Vision, Mechanics and Public Involvement in Vancouver

Presented by Anne McAfee, Director of CityPlan, City of Vancouver

At DalTech Planning Module, March 11, 1999.

Greater Vancouver Region

Greater Vancouver is still made up of many municipalities. It receives 40,000 to 50,000 in-migrants a year. Development is moving uo the Fraser Valley into limited agricultural land. Thr result is commuting, pollution, and congestion. The region will not spend money on infrastructure to relieve this congestion. Rather, the emphasis is on land use-transportation integration.

The broad livability goals are hard to make concrete. The Liveable Region Strategic Plan was started 20 years ago, with the goals:

The region has tried to focus development to the east of the downtown area, but not to cross the rivers. Concept is:

Vancouver City and its Neighbourhoods

The regional population is 2 million, with 0.5 million in the City. Every day, 1 million use the City. The City has two general areas:

From the 1970's to the 1990's, the policy was to build new housing on old industrial land, near the downtown, in the form of high density apartment development. The developer has to put in all the services, nad include 20 percent low income housing.

The result of converting industrial areas to housing has been less job diversity, with services having to move to the suburbs and travel further to clients. In the SFD areas, residents have resisted densification.

In the 1990's, Council put the onus on the citizenry to develop a future vision. New directions resulted:

These were surprising outcomes. Only 15 to 20 percent opposed densification.

Public Involvement Process

The process was to generate and review ideas, then make choices. Small groups were set up, 300 in all. They were called "city circles" , and each had 10 to 15 people. Each received a toolkit of factual information.

Artists were used to illustrate each group’s key ideas. The artists’ displays were then grouped into themes at a conference/display attended by 10,000 people. The attendees chose the ideas to pursue.

Brochures were made from the people’s choices and their consequences. The city circles reviewed these, recommended choices, and CityPlan followed.

In all, 100,000 people participated in CityPlan.

Neighbourhood Plans

The key direction from the public involvement was for more hiking and walking on existing streets. Community, not centralized, policing was emphasized. The transportation plan involved where rapid transit should go.

This direction set the stage for neighbourhood plans. These were not worked on until CityPlan was completed. There were then community workshops to create a vision, then a survey to confirm it. A vision was drafted from the survey responses.

Again, the main outcome was a call for a greater variety of housing types in neighbourhoods.

The direction of the process overall was from the broad CityPlan to neighbourhood plans to rezoning criteria.

Lessons for Public Participation

1. Be up front on the roles of stakeholders, so that there are no unrealistic expectations. This contributes to better decisions.

2. Politicians should be up front and center, hearing people at all events.

3. Newspapers got engaged by the idea of people setting the direction.

4. There were no experts that were set on a podium to lecture to the public.

5. There were two types of city circles; made up of individuals and made up of community and other organized groups.

6. There was never a microphone in front of an audience.

7. There was equal access for all to information and resources .

8. People presented their own ideas; no one was allowed to claim to speak for others.

9. Projects were implemented early (e.g. greenways) and this encouraged more public participation.

10. The timing was to go ahead with public participation only when the politicians wanted action.

11. The issues being discussed were real choices that the circles had to make.

12. The politicians loved the sample surveys, as they could use in their own decision making.

13. The Internet was used to get out information.

14. Surveys went to every household.

15. Weekend displays brought out people, and they could talk to their politicians at them.

16. There were structured output summaries (large forms) for the end of the workshops, not just a report, and these were posted on walls.

17. Could project the housing demand from the forms, as they included housing desired now and in 10 years time.

18. A "City Hats" panel from one neighbourhood commented on plans in other neighbourhoods.

19. There were 150 city circles in high schools.

20. Children preparing displays brought out their parents.

21. They were not goal-setting exercises, but involved making tough choices.

22. There were real choices put forward, not straw men easily knocked down.

23. Staff provided information on the costs of actions.

24. Required a solution with any idea; i.e. how can we make this happen ?

25. Hired no consultants, but used an inter-departmental team which reported directly to Council, not through the City Manager.

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This document was last modified on April 15, 1999.