Green Infrastructure

The James Taylor Chair is a research and outreach organization based at the University of British Columbia that demonstrates how to design and build affordable, equitable, and ecologically healthy communities. We work with citizens and public officials to incorporate new and emerging policies for sustainable development into community plans.

The Urban Development Institute is a national non-profit association (with international affiliations) of the development industry and its related professions. The 400 corporate members of UDI Pacific represent thousands of individuals involved in all facets of land development and planning, including: developers, property managers, financial lenders, lawyers, engineers, planners, architects, appraisers, real estate professionals, local governments and government agencies.

Compact, complete communities provide people with opportunities to live, work, learn and play in vibrant, mixed-use neighbourhoods. By creating compact communities, we can absorb new residents and jobs without sacrificing our quality of life, environment, or the fiscal health of our towns and cities.

CAVI is the acronym for Convening for Action on Vancouver Island. CAVI is a regional pilot program that is being implemented under the umbrella of the “Water Sustainability Action Plan for British Columbia”. The purpose of CAVI is to provide research and education for practitioners (primarily local government administrators, engineers, planners and elected officials) so that they can plan for sustainable water resources in the context of burgeoning settlement activity.

CAVI is the acronym for Convening for Action on Vancouver Island. CAVI is a regional pilot program that is being implemented under the umbrella of the “Water Sustainability Action Plan for British Columbia”. The purpose of CAVI is to provide research and education for practitioners (primarily local government administrators, engineers, planners and elected officials) so that they can plan for sustainable water resources in the context of burgeoning settlement activity.

The Rainwater Management Community-of-Interest is the web-delivery vehicle for the Inter-Governmental Partnership that developed the Water Balance Model for Canada. The notion of a web-based Community-of-Interest (COI) has been developed to respond to the needs of organizational clusters which evolve to discuss and communicate ideas around a specific issue. The Rainwater Management COI includes a plethora of web links that are relevant to the practice of green infrastructure.

The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC is the regulatory body for two professions: engineering and geoscience. The Association's primary duties are to uphold and protect the public interest respecting the practices of professional engineering and professional geoscience; to exercise its powers and functions, and perform its duties, under the Engineers and Geoscientists Act; and to enforce the Act.

Smart Growth on the Ground is an innovative program to change the way that development is done in BC, by creating real, built examples of smart growth. This unique program helps BC communities to prepare more sustainable neighbourhood plans – including land use, transportation, urban design, and building design plans. Extensive follow-up ensures that the plans become reality. SGOG is a partnership of the Design Centre for Sustainability at UBC, the Real Estate Institute of BC, and Smart Growth BC. Together, these three organizations work with a select group of communities in BC.

By 2025, Greater Vancouver’s current population of 2 million will increase by 50%, to 3 million. It will double to almost 4 million people by 2050. How will the region accommodate that growth? How will housing, land use, jobs and transport be designed, delivered and distributed? How do we ensure continued livability in the region? The Design Centre for Sustainability is leading a collaborative effort to produce a compelling visual representation of what Greater Vancouver region might look like in 2050, at neighbourhood, district and region-wide scales. We call this project Sustainability by Design (SxD). It is one of UBC's World Urban Forum activities.

Partnerships between those who plan and those who invest have the potential to result in better decisions for local governments and also benefit provincial areas of interest. Facilitating these partnerships is an integral part of the Ministry of Comnmunity Servcices' work to support local governments in their efforts to plan and make land-use decisions to benefit their communities.