The Morning After

I am a big proponent of the living street.  Repurposing our roads and streets as areas to create connections instead of conduits for car traffic is something I feel strongly about.  I commute to work by scooter and I enjoy waling to the store and for recreation.  Right now, in my neighbourhood (Esquimalt Industrial Park) there are few sidewalks, let alone a safe path to take my family for a walk.

Living Streets recognize the roads are for all methods of transportation and are designed to allow the natural flow of cars to travel at optimal steady speeds that reduced, while allowing bicycles, pedestrians, and all modes of transportation as well.

The roads are landscaped.  This makes them more organic and human.  Creates scale, fights the Urban Heat Island effect, increases property value and is ascetically pleasing.

http://www.livingstreets.org.uk/

I think it would need to be a very special project to warrant over riding the OCP.  The Plan was created for a purpose and it is important that council upholds the values articulated in the document.  there are tools the council can create for variances with density bonusing that might have a tremendous value, but generally I would vote to uphold the values of the OCP.

LEED certification is the future of development.  A high standard to me would be buildings that adhere to the principles of LEED.

A) Educated.  There are some very complex and politically and emotionally charged issues that come up for the council to vote on.  It is important that councilors have the facts before moving forward with a vote.

B) Concise.  Councils need to be clear when communicated their ideas.

C) Plugged In.  Councilors must be able to listen to the community and hear what we want.  But must also show an intuition to recognize trends that the mainstream society may not know of yet, but once taught of, will embrace.