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
“Not everyone gets to plan a brand-new community on top of a mountain as I did at Simon Fraser University. To everybody embarking on these gentle densification projects to construct 4 or 6 homes on single-family lots, you must get the drainage right. Get it wrong and it can be expensive to fix the problem,” stated Michael Geller. “One of the real advantages we had at UniverCity is that I was able to try out new ideas. Whenever people would say, we cannot do that, I could say: I will give you written assurance from the university that if this idea does not work, we will fix it.”