Harbour area plan moves forward

The Town of Gibsons is one step closer to having an overarching plan to govern development in and around the harbour.

The planning committee and council voted July 27 to select Matrix Architecture and Planning Inc. to conduct the first phase of the harbour area plan.

"This is going to give us an opportunity to do a holistic plan that will look at implications of development in all the different segments and quarters of the lower town," said Mayor Barry Janyk in an interview this week.

He added that developments like Shoal Bay and the harbour expansion underline the need for a public-approved vision for the Town to go by.

Gibsons director of planning, Chris Marshall, said with past development proposals around the harbour, many of the same issues come up with the public and council including height and massing of buildings, view corridors, traffic, transit, parking and environmental issues. Matrix will now gather intel on those aspects and consult with the public to determine what resident's priorities are when it comes the future of the harbour.

Matrix will soon organize a three-day charrette -a brainstorming session between members of the public and design professionals to come up with options for design of a particular area. The public will be able to offer input on its priorities through a series of open houses, presentations and workshops.

Ultimately, Matrix will come up with three potential harbour plans that the public can choose between.

"They'll come up with three options. They'll look for feedback from the public on the preferred option and then, whatever the public suggests in terms of the feedback they get, that will be the recommended option [Matrix] suggest to go forward with and council will decide whether to adopt that option or not," Marhsall said. "Presumably if there is good, solid public feedback and that's what the public wants, that's what council will presumably follow through with."

Janyk said he has high expectations for the public to weigh in during the public process.

"People have to be engaged, otherwise this whole thing isn't going to work," he said. "Given the passion in the community about the waterfront and the Lower Gibsons Landing area, I think we'll see a pretty strong and positive reaction to the work [the consultants] are going to do."

Janyk said choosing Matrix was not an easy decision as there were other strong candidates. Council made its decision based on experience and expertise of the design team, environmental plans, finances and plans for public process.

According to the Town, giving Matrix the edge was its design team including Paul Lebofsky, the man behind the 1995 Town of Gibsons downtown revitalization project, Michael Von Hausen, a professor at Simon Fraser University's urban planning department and Cal Srigley, famous in the landscape architecture circles for his ability to work quickly with the public and produce quality designs.

The charratte is tentatively scheduled for the end of September while the final report including preferred public option is due for council to vote on in November.