OVERCOMING FEAR AND DOUBT TO BUILD A COMMUNITY ATOP BURNABY MOUNTAIN: “UniverCity proved to be a rare opportunity to demonstrate how a new, sustainable community can truly integrate stormwater management into urban design, starting where the rainfall lands,” stated Michael Geller, founding president and CEO of the SFU Community Trust
Note to Reader:
Published by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia, Waterbucket eNews celebrates the leadership of individuals and organizations who are guided by the Living Water Smart vision. The edition published on March 4, 2025 featured Michael Geller,
Through sheer force of personality, he took the vision for a sustainable community atop Burnaby Mountain and created UniverCity. Michael Geller is driven by a CAN DO ATTITUDE. “One of the real advantages we had at UniverCity is that I was able to try out new ideas,” says Michael Geller.
Overcoming fear and doubt to build a community atop Burnaby Mountain
Many individuals have played important roles in the green infrastructure movement in British Columbia. But whose efforts have truly been make or break? Seven individuals stand out as first-order champions. The seven rose to the moment in ways that were complementary. They changed the game in profound ways when British Columbia was at forks in the road.
“In October 1999, I took on the job as President and CEO of the SFU Community Trust. Even before I started, I got a call from Don Stenson who was then Director of Planning at the City of Burnaby,” recalls Michael Geller. “We had never met before. He asked me to come to his office. We were having a chat and he said to me something that I have never forgotten.”
“But there is no doubt, he went on to say, that it is going to be very important that whatever you build on top of that mountain, the stormwater flows into Stoney Creek must be no worse than they are today. And I thought, I have absolutely no idea whether that is possible or not.”
A complete community within 5 years
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE / CONTEXT FOR BUSY READER
“Michael Geller, through sheer force of personality, took the vision for a sustainable community atop Burnaby Mountain and created UniverCity. His world view was downtown Vancouver which is not greenfield. That resulted in tense moments with the environmental agencies about safeguarding the hydrologic integrity of Stoney Creek,” stated Kim Stephens, Waterbucket eNews Editor and Partnership Executive Director.
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“In the early stages of UniverCity, everything hinged on the drainage plan. Nothing could proceed until it was resolved. We had to overcome fear and doubt. It had to work. Failure was not an option. We had to build trust. UBC’s Patrick Condon was a key player in the consensus process. He generated a defining quote that captured the moment, the mood, and the stakes.”
“The weight of that responsibility was my motivation to re-invent urban hydrology and my source of inspiration to develop the Water Balance Methodology. Subsequently, it became the technical foundation for British Columbia’s Stormwater Guidebook.”
Ask what the numbers are telling you
So often, serendipity plays a big role in what we do. When Michael Geller unveiled the visionary concept for UniverCity at an on-campus session in 2000, a graduating student in the School of Resource and Environmental Management asked me a series of incisive and perceptive questions.
Patrick Graham so impressed me that I offered him a job right then and there. I shared a story with him about what I had learned from Wesley Eckenfelder, a legendary professor at Vanderbilt University. When looking at data, Eckenfelder said, ask what are the numbers telling you.
Because of my UniverCity experience, I was invited to speak at events in Canada, the USA, and Australia to tell my part of the UniverCity story.
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: Overcoming fear and doubt to build a community atop Burnaby Mountain – a conversation with Michael Geller
The story behind the story comprises four topics because my conversational interview with Michael Geller went in unexpected directions. He is an effective communicator and is frequently featured on TV and in the print media. When i asked Michael why he is a go-to-person on housing issues, he replied that:
In a nutshell, what the reader will learn…
Michael Geller is driven by a CAN DO ATTITUDE. His passion for innovation goes back to the early years in his career at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation when CMHC was a force for research and demonstration,
Couple that with what Michael reveals in Topic One about the influence the legendary Edward de Bono had on his thinking. It is no wonder he was the right person to get UniverCity built. And within a comparatively short period of time!
As Michael explains in Topic Two, it is the “living lab” idea that allowed him to take calculated risks at Simon Fraser University that propelled innovation. And that combination of a “can do attitude” and knowing how to take calculated risks to do “get it right” is something that we have lost in recent decades.
Also, a lack of understanding of the bigger picture and how everything is connected plays out in failure to anticipate unintended consequences. So, do not make them too overwhelming, says Michael Geller.
That lived experience is the springboard to Topic Three in which Michael Geller connects the dots between the current provincial housing strategy and drainage consequences. Topic Four is closing reflections on creating a legacy atop Burnaby Mountain.
TOPIC ONE: Edward de Bono influenced Michael Geller to think differently than everybody else
“In 1982, my boss said you are always going on about this Edward de Bono. I just read he is going to be in Seattle. Do you think we should bring him to Vancouver to give a talk? Of course, I said.”
“So, we rented a room at the Four Seasons hotel. Edward de Bono insisted on a particular set-up complete with an overhead projector. When he came into the room, he did not say a word to anybody other than good morning. He just sat down and started talking.”
“As he was talking, he was doodling on the overhead screen. And he told a story. His punchline is we often go down one track without thinking that there might be another completely different track.”
To learn more, watch Edward de Bono build to his vision for a “Palace of Thinking”
“Edward de Bono wrote a book called Six Thinking Hats which is absolutely brilliant. A lot of corporations use it as a way to get people to think differently. Edward de Bono influenced my thinking greatly when I was a young professional. It was an amazing experience to be in the room with him in 1982.”
“In the video of his presentation at the 2010 Creative Innovation Conference, de Bono concluded with a provocative statement which is universally applicable and leads me to think about the role the Partnership for Water Sustainability plays in British Columbia.”
Limits of our thinking is our biggest problem
“Many years ago at the United Nations, I tried to set up a group to provide some additional ideas. I had various meetings. Secretary General Kofi Annan proved absolutely impossible,” Edward de Bono stated.
“They all said we are not here to think, we are here to represent our countries, not to think. Somewhere in the world there needs to be a source for new thinking, new ideas. So, my project is to set up a Palace of New Thinking which would have two functions.”
“In other words, our existent thinking is good for recognizing past and standard situations. Not good for designing new possibilities. That is why I say that the limits of our thinking are the biggest problem facing the world. And if we improve that, we might improve our way of dealing with climate change,” concluded Edward de Bono.
TOPIC TWO: Michael Geller brought an interest in innovation to learning by doing
“Part of the appeal when I took the job was that I have always been interested in innovations. At one time, I worked for CMHC in Ottawa and headed up the Research and Demonstration Group. The reason I loved that was because we got to try out new things. They did not always work. Invariably that was because people tried to do too much at one time.”
“And that is why I must admit that at SFU…while I was willing to try out a lot of things and we were successful…there were things that I was not willing to do…for example, district energy. Sometimes you have to decide.”
Learning by doing at UniverCity
“We could do a lot of these things because the university was willing to support me in providing an undertaking to fix things. And most private developers can never give that assurance to a municipality or provincial government because there is always the fear that they will go broke.”
“But in terms of stormwater, Kim Stephens could do whatever he wanted because Don Stenson had told me that protecting Stoney Creek from drainage impacts was THE most important thing that I could do.”
Are we managing watercourses or the watershed?
“Competing expectations created a number of barriers. The #1 barrier was the lack of trust that a sustainable, compact and complete community could be achieved while protecting the environment. Overcoming this barrier meant earning trust through a process”.
“Bumps along the way included shortcuts that did not work, uncovering people’s worst fears, imperfect personality matches that resulted in conflict, difficulty finding built precedents, and accepting some risk.”
“Once trust was established, the interagency group was able to jointly find innovative solutions that created win-win results.”
TOPIC THREE: Michael Geller warns of the challenges in getting drainage design right when single family lots are densified
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“Dealing with drainage and stormwater management is more challenging when you put 6 homes on a single-family lot than anything we did at UniverCity.”
“I have been telling everybody that I know that when they want to start talking about multiplex development to keep in mind what I have discovered through lived experience.”
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“I immediately thought, this is terrific because we can get rid of this as a designated creek which means we will not have to provide the necessary setbacks for development of the site.”
“And Kim said, no, I don’t think you are going to be successful with that. I couldn’t help but think, how stupid could it be that a creek that was the result of a leak in a water tower could be designated as and remain a Class C watercourse!”
TOPIC FOUR: NY Times headline – “A Community Comes to a University” (May 7, 2006)
“One day I was interviewed by the NY Times on another matter. I said there is another story here about creating a community as part of a university on land owned by the university, partially to enhance the university and partially to generate revenue.”
“I said there are a few universities doing this in the USA but not very many. I think it is a story worth telling. A few months later the NY Times published a story titled A Community Comes to a University.
“Immediately after that story was published, there was new interest by various university faculties in learning a bit more about what we were doing. That was very gratifying and something that I had always anticipated would happen,” concludes Michael Geller.
UniverCity, a PowerPoint presentation by Michael Geller
Living Water Smart in British Columbia Series
To download a copy of the foregoing resource as a PDF document for your records and/or sharing, click on Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Overcoming fear and doubt to build a community atop Burnaby Mountain.
