Challenging the Settlement Challenge on Vancouver Island
Note to Reader:
In an October 2009 post, Hans Peter Meyer comments on a research presentation by Tim Pringle on the topic of “What drives settlement in the mid-Island region?”
Tim Pringle looks at the context for development differently
“Tim Pringle is one of my quiet heros. For lots of reasons. Probably the biggest is that he’s been changing how we think about land use, community, governance, etc for 20+ years here in BC, but in a way that is imperceptible, except to those of us who’ve been watching him at work,” writes Hans Peter Meyer on his blog about Development Issues – Land, Community Sustainability.
“Tim was in my town a few weeks ago as part of a Convening for Action Vancouver Island (CAVI) series of workshops. I first met Tim in ’94 when he was Executive Director of one of the most innovative ‘land use’ related foundations in North America. He stepped down and sideways in ’08, and is now Director of Special Programs with the Real Estate Foundation of BC.”
“His talk in Courtenay was typical Tim Pringle: an understated presentation of some facts about what he calls ‘settlement change’, and a similarly understated challenge: that we rethink assumptions about the ‘business as usual’ approaches that have been guiding how our communities and landscapes are developed and conserved.”
To read the entire article by Hans Peter Meyer, click on Challenging the Settlement Challenge on East Coast Vancouver Island. To download a PDF copy, click here.
Understanding Settlement Change
In the mid-Island region, there are some 40 major development projects (mostly proposed) with significant residential allocation. There are a similar number of industrial, commercial and institutional projects proposed or under way. As defined by Stats BC, a ‘major project’ has a capital cost value greater than $15 million.
At the first seminar in the 2009 Comox Valley Learning Lunch Seminar Series hosted by the Comox Valley Regional District, Tim Pringle explained what drives settlement on the mid-Island region of Vancouver Island. His research into large-scale real estate development has led him to three conclusions:
- There is one marketfor large-scale real estate development projects in the mid-Island region, from Cobble Hill to Campbell River.
- Communities have choices when considering development proposals – they need only accept ones that are aligned with community values, that is: the right development in the right place.
- A matrix-type Development Evaluation Tool has been developed to enable apples-with-apples comparisons of development proposals, and assess whether they provide Green Value.
“In presenting our research findings regarding large-scale real estate development in the mid-Island region, we are commenting on the context for development and how to look at it differently. The value we provide is in bringing forward viewpoints that otherwise would not come up,” states Tim Pringle.
“The synthesis of our conversations, interviews and statistical research has yielded a fuller and strategic understanding of the current, persistent context of settlement change.”
For the complete story of the seminar, click on Call to Courage: Demonstrating the Regional Team Approach in the Comox Valley.
To watch two YouTube video clips of Tim Pringle when he presented his findings, first click on Context for the Research and then Conclusions from the Research.
To read an earlier Waterbucket article that previewed the research approach and context, click on What Drives Settlement on the East Coast of Vancouver Island.
Posted October 2009