Leadership Lessons for Sustainable Initiatives
By Linda Naiman
The Creative City and Sustainability
Vancouver, host of the 2010 Winter Olympics, is a vibrant, global, culturally
diverse city which recognizes that culture contributes to the ecosystem and
sustainability of a city. Vancouver's Creative City Initiative is part of a
10-year cultural plan that incorporates the four pillars of sustainability:
Environmental responsibility, economic health, social equity and cultural
vitality.1 Objectives include sustaining art and culture, supporting
creative industries, and creating lively communities where people want to live,
work and play.
Woodward's, a major urban renewal project, exemplifies the ideals of the Creative
City. Built in 1903, Woodward's was once a substantial department store, serving
the low-income community of the Downtown East Side (DTES). When it closed in 1993,
the area deteriorated into a wasteland of urban decay, homelessness, drugs and
poverty. Redevelopment was stalled for years because of competing interests amongst
business, developers, government and never-ending conflicts with DTES activists.
The City of Vancouver purchased the building in 2003 with a commitment to include a
mix of social housing, market condominiums, businesses, educational facilities,
non-profits and government offices in the redevelopment. This might seem unworkable
to many communities, but the success of this project provides valuable leadership
lessons for Arizona cities and towns involved in sustainability initiatives.
Creative City Leadership Lessons
Establish principles to guide the project
Vancouver developed a set of 19 Guiding Principles2 including:
Be financially and environmentally sustainable
Be developed in a timely manner
Provide employment opportunities for area residents
Act as a catalyst for urban revitalization
Incorporate the talents, visions and desires of the DTES
Incorporate user group involvement in the design process
Create a lively street front
Take advantage of heritage opportunities
Establish a Vision in Concert with the Community
Vancouver initiated a "co-design" program to envision, design and plan a socially,
environmentally and economically sustainable solution. The program culminated in a
week long "Ideas Fair" that brought together several thousand citizens; including
artists, local residents, community groups, business people and First Nations interests;
to decide what the future of Woodward's should be.
Build Partnerships: Shift Power from Imposing to Including
A Woodward's Community Advisory Committee (CAC) was convened and staffed by volunteer community leaders, activists, housing experts, architects, and business people. Seventy percent were welfare recipients. Michael Flanigan, Vancouver's Director of Real Estate Services, says, "The work of the CAC was directly responsible for securing the largest non-profit sector hub in any private development in Vancouver."
Define Roles and Responsibilities for City Council to Adopt as Policy
These policies helped keep the project on track even when power changed hands after municipal elections.
Shift from Conflict to Collaboration
Jim Green, a DTES community advocate, and former elected City Councilor, was instrumental in getting the project off the ground. He points out: "The low-income community and the developer worked in tandem for mutual benefits. Neither group could have accomplished this alone. It was the creativity of the low-income residents that allowed the private sector to flourish." Green, now a consultant to the developer, calls this process "reciprocal development."
Demolish Myths about Community Planning
When the condominiums sold out within two hours (in 2006) at prices ranging from $250,000 to $1.4 million, Green asserted, "The myth that you can't sell condominiums in the DTES, (especially with social housing in the same building) was destroyed."
Honor the Desires of the Community to Achieve Sustainability
Woodward's is the realization of a vision where people from different walks of life can live and work side-by-side and thrive. The 400 million dollar project will be completed in January 2010, and features a Silver LEED certified sustainable environment with green spaces on rooftops, Simon Fraser University's School for Contemporary Arts, W2, a community-based media and arts centre; a rooftop daycare centre, 536 condominiums, 200 non-market housing units, office space for non-profits and governments, a supermarket, drugstore, bank, restaurant, public atrium and plaza.
Flanigan says, "Woodward's serves as a model of inspiration for all future City initiated cultural, social, mixed use market and non-market housing projects. Now, U.S. cities are looking to Woodward's as a role model."
1 The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability: Culture's Essential Role in Public Planning, (2001) by Jon Hawkes
Linda Naiman is founder of Creativity at Work, and helps organizations develop greater capacities for creativity, innovation, teamwork and leadership, through coaching, training and consulting. She has worked with municipal and federal governments in Canada and the U.S., including the U.S. Navy, and is co-author of Orchestrating Collaboration at Work. She is proud to be a resident of Vancouver. For more information, please visit www.creativityatwork.com.
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