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“Co-sponsored by the Green Infrastructure Partnership and the Water Balance Partnership, the Forum was about moving beyond pilot projects to a watershed-based approach to achieving performance targets for rainwater management and green infrastructure,” explained John Sidnell, a member of the Green Infrastructure Partnership Steering Committee. “The Province’s Green Communities Initiative and Living Water Smart, BC’s Water Plan provided the backdrop for the Surrey Forum.”

“We envisioned that the Surrey Forum would be a transformational event and a catalyst for action. One of our goals is to implement an educational program in Metro Vancouver that would be modelled on the Vancouver Island Learning Lunch Series,” stated Raymond Fung.

“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, we achieved our stated objective of starting a dialogue between policy-makers and project implementers,” reports Kim Stephens.

“A key message in Living Water Smart is that green development makes sense. New thinking about development leads to new benefits. These include more green spaces, more water and fish in the streams, improved community vitality, reduced demand for water, and reduced expenditure on infrastructure,” stated Lynn Kriwoken.

“When we develop or redevelop land, our starting point should be: What do we want our neighbourhoods look like? The built-form determines what our options may be for capturing rain where it falls. So we need to look at ways to provide more green space that can serve more than one purpose,” states Jim Dumont.

“On the matter of implementing on-site rainfall capture, there is a fundamental difference between Surrey and other Metro Vancouver municipalities. Surrey has moved beyond pilot projects; we are moving to a broader watershed objectives approach to capturing rain where it falls to protect our streams,” stated Remi Dube.

“The Surrey Forum is an opportunity for Metro Vancouver participants to explore the responsibility theme. Each party in the process has a responsibility. So, we envision a discussion of the respective responsibilities involved in implementing a vision. In this way, we hope to learn what works well and what could work better,” states Susan Rutherford.

“The Forum will focus on the legal and policy tools and processes that have been both hindrances to green infrastructure implementation, and those that have assisted… or would assist… going forward,” states Ted van der Gulik.

“The Forum is designed to start a dialogue between policy-makers and project implementers. We will explore how policy and legal tools can help developers, regulators and designers collaborate to ensure responsible outcomes,” states Vincent Lalonde.