District of North Vancouver Sustainable Community Plan

The District of North Vancouver (DNV) will develop a sustainable community plan that will serve as their revised Official Community Plan (OCP). The Plan will define how to achieve sustainability in the context of an inner suburb using the Natural Step principles of sustainability. The plan will address global trends including climate change and peak oil, regional patterns such as a rapidly aging population, rising housing costs, cultural integration and aging infrastructure, and local concerns such as nominal growth rate, local school closures and uniformity of housing stock. Goals, targets and indicators in the waste, water, energy, Brownfields and transportation sectors will be established through back-casting, an analysis of current baseline conditions, a community values survey, and through a review and implementation of best practices. The DNV will employ a wide range of public consultation tools such as blogs, web dialogues, open houses and community value surveys, while charrettes, dialogue sessions and discussions on choices and trade-offs will offer more in-depth engagement. Based on the principles of collaborative planning, a new grassroots group of residents will work with the DNV to design and deliver a series of unique public sessions, to effect individual behaviour change and reduce carbon footprint in the community. Results of the plan will be shared through staff peer exchanges, articles in relevant and accessible planning journals, and through an online enhanced visual presentation of the completed plan.