A North Shore Business Improvement Association task force is about to begin looking at ways it can “drive the revitalization” of the community based on the city’s ambitious yet-to-be-adopted neighborhood plan.
Jeremy Heighton, executive director for the NSBIA, said this year, the association’s economic development task force will be looking at how it can start moving toward the concepts and directions laid out in the North Shore Neighbourhood Plan.
“We really believe that we need to drive the revitalization of the North Shore, not be a partner in it — we need to drive it forward. We need to be the cheerleaders. And that's the role we've taken on at the BIA,” Heighton said.
A draft of the North Shore Neighbourhood Plan was reviewed by council in a committee of the whole meeting in April. According to the city, the final plan was to be completed by the end of 2021, with a goal to have the plan adopted by spring 2022.
Heighton said the plan is now expected to go before council in early 2023, but the NSBIA has met with the city and the partihave agreed to move forward with strategizing.
“The challenge that we run into so often in communities is there's a lot of really great plans, they get a lot of effort and a lot of work to be developed, but then they go on a shelf,” Heighton said.
“We’re saying, you know what, we know the plan is coming, so let's start moving toward that plan so when it's formally approved by council, we're already running in the right direction.”
According to Heighton, the neighbourhood plan serves as a guidance document for the character and feel envisioned for an area, but executing the plan is “only about 10 per cent city, and about 90 per cent developer.”
Heighton said the BIA’s task force will start to look at each segment of the North Shore’s commercial corridors and determine what resources are needed to achieve these concepts.
“What type of developers do we want in? What are we going to do with existing landowners to get their land transitioned over," Heighton said.
"Those are the kinds of things we're going to be doing on the economic development task force this year, is really starting to vision each of the segments of our North Shore commercial corridors, and determine how we can bring all the proper resources to play so that we accelerate the implementation of a plan,” Heighton said.
He said there are three key areas the BIA is looking at along the Tranquille corridor — the Eighth Street and Tranquille Road corridor, the stretch past the Northills Shopping Centre and the section of Tranquille closest to the Thompson River.
For the Eighth Street area, Heighton said the NSBIA is looking at attracting developers to add density to that part of the corridor.
“In the last couple of months, I've been in other centres around the province meeting with larger developers talking about some larger properties, such as the one behind Library Square, where there's a massive piece of property there that's pre-zoned for significant towers,” Heighton said.
“How do we get that property moving? Who's gonna come into the town to do that? Those are the kind of things that we're looking for.”
Further south along Tranquille, Heighton said the association is looking at maintaining lower density, developing smaller four- to six-storey buildings with ground-floor commercial space while keeping a “fun and funky,” artistic and eclectic feel.
Heighton said this strategizing work represents a new role and focus for the NSBIA.
“Traditionally, BIA’s have been marketing focused. They've been really sort of events focused, but that's about it. As we start to see the transition occurring across the province of BIA’s, we're seeing more economic development, more community leadership, more of these types of roles coming on stream, because we're boots on the ground,” Heighton said.
“We’re the liaison between those who can do and those who have the money to make happen. And so that's our goal, is to facilitate those conversations.”
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