REVOLUTIONIZING PLANNING, ENGAGEMENT, DESIGN, & MUNICIPAL ORGs

Thursday, January 31, 2013

National Example of Healthy Community Planning/Design


Below is an excerpt from evidence given at the House of Commons, to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, last fall.  I was honoured to find out that my work in creating the Urban Design Manual (Town of Collingwood) was being acknowledged to the government of Canada as a particularly noteworthy example of healthy community planning/design. 



Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development
Number 047 - 1st Session - 41st Parliament
Evidence
Monday, October 22, 2012


    Can you suggest one city in Canada that is really using the healthy cities model going forward and is very open to ensuring that you get opportunities there?

Mr. Adam Bienenstock:
    Honestly, for me right now the city that I'm most excited about is Collingwood. The urban planner there is a guy by the name of Robert Voigt. They have produced a remarkable document that is very outcomes-based and is focused on connecting that community and on saving that community's main asset, which is its natural beauty. They've done a good job of focusing on that.

    What they've done hasn't been prescriptive, but it has been outcomes-based, so someone like me, or any one of the designers of these spaces, can go in and interpret that but still fall into that category of renaturing and engaging, using some of the flora and fauna from the local area as the palette.

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