In 2006 Jacques Whitford was contracted by the City of Yellowknife (NWT) to help develop a set of Sustainability Planning Principles to be used by the City as part of its Community Energy Plan. The objective of these principles is to guide the land-use planning, subdivision design, and urban development of the City of Yellowknife (population 19,000) to ensure long-term environmental, social and economic sustainability of the community.
The Jacques Whitford Team was chosen for this project based on expertise in the field of sustainable development, and experience working with multi-stakeholder groups. The following services were provided:
- a review of sustainability planning initiatives in Canadian communities;
- effective engagement of the community in a dialogue on sustainability planning;
- an analysis of six existing frameworks for sustainability planning; and
- a set of recommended sustainability planning principles.
Often it is the case that municipalities simply attach themselves to the sustainability school of thought that happens to be “the flavour of the day”. However, the City of Yellowknife enjoyed the opportunity to consider many possible sets of sustainability principles and discuss them with a wide range of stakeholder through the framework created by Jacques Whitford. The Natural Step Framework, Triple Bottom Line, Melbourne Principles on Sustainable Cities, Smart Growth, New Urbanism, and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards were some of the key sustainability approaches discussed.
The focus of the Jacques Whitford project approach was on creating a completely participatory process that would allow for bottom-up and organic formulation of sustainability planning principles, suitable to the Yellowknife context. This involved a series of workshops. Project stakeholders, including City planning staff, public works staff, municipal councilors, local architects and engineers, real estate developers, community groups, environmental organizations, and professional association representatives were consulted during interactive workshops. The general public, including all interested citizens, were also invited to provide input based on their own unique experiences during a public workshop.
The results were the emergence a set of unique sustainability principles out of the discussions that draw on various schools of thought while reflecting the values and realities of a small Northern community. In the words of Michael Gannon, the Interim Yellowknife Energy Coordinator “nobody could argue with our methodology”. Most importantly, stakeholders and community members had a positive experience of the process, commenting that Jacques Whitford staff really knew how to “work the floor” and make a topic like sustainability accessible and enjoyable.