Who's not in the room?

The transportation consultant Jarett Walker reminds himself to start every meeting with “Who’s not in the room?”

There was someone not in the room where this downtown mobility project was in development. This person also was not in the rooms when the Terminal-Nicol project or the Transportation Master Plan or the Downtown Waterfront Lands master plan work was done.

This person, a professional with associated credentials and experience, self-identifies and is identified by others based on her work as an urbanist. The urbanist, as with the other disciplines around the table, notably the traffic engineers, adds to the outcome of the project not just with technical skill but also with a unique sensibility.

In other cities it’s evident that the urban planning department is staffed by urbanists and that they are able to hold their own against the dominant silos who as Brent Toderian says, tend to think they have a veto over other departments. There's no evidence that even if an urbanist is confidently represented in our planning department that she is able to bake urbanism into this project. Nanaimo should be directing resources to its urbanization big time. It’s urgent.

Better City-Making Means Breaking Down Silos—Here's How

Without an urbanist influence from early in process, the urbanist perspective and critique that I bring is unwelcome. It’s too late and it’s just the opinion of one citizen. I get that. But in the absence of that urbanist influence it becomes all the more important to seek the perspective and critique of the professional who is an urbanist.

Consider: two plans of the highest quality over the last 10 or so years were lead by former VIU VP Dave Witty, the Downtown Waterfront Lands, and Victoria architect Franc D’Ambrosio, Downtown Urban Plan and Guidelines. Peer review doesn’t come with much higher praise than the D’Ambrosio-lead Downtown Urban Plan and Guidelines which won a Royal Architectural Institute of Canada National Urban Design Award in 2014.

There isn’t as far as I can see a self-corrective mechanism within our City Hall to test plans to ensure they achieve the highest possible level of excellence.

Plans have to be vetted by people like Franc D’Ambrosio, Brent Toderian, Jeff Speck (he’s in Vancouver over the next few days as you may know), the Jan Gehl organization Cities for People, Gil Penalosa’s 8 800 Cities… Franc D'Ambrosio continues to take an interest in and is protective of our wonderful downtown. We need to bring him back to help us.

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