Initial Report: “Enhancing Community Planning” Open House (July 7): Impacts on Vancouver’s future?

The City organized this event on July 7. It is part of a critical process that will have profound impacts on Vancouver neighbourhoods, civic finances, and all players in the development game. Staff aim to present their recommendations to City Council on July 28.

“Enhancing Community Planning” Open House
Thursday, July 7, 2011, from 4 to 7 pm
Mount Pleasant Community Centre

Download presentation panels (these will reportedly also be up on the City website soon)

• Next Community Plans_ Streamling
• Next Community Plans_ Responding
• Next Community Plans_ Engaging
• Next Community Plans_ Balancing
• Next Community Plans_Process Boards_Package

Background:
This month, City staff will likely be presenting recommendations to City Council about how to carry out consultations and develop new community plans in several neighbourhoods of Vancouver, including Grandview-Woodland, Marpole, the West End, Kitsilano, and Fairview. There will be implications for the West End and everyone in Vancouver. In the context of Vancouver’s lingering pride in its former community consultation processes, this initiative by City staff is very important and deserves public attention.

The open house on July 7 was an informal drop-in format. City staff had display panels and a printout available reviewing themes from a May 7 workshop about community planning processes. Staff will be proposing to City Council ways to modify these processes. The meeting was open to the public, but main invitees were participants of the May 7 workshop. CityHallWatch will report further soon with commentary we have received.

City’s official site:
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/cityplan/Visions/nextplan/index.htm

More info:

• https://cityhallwatch.wordpress.com/city-hall/clr-reimers-community-planning-motion-nov-2/
• Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver (NSV) steering committee wrote a letter to the City on this topic on July 7, expressing concerns. NSV-Community Plan-July 7-2011. The letter calls for the City to respect CityPlan. Before the last election, the Vision/COPE coalition agreed to support CityPlan and related neighbourhood-based Community Visioning as the primary basis for future planning in Vancouver neighbourhoods.

Community planning: In the spotlight this summer

This is just a heads up that in the next several weeks, City staff will be coming forward with recommendations to City Council about how to carry out consultations and develop new community plans in several neighbourhoods of Vancouver, including Grandview-Woodland, Marpole, the West End, Kitsilano, and Fairview. There will be implications for everyone in Vancouver.

The official City website for these initiatives are here. Grandview-Woodland Area Council has done a nice summary of the situation here. Planning in Vancouver needs to balance many interests, respect heritage and existing policies, while also accommodating change for the future. Land use decisions affect every aspect of livability and life in our city, and also affect billions of dollars of investment and future private profits. Citizens need to be aware of what is going on and have a say in how these processes are determined. CityHallWatch will report more and provide links to other citizen-based efforts to track what is going on.