As orientation week kicks off for Vancouver Island University students, future community planners in the Masters of Community Planning department began their schoolweek with a project focused on Nanaimo’s south end.
“[This project] started with an idea that we’ve got so much to talk about development, so it’ll be really interesting to see what the students come up with,” said Sydney Robertson, Chairperson of the South End Community Association. “If they have any new ideas for us, our little fresh perspective and both on- in a sort of vision of how to maybe solve or deal with some tricky spots in the neighborhood, but also I’m kind of hoping maybe with the process as well.”
The class was attended by Robertson, and two fellow associates; Kathryn J Hazel, the Vice Chair, and ‘MJ’, who works for the association. Ryan Stolz, Sales Director for Saltbox Marketing, was also present.
They were giving their advice to a room full of students who were making plans and ideas for certain districts of the South End.
“The South End Community Association approached [the program] asking if we wanted to get involved with helping them come up with plans to help develop the area,” said Sarah Foulkes, a student for the program. “As I’m sure you know it’s one of the older areas of Nanaimo and is definitely an excellent place to to actually have some of this development happen because of the city— it’s mostly been focused in the north end. Now developers are moving into the south end as well so it’s a pretty good chance for a especially for the first years, they’re being thrown in the deep end.”
The students were split into different groups to tackle different areas and aspects of the south end.
“It’s like kind of a crash course on like, we’re going to consult with the public, we’re gonna create a presentation— and the presentation is due Friday— that shows what you can do in this short amount of time and then you would recommend what you can to the community,” said Brad Vince, a fellow student and president of the masters of community planning student association. “So we’re not looking so much like zoning bylaws and ‘what kind of funding do we have for this project’ it’s more so ‘what is possible in this area’ kind of thing.”
Presentations will consist of ‘bubble diagrams’ circling what could go where, though some concept sketches may be present as well.
Foulkes predicts that many of the students will be focused on green spaces, such as parks and other densely populated areas. Vince predicts that among students, there will be a focus on pedestrians.
The program is two years long, and the class was mixed between returning students and fresh ones. The first year consists of learning about zoning bylaws, and ‘all the competencies of being a committee planner.’
On Wednesday, many of the students visited ‘the site’ for the first time.
