2022 API Conference Program

In 2013, the City of Charlottetown implemented a new secondary plan for the 500 Lot Area (Downtown Charlottetown) that included provisions for a form based code and design review process to assist Council, staff, developers and the public with new tools to ensure compatible and harmonious development in the historic downtown. In particular ,the new plan provided additional planning review processes and criteria to ensure that proper design requirements were reviewed and addressed in order to respond to concerns with how new development proposals were impacting the existing built form and historic downtown fabric and neighbourhoods. The tour will involve a number of recent buildings that required design review of their plans and will highlight the issues that were discussed and outline some of the discussion and concerns by the City’s Design Review Committee. The Design Review Committee is similar to a Heritage Design Committee wherein their focus is on new construction and design criteria as opposed to renovating and updating older heritage building stock. The tour will highlight the successes of these recent changes and garner discussion with planners as to what they like and dislike about the projects under review.

This workshop will present examples of Natural Asset Management (NAM) projects and explore experiences and issues when considering natural infrastructure (NI) in community planning. Participants will discuss best practices, lessons learned from diverse projects in the Atlantic Provinces and strategies for integrating NAM into existing plans and programs. Topics include approaches to address barriers to working across disciplines and departments, developing capabilities and expertise, and supporting favoured solutions with evidence. Your participation will contribute to a study informing professional practice and capacity building for natural infrastructure planning and all participants will be sent a workshop report including presentations and feedback.

The marine impacts of climate change will widely affect Atlantic Canada communities. The natural coast is already impacted by development that has compromised its capacity to adapt to accelerated sea level rise and erosion. Intensification of development at the coast increases exposure to natural processes, putting it and associated economic, social, and cultural assets at risk. Common responses to erosion and flooding are shoreline armouring or sea walls. These measures are sometimes appropriate, but they require ongoing maintenance and replacement, enable maladaptive development, and destroy habitat. Environmentally informed land use and nature-based techniques are gaining acceptance in Canadian communities, especially for the associated ecosystem services. Ecosystem services support more robust environmental decision making and justify the conservation, restoration or creation of blue-green infrastructure and nature-based solutions. In the coastal zone, nature-based alternatives to hard infrastructure can protect and restore the natural coast by dampening wave energy, creating habitat, and providing space for habitat migration. In this session, we look at the case for nature-based approaches to protect our communities, tools for nature-based approaches for coastal adaptation, and on-the-ground examples of using nature to protect our shorelines.

With the arrival of the Census 2021 numbers, the high rate of growth in Atlantic Canada’s cities and towns is evident, and it is clear comprehensive growth planning is more important than ever before. But where should we start?
This session looks at comprehensive planning from opposite ends: top-down and bottom-up. Using the Charlottetown Growth Management Strategy and the Lunenburg Comprehensive Community Plan as case studies, join us as we explore different approaches to comprehensive planning in Atlantic Canada, their successes and challenges, and the various considerations for planners and municipal governments to weigh when deciding the appropriate approach for their communities.

This session will deliver a platform for critical discussion with colleagues in the Atlantic Region about accessibility and the roles of planning, drawing on lessons learned in Nova Scotia. The panel speakers will discuss their experiences related to accessibility planning in their jurisdictions, also relating to the subtheme of Lessons from COVID.

In the Atlantic Region, Nova Scotia has mandated all municipalities to develop an accessibility plan under its Accessibility Act (2017), and Newfoundland and Labrador just enacted its Accessibility Act (December 2021). It is timely for planning professionals in Atlantic Canada to carry out, along with allied professionals, a forum to learn from the practical application of this new focus in the Region and exchange ideas for next steps forward in creating places that persons of all ages and (dis)abilities can live, work, and play.

Accessibility here means a society’s capacity to enable everyone to equitably access opportunities in life—from utilizing services, gaining employment, and accessing information, to participating in social life, contributing to the local economy, and supporting decision making important for the community. While the concept of accessibility suggests that planners have a substantial role to play, planners have not yet led the effort of creating accessible built and social environments in a significant way. We hope this panel will provide an opportunity to foster a dialogue and identify champions in the efforts that elevate our practice on accessibility in the region.

To become an effective ally, the presenter will touch on the importance of Reconciliation and the 94 Calls to Action as well as the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Peoples. Learn as much as we can on First Nation history and culture including the impacts; after first contact, the Royal Proclamation, the Indian Act, Section 35 of the Constitutional Act 1982 and the Residential School System. He will share the City of Fredericton’s Allyship journey so far and its plans moving forward.

Main streets, whether they serve an entire city or town or a local neighbourhood, carry important economic, cultural, and social functions. Main streets are not only places of economic opportunity; they are also where people of all backgrounds come together to share common experiences and participate in civic life. The buildings and public spaces along main street often contribute to the image and identity of the place.

Shifts in how and where we live and shop have led to a decentralization of people and activity, resulting in disinvestment along main streets. More recent trends like the rise of on-line shopping have brought about new challenges, which have only been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic.

For this session, Urban Strategies Inc. and the City of Saint John have partnered to facilitate a discussion around the future of local main streets. What trends are impacting the vitality of main streets? What strategies have municipalities applied to bring about positive change? Do we need to rethink the role of main streets? We will explore these questions and others in the context of Adelaide Street in Saint John’s North End, a street that’s planned as a traditional neighbourhood service corridor.

In the first part of this session, Tolulope Victoria Akerele will provide an overview of her doctoral research on building inclusive cities and mobility systems for immigrants in Atlantic Canada. It draws on a systematic study establishing the importance of enhancing immigrants’ direct participation in the transit governance and planning process in Atlantic Canada. It asks about immigrants’ experiences within transit spaces and how municipal transit policy frames immigrant participation in transit planning, mobility, equity, and inclusion. It takes a mixed-methods approach, combining policy document analysis, key informant interviews with an online survey and ride-along interviews while focusing on St. John’s, Newfoundland and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Although currently in the data collection stage, it will present preliminary results from the key informant interviews and an online survey. As an immigrant herself, Presenter Tolulope Victoria Akerele will share how the study can inform transit policies, improve Atlantic Canada’s attraction as an immigrant destination and improve immigrant integration.

The second part of this session will explore how various planning strategies can be applied to achieve oral health equity at the community level. This project by a team of Master of Planning students at Dalhousie University looks at Spryfield – a sprawled suburb of Halifax, Nova Scotia – as a case study in improving oral health access for immigrants. Spryfield currently faces barriers to achieving equitable oral health. Following spatial analyses, a review of literature, and qualitative research, we refined three planning strategies to be applied to Spryfield: education & outreach, land-use planning, and mobile dentistry.

The presentation will review common determinants of oral health inequity, a background study of Spryfield’s oral health barriers, and the details of each planning strategy. We hope that our presentation encourages further discussions regarding the role of planning in promoting oral health equity and access.