Seeing is Believing: CRD Rainwater Tour a first in BC
The Capital Regional District has developed an online Self-Guided Tour to promote awareness of innovative rainwater management practices in the region. Below, Angela Evans tells her story to explain how the Self-Guided Tour came to fruition.
Reflections by Angela Evans, MCIP, Victoria, BC
It Started with the Saanich Series
On Vancouver Island, the District of Saanich has been seen as a leader in environmental protection for many years. Pioneering work in environmentally 
significant areas mapping, tree protection, using a Social and Environmental Review process, establishing a firm urban containment boundary, bringing the concept of Urban Forests into discussion at the community level, and engaging in riparian area protection and watershed planning, helped to establish that reputation.
To help protect stream health and coastal ecosystems, Saanich was an early promoter of on-site rainwater management. In this quest, the Planning Department staff (Environmental Services Section) worked hard to establish a multi-disciplinary approach to learning about Best Management Practices appropriate for our West Coast climate and ecosystems.
We organized several education sessions which brought experts from near and far to tell us about such topics as the latest research in permeable paving performance, greenroofs and raingardens, the role of amended soils, and even integrating art with engineering. To our amazement, we were always successful in “selling out” 100 places at these events to a real mix of design professionals from engineering, planning and landscape architecture, with a few elected council members and keen local watershed and stream stewards thrown in for good measure.
Inspired by the City of Portland
Through these sessions we created a collaborative discussion about how to manage rainwater/stormwater in a way that met several community goals at one time, and the bar was truly raised in terms of public expectations of new development and quality of design. One of our sessions featured images and data 
from a cycle tour of innovative techniques I had taken in Portland and I realized how powerful it was to actually see on-the-ground examples of what we would like to see in our own Region.
As an environmental planner with Saanich for nine years, I was increasingly asked, mostly by the public, and developers, but sometimes by Saanich staff, where our own local examples of on-site management were. I realized there was a misapprehension that perhaps they didn’t exist! So, getting tired of running back to file folders in various places (and not trusting to an aging memory) I began to keep my own list of projects for easy reference.
Bringing the Virtual Tour from Vision to Reality
Once I left Saanich to work in the consulting field, I realized I was not the only person who had wanted such a list at their fingertips. I approached the Capital Regional District with a vision to generate a set of fact sheets describing actual built projects within the Region where professionals, and interested lay people, could view LID techniques. At the start of the process, I thought we could find 20 local examples; as the process unfolded we were excited to discover almost 50, although some were still under construction.
The fact sheets include photos, descriptions of the techniques featured, awards won, the names of the design firms involved and their contact information. Extra information such as design storm used by the engineers, awards won, etc. are included where available. Inspired by my experience in Portland, and wanting to encourage my fellow computer-tied bureaucrats to keep our carbon footprint low and waistlines slim, I developed three bicycle routes with the aid of a local cycling guru.
While the CRD has not yet produced the cycling route maps, viewers can still do a low-impact virtual tour. For those of you who can’t wait to hop on your bikes, watch for a local PIBC chapter event that will get us out cycling in May of 2009. APEG and BCSLA members will of course be most welcome!
About Angela Evans
Angela Evans, MCIP, now works for the Fraser Basin Council as part of a BC-wide program called Smart Planning for Communities (SPC). One of several Sustainability Facilitators across BC, she helps local governments and First Nations identify and take their next steps on the road to sustainability. Angela is based on Vancouver Island. If you have any questions about the SPC program, she can be reached by phone at 250-858-6209, or by email at aevans@fraserbasin.bc.ca.
Posted March 2009