Victoria Real Estate Board Embraces ‘Green Value’ Vision
The Creating Our Future Workshop, held on June 3rd as a shoulder event to the Gaining Ground Summit Conference in Victoria, was high energy from start to finish and achieved its objective of celebrating Vancouver Island success stories. This sets the stage for building on success to move Green Value from concept to practice.
Hosted by the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia under the umbrella of Convening for Action on Vancouver Island (CAVI) partnership, the workshop was by invitation. Attendance was capped at 50.
Held on a Sunday, this alone demonstrated the interest and commitment of those who attended. The event attracted elected officials and senior managers from 19 local governments; and a balanced mix of representatives from provincial ministries, First Nations, the private sector, the real estate industry, and academia.
For an overview of the workshop program and to access the set of workshop presentations, as well as to access links to other stories about Creating Our Future, please click here.
According to Tim Pringle, Executive Director of the Real Estate Foundation, “We use the term Green Value as a generic reference to use and conservation of land and real estate that achieves social and economic goals while minimizing harmful effects on ecological assets.”
“In layman terms, Green Value means thinking about and realizing land use strategies that accommodate settlement needs in practical ways while protecting the ecological resources upon which our communities depend. Understanding green value approaches means having positive options for managing growth, the design of communities, buildings and sustaining the ecology”, explained Tim Pringle.
In reflecting on the workshop outcome, Jim Bennett, Government Relations Coordinator for the Victoria Real Estate Board provided this illustration of how 
awareness leads to action: “The Victoria Real Estate Board is likely to have a minimum of two initiatives this Fall as a followup. We know that one event will be for our REALTOR® members of our board, and we expect the second event will be for a broader public in late October/early November that would include our member's developer clients.”
“We were delighted to be invited to participate in the Creating Our Future Workshop by our friends at the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia and we congratulate them for their continued foresight on this file”, added Jim Bennett.
Sitting with Jim Bennett (second from left), and the Chair and Executive Director of the Real Estate Foundation of BC, is Jane Logan, VREB Director and Chair of their Community Relations Committee
CAVI Partnership
The CAVI Partnership includes the British Columbia Water & Waste Association, the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia, the provincial Ministries of Environment and Community Services, and the Green Infrastructure Partnership.
According to CAVI Chair John Finnie, “If we are to control our destiny and create our future, then we need to challenge our fellow Vancouver Islanders to visualize what they want Vancouver Island to look like in 50 years. We have identified two desired outcomes in Convening for Action. First, we wish to influence Vancouver Island local governments to adopt Design with Nature as the preferred process of approving land development applications. Secondly, we intend to facilitate the move from awareness to action in changing the way that land is developed and water is used on Vancouver Island.”
Posted June 2007