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“A key to creating a stewardship ethic is getting school children involved early in making a difference, and then sustaining that ethic so that the pilot projects of today become the standard practices of tomorrow,” said Deborah Jones.
“About 1/3 of the urban landscape is typically covered by road rights-of-way. This creates opportunities to capture rain where it falls and restore it to natural hydrologic pathways. Delta is implementing landscape-based solutions to rainwater management; and is planting an urban forest to mitigate climate change”, states Hugh Fraser.
The projected growth of the Metro Vancouver region and resulting cumulative impacts are drivers for reassessing how land is developed and water is used. To promote a new way-of-thinking related to infrastructure policies and practices, the Green Infrastructure Partnership has organized Showcasing Green Infrastructure Innovation in Greater Vancouver: The 2007 Series.
“The Township of Langley will showcase what can be accomplished with large-scale projects when Council, the community and staff are in alignment and embrace a ‘green culture’. Resource protection – for groundwater supply and fisheries habitat – is the driver for implementing green infrastructure,” states Brad Badelt.
“UniverCity will showcase the fruits of our partnership with the City of Burnaby – first, in developing a shared vision of what a ‘sustainable community’ on top of a mountain would look like; and then, in taking that vision from concept to reality,” states Chris Hartman. In 2000, translating high expectations for UniverCity into practical design guidelines meant revisiting accepted drainage engineering practice.
Experience shows that intra-region communication among local government practitioners is the exception rather than the rule.”Yet practitioners in local government do want to learn from those who are innovating, and they do want to visit projects that are precedent-setting,” adds John Finnie, Chair of the CAVI Leadership Team, “They just need a starting point and a push to get the ball rolling.”
“The purpose of the Showcasing Innovation Series is to celebrate… and build on…the on-the-ground successes that are enhancing the ways communities are being developed and water is being managed. The goal is to promote networking, build regional capacity, and move ‘from awareness to action’ — through sharing of green infrastructure approaches, tools, experiences and lessons learned as an outcome of designing with nature,” stated Paul Ham.
From a City of Nanaimo perspective, the Inland Kenworth industrial development is a milestone project because it represents the turning of the tide in the way land is being developed in the City. Furthermore, the raised expectations have changed the nature of consulting in Nanaimo by stimulating green infrastructure innovation.
The Oliver Woods Community Centre is the first public building to be designed and built to a LEED Silver standard in the City of Nanaimo.
The Green Shores project promotes more sustainable use of coastal ecosystems through planning and design that recognizes ecological features and functions. Green Shores promotes healthy coastal environments that provide both valuable habitat and goods and services of significant economic and social value to coastal communities.
