CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “There is no question that we have come a long way in overcoming memory loss in regional growth management and the future looks promising,” stated Ken Cameron, co-architect of Metro Vancouver’s Livable Region Strategic Plan in the 1990s (4th installment in a preview series)
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 October 29 2024 features Ken Cameron, a co-author of Metro Vancouver’s Livable Region Strategic Plan. Through his telling of firsthand historical vignettes, he provides insight into why the plan matters, and why we need people who are interested enough to understand the state of mind that lay behind its success.
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: Think about this because it helps to understand why the Livable Region Strategic Plan matters – extracts from a conversation with Ken Cameron
Ken Cameron is a native of Vancouver whose professional career began in Ontario, There, he worked for the provincial government for seven years. “At that time Ontario had a lot of interest in planning and management of watersheds and water resources,” recalls Ken Cameron.
In 1978, Ken Cameron had a chance to come back to BC after the retirement of Harry Lash, the legendary and brilliant planner opened up the Senior Associate Planner position at the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD).
Through the 1980s and 1990s and into the 2000s, Ken Cameron was at the epicentre of the people and successive processes that built on Harry Lash’s early innovation and legacy and thus made possible Metro Vancouver’s Livable Region Strategic Plan.
Asking the question, what is bothering you?, resulted in the Livable Region Proposals (1976)
“When the GVRD was established in 1967, they inherited an official regional plan from the Lower Mainland Regional Planning Board. But they did not quite know what to do with it,” explains Ken Cameron in providing historical context.
“And they found it really did not fit with a lot of things on people’s minds which they learned about when Harry Lash went out and said, what is bothering you?. He undertook a comprehensive, citizen-based planning consultation and worked the answers into what became the Livable Region Proposals.”
“After I joined the GVRD, I began to realize that some of the qualities of the region that I had grown up with and taken for granted were pretty special. Protection and enhancement of these qualities was incorporated into the Livable Region Proposals and the updated the Official Regional Plan for the Lower Mainland.”
In 1983, the Province of BC cancelled all Official Regional Plans but could not cancel what was un-cancellable
“In the early 1980s, controversy erupted after the provincial government removed the Spetifore lands in Delta from the Agricultural Land Reserve and the GVRD Board refused to amend the Official Regional Plan to reflect that, in effect overruling the Cabinet. In response, the provincial government removed the regional planning function from all regional districts.”
“One of the things that was un-cancellable was the Livable Region Proposals because they never had an official existence and were never the subject of a board motion. They could not be cancelled by a provincial action. With reduced funding and staff, we tried to salvage what was important from the corpse of the regional planning mandate.”
Livable Region Proposals were founded on sophisticated knowledge of the region:
“What was important when you took away all the legal stuff was a plan that was based on shard knowledge and public participation. It depended on voluntary cooperation among and between the municipalities, and between the municipalities and the region.”
“It had that spirit to it that had been internalized in the guts of the municipal planners at the time. It was based on knowledge and on what Harry Lash had put together. This was a very sophisticated basis of knowledge of what was going on in the region.”
“It is people. It is economy. All that stuff was still there because it could not be cancelled…provided we could find a way of paying for it. That was the key part. When the GVRD board representatives met with Rita Johnston, the Minister of Municipal Affairs, and said there is still a need for regional planning in Metro Vancouver, her response showed us the only feasible path forward.”
The region found a bottom-up way to carry on with voluntary regional planning
“It was a challenge but we were able to do that. We set up a 16-party agreement under which most of the work of the regional district could be carried on and paid for by municipalities out of their own budgets.”
“Until then, the regional planning function had been paid out of a regional levy. So councils and municipal planners did not see it as a takeaway from their budgets. It was just a bill that came in and they included it in the levy for regional services that they sent to taxpayers.”
“It was an uphill battle. The city managers were money conscious people and were all over it. It was not a positive environment in which to do innovative planning. It was a fundamentally unstable arrangement, but it did keep the doors open and lights on for five years.”
In 1987, a renewed commitment to rebuild the regional planning function from the ground up led to Creating Our Future
“Michael O’Connor asked Gordon Campbell who was then Mayor of Vancouver to chair the Strategic Planning Committee even though we had no authority to bring politicians to meetings pr to pay them for being there. IT WAS ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY.”
“It was an opportunity to rebuild a regional planning function from the ground up. It was based on principles that were established in the 1960s…of cooperation, of participation, of progress through agreement rather than through legislation, of planning as a tool of the people rather than as a tool of the government.”
“There was a whole group of people in Vancouver City Hall…Gordon Campbell, Walter Hardwick, Darlene Marzari, Gordon Price…who thought that the City of Vancouver’s future and interest were inextricably bound up with the future of the region. That was just another way of thinking about the future of the city that they loved and led.”
“That regional view led to a process called Choosing Our Future. This was a broad consultation process that led to a document called Creating Our Future. It had Gordon Campbell’s fingerprints all over it.”
In 1990, an action plan provided a regional framework for maintaining and enhancing the livability of Metro Vancouver
“Between January and June 1990, Creating Our Future produced some really important basic ideas, like environmental management and stewardship of water – defined by this statement: “The purpose of Greater Vancouver’s watersheds is to produce, clean, safe water”.”
“And also a transportation system that put walking, cycling, goods movement and transit ahead of the private use of the private automobile.”
A process of voluntary cooperation
“Creating Our Future was a very good overall vision. I went to the municipalities with it. And the municipal planners said…Ken, this is a great vision, a wonderful statement, and we are all in agreement with it…BUT IT IS NOT A PLAN.”
“So, we started on a process of voluntary cooperation to create this plan. We had no authority for it. And it was driven by the municipalities. That led to the Livable Region Strategic Plan ultimately. The basic principles were adopted by consensus…which I define as the absence of expressed dissent.”
In 1996, the Minister of Municipal Affairs’ approval of the regional growth strategy was a defining moment in the history of the region
“A Helijet flight to Victoria is the story behind the story of how BC’s Growth Strategies Act came to be. (Municipal Affairs Minister) Darlene Marzari sat next to me in the only vacant seat. She said, Ken, we have to talk. I have a staff and you have a board. We have to find a way of working around that.”
“So, I met with her on a Saturday morning and made a presentation about the draft Livable Region Strategic Plan to an audience of one. No advisors. At the end of the presentation, she said “I want to do that. I want to make that possible”. About that time, the provincial government was beginning to talk about growth strategies and Erik Karlsen was beginning to get involved.”
Erik Karlsen led a province-wide consultation process
“Darlene Marzari realized that she needed a champion within the Ministry for this initiative. And that person was Erik Karlsen. She had strong, very strong opinions about what kind of legislation this should be.”
“It was fortunate that Metro Vancouver had a plan that was ready to go just at the time Darlene Marzari was inventing the mandate for it. So the Livable Region Strategic Plan was the first regional growth strategy adopted under the Growth Strategies Act. Darlene Marzari signed the plan as minister, deeming it to have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Growth Strategies Act.”
“In summary, it was a reconstruction from first principles, leaving behind the stuff that was getting in the way, bringing in the stuff that was new…including the comprehensive approach and the idea that the resources of the region should be managed in accordance with regional and municipal planning objectives. All of that was put in place in a brand-new form.”
Ben Marr believed that integrated planning is the key to managing BC’s settlements and their resources
“During that entire period from 1990 through 1996, Ben Marr was a terrific supporter of us behind the scenes. He never had to be out front. I think he believed in his soul that integrated planning is the key to managing BC’s settlements and their resources.”
“His contribution to the Livable Region Strategic Plan process was to follow his management philosophy….which is…if you have managers, let them manage and do what they have to do. Let them know if there is anything that is bothering you. But until that happens, let them do what they do best.”
“That in turn set the stage for the negotiation of ground-breaking new transportation governance and funding relationships that we now know as TransLink.”
Adopted by the Regional District Board in January and approved by the Minister in February
When Johnny Carline succeeded Ben Marr as CAO, he discovered sustainability as the focus for government and the region
“Johnny Carline took over as CAO in 1996. He developed a concept for how to provide integrated planning for the region and its functions and restructured the regional planning, the water, sewage and solid waste utilities and the air quality function into three divisions: Policy and Planning; Engineering and Construction; Operations and Maintenance.”
“The first question to be answered was does the board want or have to do in each of these areas. That meant production of plans which had to consider whether there was a way to meet needs by managing demand rather than building new facilities.”
“That is how I came to have responsibility as manager of policy and planning for plans for liquid waste management including the requirement that the municipalities develop Integrated Stormwater Management Plans under the LWMP. There were other plans for water supply, watershed management, solid waste management and air quality management.”
Dr. Louise Comeau of FCM opened eyes and minds to climate change
“Johnny Carline’s next epiphany occurred when we were at a Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference about sustainable development. He got religion, as they say, He had discovered sustainability as the focus for government for managing not only the environment but also the social and economic future. Johnny Carline got it.”
“This evolution reflected the influence of Louise Comeau, the FCM policy and program director responsible for the Partners for Climate Protection program and for establishing the Green Municipal Fund.”
It is about the life support system for the region
Closing thoughts on why the Metro Vancouver Regional Livability Strategic Plan still matters
“When I was manager of policy and planning, I would tell my staff that we have been put in charge of the planning for the life support system for this region. We cannot own it but we can leave it to our children. And to build a better place, we need people who understand the state of mind that lay behind the success of the Livable Region Strategic Plan.”
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Implications of provincial housing policy for livability
“Metro 2050 also provides a clear framework for federal and provincial policies to plug into and support broadly held regional objectives. Metro 2050 offered a golden opportunity for new federal and provincial housing programs and funding to be delivered in a well-established regional context.”
“Unfortunately, the provincial government bypassed that opportunity to use their own legislation and instead went with a series of arbitrary overrides of local government planning authority, which has created chaos and disruption,” concludes Ken Cameron.
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: Understand why the Livable Region Strategic Plan matters.
