Getting Green Infrastructure Built Right: City of Surrey hosted the 2009 Metro Vancouver Water Balance Model Forum
Moving Beyond Pilot Projects
Hosted by the City of Surrey, the program for the Metro Vancouver Water Balance Model Forum was built around the HOW question as it pertains to green infrastructure:
- HOW will the City of Surrey get it built right;
- HOW will a consistent regional approach be achieved in Metro Vancouver?
Held in March 2009, the Forum was co-sponsored by the Water Balance Model Inter-Governmental Partnership and the Green Infrastructure Partnership, with a goal of moving beyond pilot projects to a watershed-based approach to achieving performance targets for rainwater management and green infrastructure.
The Forum Audience
“The audience comprised a mix of Surrey staff from different departments, developers and designers who do work in Surrey, representatives from a large number of Metro Vancouver municipalities, and provincial regulators. At the end of the day, this learning event had achieved our stated objective of starting a dialogue between policy-makers and project implementers,” reports Kim Stephens, Forum team leader and Program Coordinator for the Water Sustainability Action Plan for British Columbia, “
The Forum was a Success
“The Forum was a success,” adds Remi Dubé, Drainage Planning Manager with the City of Surrey, and the individual responsible for developing the morning program. “We have been getting some pretty good feedback from many of the people who attended the workshop (specifically developers and consultants). It’s leading into more direct communication with certain developers who are looking at different approaches … they seemed encouraged with the dialogue that the forum appeared to promote.”
To Learn More:
Leading up to the Forum, a series of preview stories were published on Water Bucket. They progressively described the elements of the Forum program in order to establish participant expectations. Briefly:
- On February 2nd, Story #1 titled Living Water Smart and Making Green Choices to Create Liveable Communities and Protect Stream Healthintroduced what would be covered in the morning and afternoon sessions.
- On February 11th, Story #2 titled Making Green Choices: Opportunities for Law and Policy to Effect Change on the Groundintroduced the shared responsibility theme, and provided the bridge from the morning to the afternoon.
- On February 18th, Story #3 titled Green Infrastructure in the City of Surrey: “Getting it built right”elaborated on the learning outcomes for the Forum morning session.
- On February 25th, Story #4 titled Making Green Choices: Use the Water Balance Model to Inform Land Development Strategies foreshadowed how regulators and designers can apply the Water Balance Model to facilitate implementation of green infrastructure solutions.
- On March 4th, Story #5 titled Provincial Context: Today’s Expectations are Tomorrow’s Standards for Green Infrastructure elaborated on the provincial and regional context that will inform local actions.
- Story #6 titled Moving Beyond Pilot Projects – Metro Vancouver Water Balance Model Forum Advances a Regional Team Approach to Green Infrastructure provided a record of how the day unfolded on March 12, 2009.
To download a consolidated copy of the entire set of six documents in the series, click on The Story of the 2009 Water Balance Model Forum (Hosted by the City of Surrey)
Posted December 2010