Charlottetown to develop eco-city plan WAYNE THIBODEAU The Guardian
The City of Charlottetown is spending thousands of dollars to hire a consultant to help the capital city develop a long-term economic, social, cultural and environmental plan.
The city has hired Stantec, a professional consulting company with offices in more than 130 cities across North America to develop the sustainability community plan.
Councillor Mitchell Tweel says the city has been talking green for some time now but it lacks a master plan. He said that’s what Stantec is going to develop for Prince Edward Island’s capital city.
Tweel sits on the city’s environment committee.
“It’s everything,” said Tweel. “It’s the buildings that we’re building. What we’re doing with the shoreline. Gas emissions. We’re going to look at everything.”
The total bill for the consultant’s work is $54,000. The city hopes the province will pay for about $32,000, leaving the city’s bill at about $22,000.
Sue Hendricken, manager of parks and recreation with the City of Charlottetown, is overseeing the Stantec project.
Hendricken says the federal government requires the city to complete the sustainability community plan before it can access new money from federal infrastructure programs.
“It’s a requirement now that if you are going to obtain funding in the future, your municipality has to have this done,” she said. “We need to develop key strategies in respect to those four pillars, including environment, economic sustainability, social and cultural.”
Still, Hendricken said it was work the city was carrying out anyway.
“For the last number of years, we’ve been doing strategic planning internally with regards to what we need to do with five-, 10-, 15-year capital plans, and really what this does is it helps us flesh out the strategic plan a little bit more.”
The report will be completed by Dec. 1.
Tweel said he’ll be pushing to ensure residents are consulted as Stantec begins the process.
“We want to open it up and have dialogue and engage our constituents. We want to be on the cutting edge.”
Sustainable cities:
— Wikipedia says a sustainable city, or eco-city, is a city designed with consideration of environmental impact, inhabited by people dedicated to minimisation of required inputs of energy, water and food;
— Richard Register first coined the term “ecocity” in his 1987 book, Ecocity Berkeley: building cities for a healthy future;
— A sustainable city can feed itself with minimal reliance on the surrounding countryside, and power itself with renewable sources of energy. The crux of this is to create the smallest possible ecological footprint, and to produce the lowest quantity of pollution possible.
SOURCE: Wikipedia
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Visit Your Neighbor Straford. They've done it from PEI writes: I think if you check our neighbors across the water you will find that Stratford did this two years ago. Culture, environment, the whole town hall. No sense reinventing something that's already done.
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Quiet Observer from Charlottetown, PEI writes: At first blush I was half impressed that our city council was doing something proactive and wise for a change.
Then Sue Hendricken cleared it up that they were doing this because they were forced to to access Federal infrastructure money.
Whew, my perception of city council rewmains in tact.
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rick from bc writes: you could heat all the homes in charlottetown with all the money the town has wasted on studies, consultants,and experts that they hire
an expert is just somebody from out town who wears a suit and carries a briefcase
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Just Saying... from PEI writes: So this only being done because the city cannot access any federal money unless it is....Good to see the city is real concerned!
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Marty L from PE writes: Developing an eco-city plan is a good idea for Charlottetown.
I hope that the consultants look at sidewalks, crosswalks, etc. as part of the process. Charlottetown is a nightmare for walkers (outside of the core downtown area).
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wise bear from PEI writes: OK, let's all agree it's a good idea. BUT 1) We don't have a development plan for the city (think waterfront; think Mr Birt's silted pond; think roundabout on Mt Edward Rd; think Power Centre) and 2) we could have a greater impact on the city's environment by shutting off the motors of the city's vehicles when they're parked than having another consultant's plan that sits on a shelf.
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hey Rick from BC from PEI writes: Hey Rick from BC. I'm an expert, I live in Charlottetown, and I don't wear a suit. However, because I live in Charlottetown nobody HERE considers me an expert. Just those folks away.
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Page Turner from PEI writes: A move to help the environment sounds great. I wonder why it's taken so long!
R-2000 homes have been around since the '80s but we see many buildings still not using this or other technology when being built. Don't need a study to tell you 6 liter toilets should be law and well insulated homes do save money.
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Money To Spend from PEI writes: Apparently the City has Dollars they must get rid of or loose before the next Budget Rolls in, hence unresearched ideas and plans!
What might be a good plan for the City would be to derive a plan for something truly needed and that would bring a positive change for City Residents!
Sadly, they seem to be just coming up with IDEAS for unnecessary projects to spend the money before the deadline!
Now if they overspend - WE WILL PAY AGAIN! But will have no imput of course!
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From Away from Ontario writes: Hey Rick.... I agree with the expert from out of town comment, but have met more experts on the island than anywhere else in the country....no shortage at all!
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D.J. from P.E.I. writes: Consultants,Consultants,Consultants,
Consultants,Consultants,Consultants,
What has this world come to???
Ask two old guys in a coffee shop what to do and you will get a better anwser to the problem for free.
The whole world has turned into pay the consultants big money, then the Politician can blame the cosultants if people don't like it.
When are the Politicians ever going to realize that they are elected and paid to make Decisions not the Consultants.
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Ha Ha from PE writes: Unless the public works folks with the city are smarter than the public works folks with the province, they wouldn't design anything with technology later than 1932, unless they were mandated by law.
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First comes before Second from pei writes: Why not start with what we already know. Use some money to have our compost picked up weekly in summer. That might allow us to have our windows open for fresh air instead of keeping them closed to a million crawling and flying insects. As for the buildings being built - simple - there is too many of them and most are too big to fit properly into our little city. We need to stop the condo building until there are enough folks to fill those we already have. Personally, I think many of those we already have built or started to build will be hard to fill. Hopefully those behind the building have some kind of idea how to fill them. Stop thinking that we can become a year round Palm Beach or Las Vegas type tourism mecca.
Draw up plans that fit a small province with small cities. The economy has to come before culture because one needs the cash in order to produce the other.
With tongue in cheek I may say that my children are a multi-cultural society being that they are English, Irish, Scotch, Dutch, French and Lebonese combined. So, for environment start with changes to Waste Watch. For culture let the people understand that there is more than rock concerts to enjoy in this world. I'd personally love to attend a concert that features our own Canadian Celtic. Also, before reaching out into the world for cultural experiences we need to learn something more about our own talented artists and entertainers from various regions of Canada. Advertising here is too low-key.
Promote from within first. I'm not a politician nor an expert on any of this stuff. I am just someone that hopes we can get our priorities straight before we sink this Island completely.
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Why are we Paying em from PEI writes: If they need to spend thousands of dollars to hire Professional Experts to ascertain what should be done to bring productivity to our City - Why are we paying them? Disband City Hall and save the money all these unthinkers are earning! If they don't know how to do the planning or know what our City needs why are they there? I can give them an outline on both for FREE!
If I hear my taxes are going up for this utter nonsense LOOK OUT! Or for the other nonsense the WHEREABOUT ROUNDABOUT! The City Needs a Earthquake to shake up City Hall!
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Head Shaker from pe writes: Why are we Paying em, If you know everything why aren't you there?
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markus from PE writes: I have a great idea to add to the ecocity plan. Why don't we actually use the power generated by our windmills instead of selling it to the Americans?
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Ari Jane from CHarlottetown, PE writes: I agree with first comes before second. the Condos are a bad idea. The majority of Islanders cannot afford them, they block the view of the water and don't fit with the architectural style of the city. I think part of being/becoming an ecocity means maintaining the natural beauty and history of a city. Giving all citizens access to this beauty. I just don't think that is a priority in this case.
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Green space from Charlottetown, PEI writes: The city really doesn't have that much in open green space.
Please, let's incorporate the Experimental Farm into any eco-city plan before it's taken away.
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