Waterfront planning process begins
By Nelson Daily Editor
By Timothy Schafer, The Nelson Daily
Development of the city’s waterfront plan is now underway.
City of Nelson senior planner Dave Wahn confirmed the hiring of a consultant two weeks ago for the sustainable waterfront downtown master plan, part of the second phase of the City’s integrated community sustainability plan (ICSP).
The IBI Group — a multi-disciplinary organization offering urban land, facilities, transportation and systems services — from Vancouver will be handling the process. Wahn said they have done waterfront and downtown re-developments around the world, as well as in BC.
The first round of stakeholder and public input meetings begin in October, he said, with the second round coming in November. The tentative completion date for the process will be March of 2011.
The plan is one of four parts of the ICSP, funded by a $265,000 federal grant.
During the passing of the Official Community Plan (OCP) update in 2008, a waterfront master plan was the rallying cry for the citizens’ group — Nelson Citizen Empowerment Society — during their campaign to halt the re-zoning of a parcel of waterfront land for Kutenai Landing.
Wahn said in November of 2009 that many things would be part of the new waterfront plan, not just the height of buildings and design guidelines, but the infrastructure needed for development.
He said no infrastructure was currently in place on the waterfront, which is why it cost so much for development of the Kutenai Landing project.
“(A waterfront plan) hasn’t been clearly articulated and approved through the processes that are already there,” he said.
A big part of the ICSP process is to get people to understand sustainable principles, to identify that it’s not just the environment, there is an economic, social and cultural aspect as well, said Wahn told council Monday.
The consultant would establish a broad set of sustainability principles through the public process. Council would receive a matrix that would tie their decision making to some of those principles, whether they are social, environmental or cultural.
