North Vancouver Walks the Talk Sive Approaches to Both Energy Generation and Conservation

SPC STORIES FROM THE FIELD

City of North Vancouver Civic Plaza

jobs-to-resident ratio, and progres- North Vancouver Walks the Talk sive approaches to both energy generation and conservation. The City of North Vancouver is on their journey to sustainability As part of the City’s desire to using a 100 Year Sustainability Vision for a zero carbon future. find new ways to improve their With the help of the Fraser Basin Council they took time to reflect sustainability practices they brought in the Fraser Basin Council (FBC). on their sustainability strategies. Staff from the Smart Planning for Communities program, and Greater Vancouver Sea to Sky Region The City of North Vancouver (CNV) Community Plan (OCP), created provided the City with an objective is a community that is well known in 2002, systematically integrated assessment of their policies, plans throughout Canada for their excep- sustainability concepts. For the im- and programs from a sustainability tional sustainability planning efforts. plementation of this progressive plan perspective. The assessment was They are integrating sustainability into they won the inaugural Green City accompanied by a set of ideas for almost every aspect of their economic, Award from the province in 2007. enhancing CNV’s performance in environmental and social fabric. Today the city is implementing the future to keep them moving in The roots of sustainability for a new plan – a sustainability vision the right direction. the CNV can be traced back to the that aims to guide the City toward 1990s. They were one of the first carbon-neutral status by 2107, the municipalities in Canada to develop a City’s 200th anniversary. The CNV strong social plan and to put in place presently has a dense urban core meaningful environmental protec- that is both pedestrian friendly and tion measures. The City’s first Official well serviced by transit, a healthy SPC STORIES FROM THE FIELD

BIRD’S EYE VIEW Holistic long range visioning is one approach that sets North Vancouver apart. Implementation of the City’s vision is being led by passionate project leaders in several of the City Departments such as Finance, IT, Community Development, Facilities, Engineering, and Human Resources. Suzanne Smith and her colleagues in the Community Development Department are working on plans that will

View of the City of North Vancouver from an approaching seabus take decades to fully implement. It is important to her showing a variety of housing types, mixed use commerical spaces and to make sure these plans are ‘living documents’ that are the transportation hub of the SeaBus terminal at Londsdale Quay. synchronized for implementation throughout the municipal structure. Implementation can be complex. “Sometimes it’s “Arriving by transit on a beautiful spring day, I travelled to hard to see the big picture, especially when you have a meet the CNV staff by SeaBus. What a great way to experi- big staff like CNV does,” Smith explains. “Only an outside ence one of the ‘edges’ of this City! Crossing through a bustling party can see their work from a ‘bird’s eye view’ which working harbour with float planes landing and barges pressing allows us to pin point gaps and deficiencies that they freight through the water, the magnificent old bridge to my left, might not be able to see themselves.” the City rising up to meet beautiful green mountains ahead of In order to pin point gaps, Richard White, Director of me. I really felt that one of the key defining elements of this Community Development connected with Angela Evans, place was its relationship with the ocean via Georgia Strait and Smart Planning for Communities Sustainability Facilitator Burrard Inlet. I realized the water linked it even to my home and Marion Town, Senior Manager, Greater Vancouver place in Victoria. I was looking forward to seeing how the City Sea-to-Sky Region. The team created an assessment that recognized and honoured it’s place at the water’s edge.” would take CNV through a three step process. The pro- — Angela Evans cess would test: 1. the quality and nature of guiding municipal policy and procedural documents; 2. the understanding and implementation of the OUR FACILITATION SERVICES documents; and 3. the effects or impacts the implementation of those There are good reasons With facilitators across the documents have across the broader community. to make sustainability a province, we understand cornerstone of your com- urban, suburban and rural munity plans — to meet gas THE ASSESSMENT issues and the planning tax funding commitments, Quality & Nature needs of small and create alignment within your mid-sized communities. The first step involved a review many of CNV’s key policy community and most of all, and guidance documents that represent their expressed to make your community commitments, through a sustainability lens. The Smart more efficient, sustainable MAUREEN LEBOURDAIS, and resilient. Senior Manager, Smart Plan- Planning team reviewed over sixty of the City’s most commonly used documents against the BC Ministry of We help communities of ning for Communities, Fraser all sizes integrate social, cul- Community Services Smart Planning Community Basin Council Cariboo Office tural, economic and environ- Assessment Template. During the review the team mental considerations Williams Lake T: 250 392-1400 discovered seven additional sustainability categories into planning processes. E: [email protected] being addressed by CNV for a total of 24 theme areas. North Vancouver‘s first community garden in Lower Lonsdale

The review revealed an opportunity to enhance the City’s work by helping people move from balancing aspects of sustainability to integration

THE RIGHT DIRECTION The summary of findings was organized in an assessment document prepared by FBC entitled, Measuring and Communicating Sustainability Progress Within the City of North Understanding & Implementation Vancouver. The assessment found that CNV was well into The next phase involved interviews with a range of CNV their sustainability journey with several success factors in staff members. In total 13 staff from eight departments, at place. It also identified some opportunities for the City varying seniority levels were interviewed in order to gauge to strengthen its work. their use of CNV’s guiding documents. The FBC team, administered a second similar City staff-wide survey in Success Factors Identified order to help gauge how well the concept of sustainability The assessment revealed that the City’s success may be was understood, how it was incorporated into the work of attributed to a variety of factors: city staff and to identify barriers to implementation. • a Mayor and Council that highly values seeking Suzanne Smith stated that the survey was very use- new ways to help the City reduce its ful to the city as they now have insight into where their environmental footprint level of corporate awareness is on the topic, which is • a dedicated staff, passionate about sustainability very valuable to them as “no single person leads the • a corporate culture of collaboration with other sustainability initiatives at the city…so everyone from agencies, First Nations and the community the top to the bottom needs to know what it means and • a collective striving towards increasing community how to implement it.” capacity to be more resilient, and to finding innova- tive solutions in every realm of City influence Effects or Impacts The Smart Planning team also reviewed external indicators The review revealed an opportunity to enhance the City’s of sustainability, spanning the economic, social, cultural work by helping people move from balancing aspects of and environmental realms, in order to help scope complex sustainability to integration. Overall, the survey found issues and build understanding by reflecting trends over that the City was doing an exceptional job with respect time. This provided the City with actual measures of their to fostering the staff’s awareness, pride, passion and overall health. commitment to sustainability initiatives. Caption caption photo by credit credit

SPC STORIES FROM THE FIELD

WHAT THE CITY SAID “We appreciate that you were able to provide “It was great us with this to have [FBC] review...to assist come in because us in making our they validated sustainability the choices we goals a reality.” have made so far. – Darrell Mussatto, [FBC] has Mayor CNV a sober, independent, objective opin- ion, which is such “We got a strong an opportune benefit from this thing that I think report in being every municipal- able to go into the ity should take next OCP with a advantage of!” better understand- CNV is now looking into – Richard White, ing of what we’ve Asset Database, also known as eco- starting a Natural Asset Director of done to date and budgeting, to assign value to their Community where we have Database, also known ecological services. Development, left to go… [The as eco-budgeting, to CNV will act on the recommen- CNV Assessment] was a assign value to their dation for more rigorous reporting huge value-added ecological services. of their Targets, Indicators and Moni- for our long-range toring System (TIMS). TIMS which planning” was developed to help track the city’s – Suzanne Smith, Assessment Recommendations progress in achieving its 2002 OCP CNV The assessment revealed a few vision. The vision was; to be a vibrant, untapped opportunities for integrating diverse and highly livable community sustainability such as; valuing natu- that strives to balance the social, eco- ral assets, cross-appointing advisory nomic and environmental needs of our committee members, and further community locally. reporting mechanisms. The FBC team As leaders in sustainability, the Plan for a strong, vibrant, encouraged further cross-pollination City of North Vancouver was not & networking amongst committees; only willing to experiment with a sustainable community strengthening ties and encouraging third party assessment of their work, Smart Planning for Communities increased dialogue with the First but have taken the findings to heart offers local and First Nations Nations groups in the region. and are continuing to make governments the services of skilled The City had always kept track of constant improvements and strive Sustainability Facilitators in their capital assets, i.e. infrastructure, for excellence. communities across BC. but had not ventured towards the FBC’s Marion Town explained, newer concept of tracking their natu- “it showed that the decision makers Read More Online ral ones. “For example, assets like the were doing a great job, that the staff www.smartplanningbc.ca urban forest, un-compacted soils, a was doing a great job, that politicians Visit our website for access marine shoreline, they all perform were thus making good decisions… to tools, resources services for the community.” noted it is very important to be able to and information. Angela Evans. As a consequence CNV celebrate successes and use them as a is now looking into starting a Natural means to get better.”