The Planning Institute of British Columbia is pleased to announce the 2011 Award Winners, for the following awards:  

Awards for Excellence in Planning

Planner of the Year Award

Education Committee Student Fellowship Award

 

Awards for Excellence in Planning

The 2011 winners, announced at the 2011 Annual Conference & AGM in Nanaimo, included the following: 

Excellence in Planning Practice - Winner:
EcoPlan International Inc. & Musqueam Indian Band
Musqueam Comprehensive Community Plan

The Musqueam Comprehensive Community Plan, subtitled “We Are Of One Heart and One mind” was intended to be a guiding plan for the community across its three reserves and cur-­ rent and future settlement lands. Developed as a vision of the Musqueam Community, it engendered creative thinking and innovation to engage and support the community for which it was meant to serve.  Envisioning a community that is self-sufficient, complete, and healthy, the approach included a significant community engagement strategy including specific strategies which respected the traditional form of information sharing and targeted both the youth and elders in the community, family meetings, and other special events. This exciting vision and document for the future of the Musqueam community is already seeing results in terms of the built form, including a new community centre, cultural resource centre, and new playground facilities.

The Key Outcomes of this plan included: Communication Tools; Analytical Land Use Tools; Monitoring and Evaluation Tools; and Capacity Building Tools

This comprehensive community plan is only one of 20 documents that were created through the comprehensive planning process, but remains one of the key components and was highly regarded for its content, approach, and approach to community planning and overall community sustainability.

Excellence in Planning Practice - Honourable Mention:
Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg and City of Vancouver
Hastings Park / Pacific National Exhibition Master Plan

Hastings Park / Pacific National Exhibition Master Plan is the new vision for Hastings Park which transforms the site of today into a greener, year-round destination for a diverse array of activities including everyday park use, cultural events, festivals, sports, recreation, and community use. The Plan accommodates the 17 day annual PNE Fair and renewal and greening of Playland as integral to the park program. approach to community planning and overall community sustainability.

The project had dedicated staff resources, a massive budget and a comprehensive two year public and stakeholder consultation process which included 26 events in 10 locations around the city. The Awards Committee noted that the result was a “historic document” that will set the course for Hastings Park and the PNE for the next thirty years. Among the innovative elements was a 4 metre square site concept plan with explanatory notes for participants to walk over/through and the use of a consultant team with expertise in park planning and design as well as the economics of fairs and destination attractions, costing, and assessment and structural renewal of heritage structures. The lessons of hosting the Olympics seem to have informed the planning process.

The Hastings Park / Pacific National Exhibition Master Plan document was adopted by Vancouver City Council with a reduction to the Playland expansion and the addition of two acres of riparian restoration area. This will be the basis for several immediate phases of implementation in 2011.

Excellence in Planning Practice - Honourable Mention:
City of Kelowna
Parkland Acquisition Guidelines

Section 936 of the Local Government Act states that parkland “must have a location and character acceptable to the local government....” The Kelowna Parkland Acquisition Guidelines provide clear direction to developers, the public and staff on what is an acceptable ‘location and character’ for parks in the City of Kelowna.

In 2009 the City of Kelowna hired Juliet Anderton Consulting Inc. to prepare a reference document that consolidates the criteria currently used by staff to select new parkland in both developing neighbourhoods and mature areas of Kelowna, and to provide a summary of best management practices for park site servicing.

While none of the information contained in the Parkland Acquisition Guidelines represents a new direction for the City, the document serves as an easy to follow comprehensive reference providing succinct relevant information in one document.

Like most municipalities in BC, multiple departments in Kelowna play their respective roles when parkland is acquired. The Guidelines outline the desired objectives for parkland acquisition and servicing, and encourage all partners to work towards the same goals. By clearly articulating the City’s intentions for parkland acquisition and servicing, the Guidelines contribute to efficient subdivision design and development approval processes, as well as to the long-term success of parks and therefore the social and environmental sustainability of the community.

Information contained in these guidelines is easily transferable and could be tailored to meet the needs of other communities in British Columbia. Awards Committee members were quick to circulate the Kelowna Guidelines to their own Parks departments as a testament to its utility and transferability.

 

Small Town & Rural Planning - Winner:
Comox Valley Regional District and Urban Strategies
Comox Valley Regional Growth Strategy

The Comox Valley Regional District Regional Growth Strategy By-aw is the culmination of two years of public consultation involving four local governments in the Comox Valley and significant input by K’omoks First Nation. Led by the Comox Valley Regional District, the growth strategy is built on a sustainable community vision, incorporates practical growth management principles, contains a detailed implementation plan and will have a significant impact on how the community grows over the next twenty years.

The collaborative approach resulted in a Regional Growth Strategy Bylaw that will protect and promote resource and agricultural areas, support a viable rural community, curb suburban sprawl and require the concentration of residential, commercial and industrial development within the existing urban areas. The Awards Committee was impressed by the innovation of the work and efforts to conceptualize what sustainability looks like in rural areas.

Small Town & Rural Planning - Honourable Mention:
Taylor Zeeg MCIP and Katie Hayhurst MCIP
A Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan Pilot Project

In response to a call from the Canadian Institute of Planners for volunteers to lead pilot climate change adaptation action plans in northern communities, two members from British Colum-­ bia and the Yukon began work in a small hamlet, Whale Cove population 350, on the west coast of Hudson Bay in Nunavut. The project stands as an excellent example of a professional contribution that received strong acceptance and reviews by the community and by the Nunavut planning profession.

The work was to be creative. It became a project in search of knowledge and innovation, about planning processes designed to engage a small community’s involvement and ownership, concerning sustainable futures in spite of potentially life threatening impacts of climate change.

The planners worked closely with the Hamlet Council and the Regional Community Planner from Rankin Inlet. Another important partner was the Federal Department of Natural Resources Canada who provided funding for a team of climate change scientists to work closely with the planners to identify and conduct relevant field research in the community. 

Representing a significant volunteer contribution, this project was selected for recognition in Small Town and Rural Planning.

 

Excellence in Policy Planning - Winner:
City of North Vancouver and HB Lanarc
City of North Vancouver Community Energy & Emissions Plan

As climate change becomes an increasingly important component of community planning, the need to understand and identify greenhouse as emissions profiles of our communities is more and more relevant. Bearing this in mind, the objective of this plan was to allow the City of North Vancouver to build upon its sustainability credentials and its 100 years of history and develop a plan and a strategy to address Climate Change on a local community level while ensuring a high level of community and stakeholder engagement.

The plan sought to address the core community sustainability priorities in identifying its emissions reduction strategy, and incorporated features related to implementation and overall sustainability including, but not limited to: Adjusting land use to make transportation more efficient; improve housing affordability by making homes more energy efficient; development of a comprehensive walk and bike infrastructure, and other similar policies and directions.

Of particular note was the transferability of the knowledge developed through this process including an emphasis on land use, and community scale solutions to an issue that has not traditionally been the realm of the municipality.

 

Research & New Directions in Planning - Winner:
William Trousdale MCIP, Robin Gregory and Tim McDaniels
Using Insights from Planning: An alternative approach to assessing environmental damages and cultural loss

As most practitioners will be aware, planning is, at its core, an exercise in balancing a wide variety of values to create positive outcomes for communities. Using Insights from Planning: an Alternative Approach to Assessing Environmental Damages and Cultural Loss extends this core function into an area in which the planning profession has, until recently, been relatively silent: valuation of intangible goods and compensation for non-­ market losses (environmental or cultural damage). The authors argue that the field is one that planning is uniquely positioned to engage.

This research and practice is the result of fifteen years of academic study and practical application by the authors. Summarized in two peer­reviewed articles, the authors describe a new approach to valuation of and compensation for non-­market goods, one based on aspects of decision science, behavioural decision research, negotiation theory and participatory planning. The approach uses a participatory, community-based process combined with a multi-attribute value assessment to characterize the relative value of what are in many cases complex, deeply held and intangible values.

This work has been tested and has proven successful in several First Nations communities where it was used to value and to recommend compensation for environmental damages and cultural loss due to industrial development or government policies. The work has also been tested in court and has been used to support several mediation and negotiation processes.

Taken together, this research and its application move planning practice in a new direction and into a field from which the profession has been long absent. Further, in their fundamental recognition of the importance of cultural values, the practices may prove more broadly applicable to areas of planning outside of compensation.

 

 

Planner of the Year Award:

Richard White MCIP

The Planner of the Year award recognizes… Outstanding Individual Achievement in Community and Professional Service The Planner of the Year Award recognizes the efforts of individual PIBC Members and is based on the overall impact of the nominee’s work and personal commitment to planning, and the effect they have in their community and within the profession. The award recognizes an individual planner who inspires, supports and mentors other planners, demonstrates a high degree of ethical commitment to the planning profession, and raises the awareness of the planning profession.

The 2011 Planner of the Year, Richard White MCIP, has 33 years of planning experience, and 27 years with the same local government—a testament to his planning professionalism and fortitude.

Richard has demonstrated planning excellence through numerous planning initiatives including: 100 year Sustainability Vision; Climate Change Innovation; Waterfront Initiatives; numerous Official Community Plans; and has spearheaded large and award winning civic projects; and has led collaborative projects with the local First Nation.

Richard is a strong supporter of the Planning profession, in the following ways. He’s been involved in: PIBC Membership Committee; Accreditation Task Force for Canadian Planning Schools; CIP Planning for the Future Project; UBC’s SCARP accreditation review; CIP Conference Committees; Volunteer lecturer at SFU, UBC and Capilano University; Co-Chair of the Community Energy Association Board.

Richard is committed to his local community and has held office as a Trustee of the local School Board, is a coach of club and secondary school volleyball teams, coaches softball, is a Board member of Volleyball BC, and volunteers for the United Way and Red Cross.

Richard has inspired and mentored numerous planners. He:

“...is one of those rare managers that can inspire his employees with his infectious enthusiasm and genuine devotion to planning. He is a man that loves his job—and it shows! Combine that positive energy with an incredible depth of knowledge in planning, an innate ability to strategize and read the political landscape, a natural curiosity, and years of increasingly responsible planning experience—and you have a masterful practitioner...I am personally grateful for having the opportunity to work for such an inspiring planner”.

Congratulations to Richard White MCIP, PIBC 2011 Planner of the Year!

 

Education Committee Student Fellowship Awards:

There were no Education Committee Student Fellowship awards granted in 2011. Check back for more details next year.

 

Congratulations to all the 2011 award winners!!