Choosing our Future:
From Vision to Action
Choosing our Future is an innovative joint planning initiative of the City of Ottawa, the City of Gatineau and the National Capital Commission (NCC). The goal of the initiative is to help the National Capital Region (NCR) face the challenges of the 21st century, such as climate change, a shifting global economy and resource scarcities, by integrating the concepts of sustainability and resiliency into all facets of regional planning and design. The premise of the initiative is that a sustainable community is not only efficient, but also resilient – a community designed to be adaptable and prepared for a variety of possible futures.
Choosing our Future is about ensuring that sustainability and resiliency are crosscutting themes that can be integrated effectively into land-use planning, building design, infrastructure and social and economic systems. The project will extend planning time horizons to 30 to 100 years to identify and respond to long-term trends and to fully understand the long-term consequences of today’s decisions.
The initiative will ultimately produce three plans that are integrated and long-term. Collectively, the final reports will create a vision for long-term sustainability, identify strategies and policies that will guide a new generation of strategic plans, and produce a sustainability/resiliency lens that can assist everyday decision-making. These recommendations will address the short-, medium- and long-term horizons of the NCR. The three plans, which are to be completed by the spring of 2011, are as follows:
Sustainability Plan – with its long-term vision and 30-year targets and strategies, this plan will function as a strategic policy document at the highest tier, providing an overarching context and direction for government policy throughout the region.
Risk Mitigation and Prevention Plan – will build on the Sustainability Plan and will include a number of research projects, culminating in a comprehensive set of recommendations for how to increase the resiliency of the region through long-term planning, and particularly through alternative approaches to land-use and infrastructure design. The plan will work towards a community that is capable of reducing risks and recovering from potential social, epidemiological and natural hazards.
Community Energy Plan – will establish an approximate mix of strategies based upon a set of broad performance targets for security, resource availability, emissions, costs, and the carrying capacity of built infrastructure and ecological systems. Strategies will integrate alternative energy system design (the supply side), with energy efficient buildings, transportation, land-use planning and other demand side factors.
Choosing our Future was initiated in 2004 with a major conference on community sustainability. At this conference, the Cities of Ottawa and Gatineau both recognized the importance of continuing and improving joint long-term planning. This was further enhanced in 2006 when the Tripartite National Planning Committee, consisting of representatives from Ottawa, Gatineau and the NCC, agreed that the NCR must plan and function together as a sustainable economic and environmental unit.
Following this, in May 2006, Ottawa City Council directed City staff to seek partnership funding in support of the Choosing our Future initiative. Since that time, more than $1 million in funding for the project has been obtained, and partnership agreements between the City of Ottawa, the City of Gatineau and the NCC have been formalized. Upon this foundation, various activities have unfolded with the goal of creating a shared understanding of success and creating a strong team of stakeholders and resources as the project evolves.
A workshop session took place in October 2008. The workshop was designed to increase resource groups, partners and internal staff’s understanding of the Choosing our Future project and to develop an initial set of end-state goals that now guide all subsequent phases of the initiative.
A foresight workshop was held in December 2008 as a follow-up to the October workshop session. The one-day foresight workshop teamed-up designers, planners, municipal and federal expert staff, stakeholders and community leaders to explore the implications of external forces on the NCR and to develop interventions. The foresight workshop was followed by a three-day design charrette, at which working groups reviewed the workshop outcomes and applied the interventions at various scales, from regional to neighbourhood.
There will be a number of opportunities for the public to get involved with the Choosing our Future initiative before its targeted completion date in 2011.
A community partnership program will be launched in June 2009. It will provide opportunities for organizations to become engaged in the various project activities and increase their knowledge about sustainability and its relation to the NCR. This program will be open to any business, non-profit or community organization that wants to align itself with the Choosing our Future goals and objectives.
In addition, the Choosing our Future symposium, which is scheduled for the end of September 2009, will invite the public to assist in the review and refinement of the project’s end-state goals and sustainability principles for the NCR. The event will also provide community grassroots organizations and other partners with the opportunity to present their point of view and ideas on how a sustainable and resilient region can be developed.