francisco 
From City of Guelph: What is Transportation Demand Management (TDM)?

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Democratic Values in Planning —
Urban Design for the Public Good: Assignment 5, The Fair City

Assignment
Choose an uninviting public place in your neighbourhood whose layout and structure make you feel uncomfortable or unwel­come. This may be for any reason and must not be restricted to traffic. There may be social issues, or safety issues such as criminality. Maybe a space has been taken over by tourism, by taxis or maybe there are just too many claims so people start encroaching on each other. Many of these issues, planners or designers can do nothing about, but as far as the spatial di­mension is concerned, we can use our skills to propose solutions.
There have been several private sector projects in downtown Nanaimo that have made considerable contributions to its urbanization. City Hall transportation and urban design policies — especially in the areas of walkable neighbourhoods and neighbourhood public places — have not kept pace. In Assignment 5 in the Technical University of Delft on-line course, Urban Design for the Public Good: Dutch Urbanism, I have proposed a solution to a public space on our City Hall's formal grounds that is presently used only to park a few cars and extends to and eliminated what was once the adjoining sidewalk. I have proposed the creation of a new public square on the site. This square would take advantage of the view from here across downtown to the harbour and be a very welcome addition to the steadily densifying Old City neighbourhood.

Before

Proposed
Top view
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Thursday, July 20, 2017

On-line course —
Democratic Values in Planning
Urban Design for the Public Good:
Assignment 4, Urban Metabolism

CLICK TO ENLARGE
Looking spatially at Nanaimo's mobility and transportation systems with inputs and outputs, storage and using a "circular urban metabolism" approach and the principles "reduce, reuse and recycle."
ASSIGNMENT
See your city or town as an ecosystem with inputs and outputs. Choose one flow with a particular relevance for this ecosystem. The assignment is to analyze this flow. Not in a quantitative way, but in a spatial way. What are the inputs and outputs? Where do they enter, stay and leave your ecosystem? Where do spatial problems arise? Try to visualize them in the way shown in the Definition part of this tutorial. Draw a miniature or simplified version of “your town” in the diagram below.
 
You can use the subsoil, the surface or the sky above to represent your flow. Try to think of spatial solutions or improvements using the circular urban metabolism approach in which you try to “reduce, re-use and recycle” your flow. Please note: this is an explorative exercise. It is about generating spatial ideas. Your contribution may be speculative!





Pinterest Assignment 4: Urban Metabolism
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Sunday, July 16, 2017

The difference between equality and equity. Via International Federation of Pedestrians @IFPedestrians


Thursday, July 13, 2017

Co-opting “Complete Streets” @StrongTowns

Monday, July 3, 2017

Are $15M intersections sound investments
in the greater public good?

A lot of people self-identify as “fiscal conservatives.” These folks are often enthusiastic supporters of $10 - 15M spent on a single intersection. This surprises me as in my view these spends are the most wasteful of all our allocations of public funds. Our public investments in mobility infrastructure have a responsibility, as do all public investments, to return a clear benefit to the greater public good. 
It’s said that “a well-defined problem is already half solved.” The problems being addressed when intersections are given a make-over are usually little more than a few fender-benders and seconds and minutes lost in our rush to get from here to there. Northfield Road is the latest example with construction at the Parkway and imminent for the Boxwood, Bowen Road and Island Highway intersections.
Cost of these projects totals $10s of millions and won’t solve the problem. That’s because the problem properly identified is two-fold: The BC inter-city Provincial Highway system lands here in a residential neighbourhood via BC Ferries at Departure Bay. This traffic has to flow through Nanaimo neighbourhood streets to reconnect with the highway system. The other part of the problem is one of urban design and transportation planning — Nanaimo has  not designed and built alternative mobility modes. No credible effort has been made by the City to reduce the number of trips which require the use of a private automobile, to reduce the number of cars on city streets..
So take a fresh look at the problems we face as drivers. Here’s 2 suggestions. 1. Take a bus, walk around, ride a bike. The view looks very different than the one through the windshield of our cars. You’ll no doubt find these inefficient even unsafe. Consider that investment in these modes and better land use planning might return far greater benefit to the public good. And 2. Familiarize yourself with the concept of “induced demand.”

Induced demand is "the great intellectual black hole in city planning, the one professional certainty that everyone thoughtful seems to acknowledge, yet almost no one is willing to act upon.” — City Planner Jeff Speck

Saturday, June 24, 2017

To create density do we need to build towers?

I live in the Old City which is as close as Nanaimo has to a medium density urban village. All the benefits of compact city centre living are here. Within an easy walk: transit, shops, pubs and restaurants. I’ll stop now before this turns into an ad.
But here’s the thing: density’s driven by both good public land use policies at City Hall and market demand. Towers may be the right choice based on those things. So 2 things to consider —
The City of Nanaimo’s Downtown Waterfront Lands Initiative established that heights restricted to between 4 and 6 storeys would easily accommodate the number of residents over the near and long term.
 And the City’s projection included in last week’s open house is for population growth of about 1,000 a year. So back of the envelope if they’re all newcomers (as opposed to birth rate exceeding the rate us old farts are kicking off, but let’s say all newcomers) and family size averages let’s say 3 we need 333 homes a year. Let’s say half of those families want to live downtown (it tends to be a smaller ratio) so for all of the downtown area we would need 165 new homes per year. Let’s say half of those want to live on these waterfront lands and you get 4 storey buildings built over time as demand dictates. (And it's clear the market has not built anywhere near this supply over the last number of years.)
So anyway, that’s why I say yes to density. Yes to better land use policies (let’s re-instate the Urban Containment Boundary across the southern greenlands that was eliminated about 10 years ago) and yes stop sprawling into forested lands..
But there’s no need for towers on the waterfront. Or any developer driven residential projects on the portion of the site closest to the waterfront as has been recommended by City of Nanaimo Staff.
These waterfront lands (the portion on the map identified as residential east of Front St) should be public space protected from development forever.

Take a look at the visionary work being done by cities like Hamilton ON to redevelop old economy waterfront lands.

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Friday, June 23, 2017

Demand an open design competition
before we loose this city-building
chance-in-a-century opportunity

@CBCUnreserved tweeting all 94 #TRC recommendations: 1 ea day Here's 1 - 10

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Thursday, June 22, 2017

Sneak peek at the South Downtown Waterfront master plan. How do you like 11 storey towers on the publicly owned waterfront?


Thursday, June 15, 2017

On "fiscal responsibility"

The federal Minster of Defence a few years ago held a press conference surrounded by bigwigs from the Departments of Defence and Finance. They were there to announce the decision to not proceed with a large expenditure for new equipment and personnel. Canadian Armed Forces had been lobbying hard to get budget approval for this huge initiative. A quote from the Minister has stayed with me since: “Sometimes, you have to tell the Generals, ‘No!’”

The public demands it and every candidate running for office claims confidently to be "fiscally responsible." The City of Nanaimo chart, above, shows the allocations of a typical household's property tax and user fee payments to the City treasury. It illustrates that 53% of the revenues collected are applied to only 3 areas of City activities: Police, Fire and Engineering / Public Works.
Question then to candidates running in the July 8 by-election: In you view, are these proportions about right, or are they out of whack? And supplementary, if you feel they are disproportionate how would you adjust them? And regardless of your first answer, if you were elected to Council and the time came to be the steward of public funds and review expenditure appeals from City Departments, and oversee ongoing negotiations with the unions involved would you be prepared to "tell the Generals, ‘No!’?”

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

On-line course —
Democratic Values in Planning
Urban Design for the Public Good:
Dutch Urbanism. Week 3.

Reading the Landscape, a method of “reading” the landscape as input for designers. Illustrating two basic principles in Dutch Urbanism: its contextual approach and the connection of regional and local scale. A landscape can be dissected into three layers: a natural layer, a cultural layer and an urban layer. Analysing a landscape in this way can help to find or pinpoint the spatial identity of a given place. Planners and designers can incorporate this information in new designs. Using the “identity” of a place in design is important in a fast urbanising world where local identities may be at stake.
The 3 maps that follow illustrate each: 1. The natural layer, showing Nanaimo's siting on the Strait of Georgia, the Millstream River, right in the picture. 2. The cultural layer. This map is from the 2008 Downtown Urban Design Plan and Guidelines showing the nature of each precinct in the city. 3. For The Urban Layer I've chosen, perhaps ironically, an 1891 map showing the distinctive street grid pattern that fans out from the central waterfront.



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Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Let's do the new building at Franklyn
and Wallace a favour...

More people living more compactly downtown has many benefits, from a lower carbon footprint per capita to a lower per capita cost to deliver City services.  For our increasingly medium-density downtown to succeed to everyone's benefit, we need to devote more resources to the public realm.
Here's a couple of suggestions that could be immediately prioritized by the City of Nanaimo to improve the public realm around the new building at Franklyn and Wallace Streets, which will bring 46 new multi-family housing units to the Old City neighbourhood. The redesign of both Franklyn and Wallace Streets and the creation of a new urban square at the City Hall grounds across the street.
Here's Streetmix sketches of Franklyn and Wallace. Specs from the 2008 Downtown Urban Design Plan and Guidelines. I've moved the bike lanes away from the vehicle realm and placed them snug to the sidewalk. This has proven to be a safer alignment, avoiding cyclist injuries caused by "dooring." These safer, more inclusive street design specs have been in place now for almost 10 years but none have been enacted. Nanaimo needs downtown demonstration projects to show how a "complete street" benefits all users.



Next time you get a chance and are near City Hall on Wallace, walk to the edge of what is now a small parking lot on the City Hall grounds, facing the grounds' carefully maintained landscaping and gardens. You'll see a dramatic panoramic view of downtown across to the harbour. It's past time to eliminate this parking, and restore the Dunsmuir St. sidewalk it claimed, and create here a new public square. An important neighbourhood enhancement and a more appropriate use of our City Hall grounds than the parking of a few cars.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Assignment, Week 2: Identify a public good in your neighbourhood

Assignment: Identify a public good in your home environment. Describe the physical appearance of that good in public space in no more than 50 words and one illustration. If it is a good place, show how in no more than 50 words and one illustration. Use the four criteria of “Placemaking” in your assessment. If it is not a good place, propose an improvement in no more than 50 words and one illustration.
  • accessibility and connectivity
  • image and comfort
  • use and activity
  • sociability
My example of a public good in my city is a public washroom. A loo. A “Portland Loo.” It goes about its business at the Diana Krall Plaza in the heart of downtown Nanaimo (this is the famous singer and musician's hometown).

 It has a high tech look, resembles a bus stop kiosk. Clean lines, round in design, stainless steel with a powder grey finish. Modernist in appearance, it complements surrounding building styles and adds needed utility to a less than successful public square.


Madden Fabrication - Portland Loo - Video V6 (2) from Greg Madden on Vimeo.
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Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Monday, June 5, 2017

On-line course —
Democratic Values in Planning
Urban Design for the Public Good:
Dutch Urbanism. Week 2.


Democratic Values in Planning from Roberto Rocco

 

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Thursday, June 1, 2017

On-line course —
Democratic Values in Planning
Urban Design for the Public Good:
Dutch Urbanism. Week 1.



Assignment: Draw your own domestic environment in a map. Include a legend explaining the meaning of the line types or colours, try to establish an approximate scale, don’t forget to give your drawing a name: the name of your village, town or city.


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Hamilton's downtown waterfront redevelopment approach — an open design competition. Six firms shortlisted


From City of Hamilton: West Harbour Key Project - Pier 8 Promenade Park

Tuesday, May 30, 2017


Sunday, May 28, 2017

Friday, May 19, 2017

Proposed redevelopment of the City Hall Annex at Franklyn and Wallace

A new building and its new neighbourhood have an important relationship, equally important one to the other.
A new building is proposed in my Nanaimo Old City neighbourhood. It's to be dedicated market rental. It's a redevelopment of what was the City Hall Annex building, found to be below acceptable earthquake soundness.
The Franklyn Street Apartments site is in my neighbourhood and the project could be a very welcome addition to it. In the photo above it's the blue trimmed corner building lower right. Its current neighbours are the law and accounting firm MNP (one of Nanaimo's most impressive buildings), a Keg restaurant, the 1950's Nanaimo City Hall, the new annex directly behind City Hall (one of Nanaimo's ugliest and most insensitively sited buildings), well maintained and updated heritage houses (now offices) and surface parking, lots and lots of surface parking.
Nearby, but not quite in interconnected proximity, a pocket of a good mix of medium density residential, specialty shops and offices. The neighbourhood has become a fledgling "foodie" destination. I live in this pocket and it suits the missus and me just fine.

Here's two City of Nanaimo initiatives that will benefit both the neighbourhood and this project. 1. A Wallace Street redesign to become Nanaimo's first truly "complete" street; 2. the creation of a new urban square on our City Hall grounds (currently a parking lot which eliminated a sidewalk for its creation (!).  Illustrations from the Downtown Urban Plan document.
 
As can be seen in the aerial photo the original building extends to the outer edge of the property line and the redeveloped building appears to maintain this footprint. This is a corner building which will set the build-to line, the "street wall" for the further development of Franklyn and Wallace Streets. The 2008 Nanaimo Downtown Urban Design Plan and Guidelines calls for a further setback of 3 meters. More on this in another post. I'll try to find out why the new building doesn't comply with the design guidelines. (Clik image to enlarge.) Next post will look at the redesign of Wallace Street as Nanaimo's first complete street.

Update: The staff report (link below) clarifies the building set back: I was concerned about the building's set back from the property line to anchor an alignment for future buildings along both Franklyn and Wallace. The drawings appeared to show the same footprint as the original building which is not set back from the property line. Howver, the staff report makes clear that the old building will be demolished and the new one will conform to the set backs. Happy to see this, it will make a wider more comfortable pedestrian realm and will be especially important in the future.


Wednesday, May 17, 2017

The proposed Island Roots
Co-op Market at Beban Park



A public market might be the single best investment the City of Nanaimo could make right now. Public markets are key pieces of the community-building puzzle. Take a random group of people and compile a list of their favourite travel and vacation highlights. The list will include public markets and span the world: Mexico, France, Spain, San Francisco, Canadian markets like St. John New Brunswick's City Market and everybody's favourite: Vancouver's Granville Island Market.
There is currently a proposal in front of Council for a public market: the Island Roots Market Co-op. The co-op currently operates weekly farmers' markets and have done a great deal of work developing their plan. Few (too few) public markets are built today and it's essential for Nanaimo that this project succeeds. Nanaimo can't afford another failed market. Locals will recall the long, painful death of the one on Newcastle Channel near the Departure Bay ferry terminal.
Like any introductory plan, Island Roots' stresses the positive and the aspirational; the best case scenarios. Questions arise from its costs and revenues estimates (the to-be-secured mortgage and a very ambitious fund raising goal, for instance) but those aren't my concern here. My concern is the proposed location.
Markets need as many people as possible within a walkable catchment area and need to be interconnected to as many other uses as possible to mutual benefit. A market (especially a public market) needs to be accessible to as many, and as diverse, citizen groups as possible.

The proposed location is in a large park that also houses an ice rink, swimming pool, the summer Vancouver Island Exhibition and other recreational uses. As is evident in the illustration the area is bounded on 3 sides by busy 4-lane arterials, the Island Highway, the Northfield connector and Bowen Road. The neighbourhood is primarily car dealerships, light industrial, self-storage sheds etc. What residential there is, is very low density. An imperfect measure, the Walk Score gives the area a 60, almost all tasks require a car. The neighbourhood, unfortunately, can expect to be even less walkable as visitors to the market arriving, by necessity, by private car, will add to the traffic volumes. There is virtually no transit connectivity here. The RDN Transit's Trip Planner shows that it could take someone from the south end who can't get to the market by car an hour to get even within a 20 minute walk. A public market shouldn't further disadvantage low-income folks.
The markets I mentioned in my first paragraph all share critically important connectivity and interconnectedness for mutual benefit. They are neighbourhood gathering places and benefit from the foot traffic generated by nearby shops and offices and in turn benefit those enterprises with the foot traffic the market generates. There are no adjoining shops or offices at this site. It's a serious drawback that, along with the poor access and low population catchment area, diminishes the chances of this market succeeding.
If my concerns are as valid as I think they are, they'll surface again when lease agreements are negotiated with the anchor commercial vendors. Enterprises like the butcher, specialty cheese shop, fish store know how important the immediate catchment area is and how important the clustering with other businesses for mutual benefit. If they share these concerns, they won't see viable business opportunity here. Their involvement is central and key to the success of the market.
In my view this is another expression of the 1970's shopping mall development model that Nanaimo still clings to.  The only area of Nanaimo that has both the necessary compact, diverse commercial and residential pockets and is accessible to everyone is downtown.
The Island Roots proposal scores well on many of the Project for Public Spaces' Ten Qualities of Successful Public Markets but poorly on location and connections. Nanaimo needs this project to succeed. If it struggles due to the concerns I've expressed, or any other reason which could be addressed now, it could be a very long time before we get another chance to establish a public market.
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Tuesday, May 9, 2017

From Parksify – Waterfronts Are for People

Cities should improve access to waterfronts and design them to be more engaging.  In her 1958 article Downtown is for People, Jane Jacobs wrote that “Waterfronts are a great asset, but few cities are doing anything with them.” Nearly six decades later, little has changed in the way cities implement waterfronts into the design of their public spaces. 

 Read more: Waterfronts Are for People – Parksify
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Monday, May 8, 2017

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Here’s the proposed residential rental building at 290 Franklyn St
—(the old City Hall Annex building)

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

3rd of 3 questions for candidates running in #Nanaimo ridings — If your party forms government how will you help Nanaimo with these challenges?

2nd of 3 questions for candidates running in #Nanaimo ridings — If your party forms government how will you help Nanaimo with these challenges?

1st of 3 questions for candidates running in #Nanaimo ridings — If your party forms government how will it help Nanaimo with these challenges?

Sunday, April 30, 2017

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Friday, April 14, 2017

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Streetscapes




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Site plan elevations

Site plan
Looking south
Looking west
Looking east

Looking north
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Further thoughts on the
South Downtown Nanaimo Waterfront


In 1961, Jane Jacobs in her famously influential book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, observed that for a neighbourhood to be successful economically and socially it needs four essential elements. All four must be present. She called them the generators of diversity. They are:
  1. Primary mixed uses. At least two primary functions that bring people at different times of the day to and through the neighbourhood.
  2. A short block street grid creating walkability, social and commercial exchanges.
  3. A range of new and old buildings. Old ideas are fine in new buildings but “new ideas need old buildings.”
  4. Density.
The South Downtown Waterfront Lands (the portion of the City owned site where the proposed multiplex arena was to be located) potentially scores highly on 3 of the 4.
Three essential questions occur. The answers to these questions, particularly number 1 will determine whether there's any point in going further.
  1. Is what I'm proposing of any interest to the Snuneymuxw First Nation? (Do they see economic opportunity here that recognizes their Treaty rights and might there be grounds for settlement of outstanding land claims?)
  2. Is what I'm proposing of any interest to the marketplace? Investment by the private sector (and the public sector, investment by the senior levels of government.)
  3. Does what I'm proposing meet the principles established by the South Downtown Waterfront Committee?
Primary mixed uses. At least two primary functions that bring people at different times of the day to and through the neighbourhood.
The realization of the potential of the site depends to a great extent on the activities in the areas surrounding it. It's essential that the City of Nanaimo revisit its plan to site the foot passenger ferry at the terminal location originally proposed here. The western section of the site should be held undeveloped until all hope is lost of bringing commuter and tourist rail into the site. The site itself lends itself to a range of residential uses (including live/work studios for designers, artisans, architects etc) and I'm suggesting direct involvement by the Snuneymuxw First Nations and senior levels of government, investing in research and educational and training facilities , innovation incubator campus. I want to know more about a proposed Ocean Discovery Centre. It may be well-sited east of Front St. anchoring a brilliant new waterfront plaza.

Short block street grid creating walkability, social and commercial exchanges. 
An unappreciated contributor to a neighbourhood's social, civic, and commercial vitality. I've imagined 6 blocks of interconnected value-creating walkability approximately where a single use City-owned multiplex arena was proposed.

Range of new and old buildings.
Revitalized urban railyards seldom have old economy bones that invite repurposing. The question arises: Is there sufficient older building stock in the immediate area to supply this low cost element for fledgling enterprises?

Density.
Compact urbanism is proving itself again and again to be the key to a city's future success. Nanaimo has famously low-population density and keeps sprawling with a near exclusive commitment to the private automobile. Retrofitting density has proven difficult but we have made progress downtown. The compact clustering of interconnected uses I'm proposing here is unmatched anywhere in the city (with the possisible exception of the Fitzwilliam / Wesley Old City Quarter.)

I've imagined the site developed for different models of urban residences and institutional / educational facilities — • 12 live / work studios • 3 x 3 storey rental + market apts • mix of non-market, social housing • 8 Up-market 3 storey town houses • Innovation centre campus • 5 storey office / educational / training / research.

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