Sustainable Neighbourhood Retrofit Action Plan - Lake Wilcox Neighbourhood, Richmond Hill Ontario
Type of initiative
FCM Green Municipal Fund - Plans, Studies, Pilots
Sector
Multi-sector (Plans)
Project value$262,154
Project Type
Plan
Sub Sector
Sustainable Neighbourhoods
Grant amount$100,000
Program type
GMF
Municipality
Regional Municipality of York, ON
Status
Fully Disbursed
Population
1,173,334
Project timeline
2009 - 2012
Project number
10341
Description
With questions being raised about the speed and effectiveness of environmental improvements in established urban communities, the Town of Richmond Hill will, in a pilot project, create a sustainable neighbourhood retrofit action plan (SNAP) for its Lake Wilcox community. This collaborative project to increase community sustainability and contribute to climate change mitigation will bring together the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), the Town of Richmond Hill, and York Region—the project management team (PMT)—with municipal partners, community groups, residents, and businesses.
The members of the PMT are already integrating sustainability principles into their policies, plans, and programs, but the SNAP process will look at options for urban neighbourhood change in a more integrated way. The scale of the SNAP will be intimate (the Lake Wilcox community contains about 3,800 households), but it will align with ongoing municipal initiatives and is expected to span public and private lands alike. The SNAP will characterize current conditions in the neighbourhood (the baseline), develop a sustainability framework, and identify potential retrofit options. A major effort will be made to identify barriers to implementation and to develop strategies to overcome those barriers, including a business case and marketing strategy.
The Lake Wilcox SNAP is expected to develop new information about cost-effective technical solutions and strategies for overcoming barriers to sustainability in older neighbourhoods. It is already attracting international interest as the only currently known planning process for comprehensive neighbourhood retrofit, including elements in brownfield remediation, energy, transportation, waste and water. Experience with the Lake Wilcox SNAP will be shared at conferences and in articles and will be transferrable through potential research partnerships.
(Project description from original funding application)
Applicant
Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, ON