Planning for Long-term Urban Sustainability A Guide to Frameworks and Tools Dr. Nola-Kate Seymoar Introduction Globally, the population in urban areas continues to grow at 2.4% annually - over three times as rapidly as rural areas. Over the next 30 years, or within just one generation, 93% of this growth will occur in cities in developing countries. It is critical that we plan and manage these urban centres so that they can exist in harmony with the natural environment while supporting and sustaining their human populations and economic base. Today, urban and community planners, developers and politicians are making decisions based upon physical infrastructure designed a hundred years ago. Likewise, the current planning and development choices they make will affect the form and quality of life in cities for the next hundred years. Typically, the patterns of decision making around urban form, infrastructure, and community services are characterized by short term driving forces, including fiscal incentives or disincentives, responses to natural or man-made crises, media reports, public opinion, and lobbying by special interest groups. Those making decisions about financing are faced with competing interests and incomplete information about the impacts of decisions made for one part of the urban system on other parts. Decisions about individual urban projects, involving small or vast sums of money, are usually made outside of an integrated vision or plan. Consultants and companies offer municipalities a panoply of models and tools to address urban issues. In light of growing supply and demand and limited resources, there is a need for rational frameworks and explicit criteria within which choices can be made that will lead to long-term urban sustainability. This Guide builds on three factors that enhance or inhibit the implementation of sustainability policies and practices; having the right guiding ideas, possessing the social capital or institutional capacity to implement them, and using the appropriate tools 1. Using this lens, eight approaches that are being applied in Canada are analyzed to identify their strengths and weaknesses in planning for long-term urban sustainability. The approaches and case examples include The Sheltair Group s Adaptive Management Framework as applied by cities PLUS in Greater Vancouver; the Natural Step as applied in Whistler; Local Agenda/Action 21 as advanced by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and applied in Hamilton; Environmental Management Systems as advanced by CH2M Hill and applied in Kamloops; MetroQUEST as advanced by Envision Sustainability Tools and applied in Whistler; Integrated Community Planning and Design as practiced by the Sustainable Communities Program at the University of British Columbia s Centre for Landscape Research and applied in Squamish; Cities as 1 The author is grateful to Kate McKerlie for pointing out the relevance of Senge s work to this analysis. See P. Senge, A. Kleiner, C. Roberts, R. B. Ross, B. J. Smith; The Fifth Discipline Field Book; Doubleday; 1994 7
Sustainable Eco-systems (CASE) as advanced by UNEP s International Environmental Technology Centre; and Smart Growth as advanced by Smart Growth BC and applied in Maple Ridge. These are all examples from developed country cities. As the +30 Network expands and resources become available further approaches and case studies will be added from other parts of the world. Each of these approaches as advanced by particular service providers is outlined in some detail in the final section of the Guide. History The +30 Network emerged out of a project undertaken in Greater Vancouver between 2001 and 2003 called cities PLUS (an acronym for Cities Planning for Long-term Urban Sustainability). cities PLUS was developed by a collaborative of the Greater Vancouver Regional District or GVRD (the regional planning authority for 21 municipalities), the Sheltair Group (a private sector consulting firm), the International Centre for Sustainable Cities (a development NGO headquartered in Vancouver) and the Liu Institute for Global Issues (a think tank located at the University of British Columbia). cities PLUS was Canada s entry in a unique international competition. The objective was to develop a staged 100-year plan that would lead to urban sustainability. Sponsored by the International Gas Union (IGU), the competition was inspired by the need to encourage cities to consider the transition from an economy based on fossil fuels to one based on alternative energy sources. Participating cities came from Japan, Canada, Russia, Germany, India, Argentina, China and the USA/Mexico. cities PLUS won the Grand Prize and the plans from India, Tokyo and the USA/Mexico were also given special recognition by the jury. Looking well beyond the normal planning horizon led participants to think outside of their usual boundaries and focus on integrated solutions to economic, social and environmental shocks and changes. The process was unlike other attempts to communicate about important environmental issues such as global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, which are often characterized by debate and acrimony, and seldom lead to change. The long-term sustainability framework allowed stakeholders, academics and community residents, using forecasting and back-casting tools, to consider the impacts of climate change in a relatively neutral context. Vested interests and positions became less significant and consideration of very long-term trends was necessary. As uncertainty increased, the need to use adaptive approaches and increase resiliency became apparent. The result was a profound change in how the issues were approached and, in Greater Vancouver, is leading to change in decisions being made on current infrastructure plans. cities PLUS built on a long history of comprehensive urban planning in the Greater Vancouver region. From the early 1970 s, participatory planning processes had been used to define what the region meant by livability and, in the 1990 s, a multi-stakeholder process was used to create the GVRD s award-winning Livable Region Strategic Plan. By 2001, the region was reviewing its plan as part of a new Sustainable Region Initiative. Within the region, several local authorities were familiar with Environmental 8
Management Systems, including ISO 14001, life cycle analysis, benchmarking et cetera. Making the transition to thinking longer term and using adaptive management was consistent with past experience. The GVRD s participation in cities PLUS was led by Ken Cameron, Manager of Policy and Planning and Johnny Carline, Chief Administrative Officer. The GVRD decided that maintaining the momentum of cities PLUS would be enhanced by building a Network of cities carrying out similar planning processes. Participation in the Network would facilitate sharing experiences and tools for implementation and would lower development costs for everyone. The key private sector consulting firm that developed the substantive content of cities PLUS was the Sheltair Group, led by Sebastian Moffatt and Elisa Campbell. Sheltair had developed and applied the concept of adaptive management, built a library of best practices for everything from green buildings to infrastructure, and had a track record of doing integrated urban planning. They had also developed supportive decision-making tools, including an automated benchmarking tool, and a visual scaling tool using Sankey diagrams. Sheltair brought their wealth of knowledge, experience and tools to cities PLUS, and, throughout the cities PLUS process, further refined it. The University of British Columbia (UBC) is the home of the Liu Institute for Global Issues. Under the leadership of the Honourable Lloyd Axworthy, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs for Canada, and the Honourable Michael Harcourt, former Mayor of Vancouver and Premier of the Province of British Columbia, the Institute became a partner in cities PLUS. It hosted the Advisory Board and convened a national conference to obtain the input of other Canadian cities. As well, the Sustainable Development Research Initiative at UBC, and its spin-off company, Envision Sustainability Tools, made over 15 years of investment in scenario building and backcasting available for the cities PLUS project. Their MetroQUEST software is a tool that gives users the ability to explore and test alternative 40-year future scenarios for cities and regions. The Greater Vancouver version of MetroQUEST was used to explore alternatives and to engage stakeholders and the public in the dialogue about desirable and sustainable futures. Dr. Patrick Condon of the University of British Columbia s Centre for Landscape Research, contributed his expertise to the cities PLUS Integrated Design Workshop. The International Centre for Sustainable Cities represented civil society in the cities PLUS collaborative. As well as contributing to the substance of cities PLUS, Dr. Nola-Kate Seymoar brought an international perspective to the plan and led the development of the project s legacy networks. ICSC took the lead in forming the +30 Network and serves as its Secretariat. In addition to the frameworks and tools used by cities PLUS and the GVRD, four other sets of approaches and tools have been included in this draft of the Guide Book. They include those of ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability 2, the Natural Step, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems and Smart Growth. 2 Formerly the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives 9
ICLEI has provided worldwide leadership in bringing local authorities into the sustainability dialogue. ICLEI wrote Chapter 28 in the Earth Summit Action Plan Local Agenda 21, and has built a network of cities focused on implementing its vision. Over 6000 local authorities have embarked on Local Agenda 21 processes 3. ICLEI uses campaigns (structured programs of principles, actions and measurable outcomes) accompanied by a set of tools, to tackle specific aspects of sustainability (notably Climate Change and Water). ICLEI serves a growing membership of over 500 communities and has resolutely kept the cities agenda before the international community. ICLEI s frameworks and tools are widely known and available, and have the advantage of extensive development and refinement at the local level. The Natural Step (TNS) is an approach to sustainability developed by Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt and a network of scientists in Sweden and applied to corporations and to communities and municipalities around the world. TNS uses a science-based approach, very much in keeping with the concept of the ecological footprint and the earth s carrying capacity, to guide decisions in the direction of sustainability. TNS is being successfully applied in the resort community of Whistler, BC, and there are over 60 communities in Sweden using the TNS framework. Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems is an initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme, Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, International Environmental Technology Centre. IETC, along with ICLEI, the Environmental Protection Authority Victoria (Australia) and Environment Canada developed the project and framework, along with a set of guiding principles referred to as The Melbourne Principles for Sustainable Cities. These principles are being widely adopted and a network of cities using the CASE framework is emerging. Smart Growth was originally developed in the United States and was introduced in British Columbia (BC), Canada in 1999. It provides a practical approach to issues of land use (controlling sprawl) and economic development, within a broad framework that sees the city as a system and includes environmental and social issues. In BC, Smart Growth on the Ground uses community charettes to engage citizens in designs and decisions about their future development. In the USA there is a network of cities using this approach (see www.smartgrowth.org), supported by the Growth Management Leadership Alliance (see www.gmla.org). Other comprehensive approaches to planning for long-term sustainability will be added as they are brought to the attention of members of the network. +30 Network In 2003, the International Centre for Sustainable Cities (ICSC) and its partners began building an international Network of cities willing to share their experiences, expertise and tools to foster very long-term planning for urban sustainability. The objective is to 3 see ICLEI survey at www.iclei.org 10
build a learning network where participating cities and communities can share experiences, largely through web-based exchanges, and come together face-to-face every 2 years in conjunction with high profile events. The +30 Network will meet, for example, at the World Urban Forum in Vancouver in 2006 on the 30 th Anniversary of the formation of UN HABITAT. The objective is to have 30 cities (half from developing country cities) for the 30 th Anniversary, thus the name +30. The Network will build the capacity of the participating cities to design and implement long-term strategies. 11