Metro Vancouver has adopted a new regional growth strategy that aims to guide development in the region over the next three decades in a way that enhances livability and contributes to the sustainability of the region’s development.
Twenty municipal councils, the Tsawwassen First Nation, TransLink and the Fraser Valley and Squamish-Lillooet regional districts all formally accepted the strategy Friday.
Lois Jackson, chairwoman of Metro Vancouver’s board, said “Achieving unanimous support from 24 affected local governments is a very high bar. I don’t know any other jurisdiction that requires that level of support.”
“It is a plan that supports the economy by providing investment and development opportunities in urban centres and transit supported development areas; by protecting the supply of industrial land so critical to the economy and the role of the region as Canada’s pre-eminent gateway to the Pacific Rim countries, and by protecting agricultural land, an often overlooked but significant contributor to our economy and food security.”
The plan also encourages the development of “complete communities” that support walking, cycling, public transit and healthy lifestyles and by encouraging a supply of housing suitable for and affordable to all sectors of the population.
Sustainability and environmental initiatives also play a large part in the plan.
The new growth strategy replaces the livable region strategic plan, adopted in 1996.
“It builds on the strengths of the Livable Region Strategic Plan” said Derek Corrigan, chairman of Metro Vancouver’s regional planning committee, “but it also recognizes that time moves on and new issues needed to be addressed, particularly job dispersal and industrial land protection.”
Jennifer Harrison