An important challenge today is designing our cities and streets to facilitate heathier, more active lifestyles. This has a number of impacts for all age groups, including children. At the neighbourhood level, the quality and safety of streets influences a child’s ability to experience their community. Nowhere is this more keenly observed than with the…
We are pleased to share that Civicplan and Bike for Mike have won an Urban Design & Architecture Award for the Daily School Route in the Visions & Master Plans category. This project created a detailed strategy for Student Streets that combined safety improvements with active transportation planning to help boost active school travel across…
The Daily School Route (DSR) is an enhanced approach to active school travel that creates active transportation systems for kids. The DSR sees kids as “transportation users” within their own system and creates a network of routes, called Student Streets, to help facilitate safe, effective active school travel. The goal is to see 100 per…
One of the challenges of the Bike Share system, like all forms of public transportation, is encouraging and ensuring that a broad diversity of people, ages, genders, cultural and racial backgrounds, as well as physical abilities and incomes can access this public resource. In that vein, the Everyone Rides Initiative (ERI) is dedicated to making…
The Government of Canada’s long-term investment plan for infrastructure is an opportunity to reshape the country through many direct and collaborative projects with provinces, territories, municipalities, Indigenous partners and the private sector. The plan identifies regional differences, such as large versus small communities, as well as rural, northern and Indigenous communities that face particular infrastructure…
YWCA Hamilton recently opened the doors of the Putman Family YWCA, a renewal of their location at 51 Ottawa Street North in Hamilton. The new facility is a dynamic community hub combining affordable housing, economic development infrastructure, and state-of the-art green building technology. As is the case with many successful projects, planning was key right…
We are proud to share that Civicplan and Hamilton Civic Museums are recipients of the Award of Excellence in Community Engagement from the Ontario Museum Association for the Reimagine Our Museums project. “The Awards of Excellence Committee was particularly impressed with your nomination and consider the work undertaken as a profound and impactful template for…
We are pleased to share that Civicplan, Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority & Toms + McNally Design have won an Urban Design & Architecture Award for our Fisherman’s Pier District Concept Plan in the Visions & Master Plans category. This project combined an interesting site with immense potential, alongside a robust participatory planning process that brought two…
The Daily School Route (DSR) is excited to announce that we have won a 2021 Community in Motion Award. The DSR is an active transportation system for kids, with kids. Civicplan is a proud project partner on this great initiative. Our goal is to have 100% of students walking or wheeling to and from school…
The use of technology to help with public engagement in the planning process has seen a big boost during the COVID pandemic. While physical distancing requirements have limited traditional models of engagement, such as PICs or open houses, it has also exposed how, in many ways, these methods are no longer the best and only…
YWCA Hamilton’s Uplift Program has received $6.4 million from Federal Economic Development Canada. Civicplan worked with YWCA Hamilton to design the strategy and funding proposal for this innovative program. The Uplift Program provides participants the opportunity to reskill or upskill in the advanced manufacturing and specialized technology fields through certification training and additional supports related…
Civicplan takes a participatory planning approach to engagement that is multifaceted and flexible. It begins by understanding the type of engagement that works best for clients so that we can design a custom process to meet their needs. We work to set clear expectations about the nature of engagement, whether it is seeking simple feedback,…
We are honoured to share that Civicplan has won a Cultural Heritage Landscape Award with our project partner the Durand Neighbourhood Association. Thank you to the HMHC. #ONHeritageweek @ONheritage
As communities adjust to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, a vibrant global discussion is taking place about how cities should provide more street space to facilitate safer physical distancing. Even with staged re-openings, the expectation of a second wave has planners thinking about how to design streets to anticipate a new normal over the…
Civicplan won two Urban Design and Architecture Awards for work in Participatory Planning, Public Engagement & Neighbourhood Design. PlanLocal: Beautiful Streets & Spaces won the Award of Excellence for Visions and Plans and The Durand Neighbourhood Character Project won the Award of Merit for Civic Achievements. PlanLocal: Beautiful Streets & Spaces Project description How do…
Good, proactive urban planning reimagines city spaces that may be overlooked but hold great potential. This is the case in the area just south of downtown Hamilton. The James-John Street South district (SouthTown) is a diverse commercial area in Hamilton, south of the downtown Central Business District. The area contains a variety of land uses,…
Participatory Planning is a way of doing planning that puts residents at the centre of decision making in their community. Paul Shaker, RPP, is a principal and co-founder of Civicplan, a Hamilton-based company that has developed a participatory planning platform called PlanLocal to help residents engage more directly in planning their neighbourhods. It combines elements…
How a carefully layered participatory planning process gave community residents a voice in municipal spending. Deciding how to spend money on neighbourhood infrastructure improvements is no mean feat. Which projects get the money over others, or do you divide the spend evenly across all potential ventures? Assuming a split according to greatest needs, how do…
Why Bike Share? Cities across North America from Atlanta to Vancouver have established bike share programs to address a variety of urban issues and policy objectives. Promoting cycling as a means of everyday transportation supports public health officials, city planners, environmental advocates and sustainably minded transportation planners. In general, bike share programs promise to encourage…
How do you get more people to engage effectively in planning their community? That’s a constant question we face as we design and launch planning projects. While there isn’t a one size fits all approach, there are tools that tend to be more helpful at getting people to express themselves. Online tools can be very…
We get asked all the time about participatory planning. What is it? How does it work? Participatory planning is a way of doing planning that puts residents at the centre of decision-making in their community. That can be done in many ways, but the end result should be the same: the community feels ownership over the…
When you think of your neighbourhood, chances are the community spaces that come to mind include your street, the local park, and the neighbourhood school. This isn’t surprising: an elementary school is typically a centerpiece of a neighbourhood and it becomes a focal point for travel twice a day for children and parents. Whether by…
We could build better neighbourhoods by focusing on how and where kids have the most fun. Kids playing tag, a street hockey game, hopscotch on the sidewalk. These could all be scenes from a commercial promoting physical activity or selling sports apparel. They equally call to mind common ideas about neighbourhood play, but is it…
Throughout 2018, the Bay Area Recreation Council (BARC) has been collecting visual and written information about the aesthetic qualities and public perceptions of Hamilton Harbour. Now we want to hear from you. BARC has teamed up with Civicplan to launch PlanLocal: Let’s Talk Water – an engagement process to ask residents from across the watershed…
Civicplan wins the 2018 International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Canada Core Values Award for Extending the Practice through Creativity, Contribution and Innovation in the Field. IAP2 Canada is an association of professionals in the field of public participation (P2), who seek to promote and improve the practice in relation to individuals, governments, institutions and…
Civicplan was recognized as a finalist for the 2018 David Crombie Award as part of the Urban Leadership Awards at the Canadian Urban Institute. For the past 14 years, the Urban Leadership Awards Program has focused on identifying individuals and organizations and showcasing their exceptional contributions to healthy urban development. The David Crombie Award recognizes…
Each year, the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP) recognizes the best feature articles published in Plan Canada magazine. Civicplan received an Honourable Mention award for the article PlanLocal: Data-Driven participatory planning. The article appeared in the Digital Cities edition of Plan Canada. The Plan Canada Awards were established to recognize the best articles published in…
Some of the Civicplan team had the recent opportunity to visit beautiful downtown Goderich, Ontario. Situated on Lake Huron, Goderich is a town of around 8,000 people. Of particular interest is Goderich’s downtown civic square, an octagonal traffic circle known as ‘The Square’. The Square was formally listed in the Register of Historic Place…
Civicplan wins the Community in Motion Award recognizing work on promoting pedestrian mobility and a pedestrian-friendly environment. Civicplan wins Community in Motion Award for pedestrian friendly organization. This is awarded to an individual business/organization or group of businesses/organizations that demonstrate significant impact on promoting pedestrian mobility and a pedestrian-friendly environment through infrastructure, promotional programs or other…
As part of a series of articles about the Ontario Professional Planners Institute (OPPI) Excellence in Planning Awards, Civicplan was highlighted in a recent issue of the Ontario Planning Journal about the award-winning PlanLocal process. The following is an except from the Journal. You can find the full article here.
Understanding commuter flows within and between cities is important for urban planning and infrastructure investment. Think of all the spending the Province of Ontario is putting towards transit, both regional and local. However, does the investment match the commuting realities of the municipalities? What’s the balance between spending to help people move in and out…
The Challenge: Today, fewer and fewer students are walking or cycling to school. From 1986-2011, the rate at which Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) students 11-13 years of age were driven to school doubled, according to a Metrolinx study. At the same time, the number walking and cycling fell from 62% to less than…
Hamilton’s Durand neighbourhood is one of the city’s oldest, most dynamic communities. Significant change and growth is occurring in the neighbourhood, including proposed new developments tied to intensification that are eliciting a robust community dialogue on how the neighbourhood should look in the future. As part of this dialogue, a survey conducted by Civicplan on…
Civicplan receives OPPI Excellence in Planning Award for innovative community engagement. Civicplan’s innovative community engagement has won a provincial planning award. Recognizing excellence in all its forms, OPPI celebrates professional planners and outstanding projects annually through Excellence in Planning Awards. These are widely regarded as among the most prestigious awards given for planning achievement in…
There are a whole myriad of online and mobile tools that curate experiences for people in the urban environment. Whether it’s restaurants or a walking tour, there are endless recommendations available on how to spend your time in cities. But what about the natural environment? Specifically, how can online tools help promote active transportation off-road.…
The value of heritage buildings is a hot topic in communities across North America. Many people value these buildings. They display style and workmanship that we often do not see with new buildings, and they connect us to our city’s history. They do much to establish the character of a street, and form the backbone…
The following remarks were presented as part of panel discussion at the Women and the City event hosted by the Useful Knowledge Society at the AGH Annex, in Hamilton on June 6th 2017. Good evening, thank you to the Useful Knowledge Society for inviting me to participate on this panel. As mentioned, I’m a Principal…
Ontario’s mid-sized cities are changing. Population growth, urban renewal, new transit systems, and growing economies are bringing newfound energy to cities across the province. One challenge for these cities is to find ways to reuse and reinvent spaces that may no longer serve the purpose for which they were intended originally. To better understand how…
Almost 15 years ago, former Finance Minister Paul Martin addressed the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) conference in Hamilton, Canada and proclaimed the need for a “New Deal for Cities” where better federal-municipal relationships would forge a stronger urban Canada. Jack Layton, then president of the FCM, looked on enthusiastically, as he had pushed for…
Since 2012, residents of Ward 1 in Hamilton, Canada have worked together to determine how approximately $7.5 million (CAD) would be spent on local infrastructure projects. The ward’s participatory budgeting (PB) process, “forWard one,” has grown in popularity year after year. In its first year (2012), just over 400 residents participated. The 2016 process recorded…
Data-driven participatory planning is helping policy makers and civic leaders better engage the public in local decision-making. Robust engagement improves public planning outcomes, strengthens local communities, and promotes greater civic pride. PlanLocal, a participatory planning process designed and implemented in the city of Hamilton, is an example of innovative engagement that leverages the knowledge and…
Since its launch in January 2015, the city of Hamilton’s bike share system, SoBi, has had increasing success. In just two short years, SoBi Hamilton membership has grown to 10,000 active members who use the service from over 100 station hubs spread across the lower city. In order to gain greater insights into SoBi members…
With the federal budget approaching, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) has released its 2017 Alternative Federal Budget (AFB). Among its many thoughtful and sustainable recommendations is a much needed investment that is very relevant to my hometown of Hamilton. Civicplan Principal Paul Shaker contributes to the AFB section on Infrastructure and Cities, which…
Supercrawl is an annual celebration of the diversity of James North, the multi-disciplinary arts district in Hamilton, Ontario. The eighth edition of the music and arts festival was held in September of 2016 and was, by all accounts, one of the most successful yet. Over the three-day festival, an estimated 200,000 people descended on downtown Hamilton. The…
It was 8:30 a.m. on a Tuesday morning in late June. Kids and parents trickled into the playground. There was a buzz outside Dr. Edgar Davey Elementary School in central Hamilton, Ontario. School was almost done and the excitement was palpable. The end of another school year wasn’t the only event happening that day. The…
While it is understood that pedestrian friendly and transit-oriented environments are elements of good planning, they are also starting to be understood as good business. The broader municipal decision-making community is realizing the important connection between transit, walkability and economic development. The US-based Progressive Policy Institute’s comprehensive study of American urban centres, called the Metropolitan…
A snowman is just a snowman. Or is it? We passed this snowman over the weekend, happily standing on the median of a busy intersection. We don’t know who built it, but we do know it made us smile. Winter is a good time to stop and appreciate the little things that build a community.…
Some of the Civicplan team had the recent opportunity to visit beautiful downtown Cambridge, Ontario. The revitalization along the banks of the Grand River was impressive with many historic buildings being brought back to life including the home of the University of Waterloo Architecture School. The economic spin-off from the university campus is very evident…
When you think about shopping local, you often think about different districts in your city. In Hamilton, Canada, locals think of places such as Concession Street, Locke Street or Downtown Dundas. Each of these distinct areas has a different character that influences how people describe them. Usually, it’s the mix of local businesses that help…
The feasibility study into the creation of a Women’s Health Network in Hamilton was a partnership between the YWCA of Hamilton, the North Hamilton Community Health Centre (NHCHC), and Civicplan. The study was made possible with the support of a Women’s College Hospital, Women’s Xchange grant. It was conducted to identify community interest in a…
It surrounds us, but we take it for granted. Our natural environment is often overlooked when discussing our community but you could hardly find a city more strongly defined by nature than Hamilton. This is evident in the names we give to things: the Mountain, the Valley, the Bay. We qualify our street names using…
While outsiders may look around in bewilderment when Hamiltonians refer to “the Mountain,” we know exactly where it is. The area atop the Niagara Escarpment can’t be missed, with “Mountain Access” signs at all key roads. This striking geography will always be an important part of our identity as Hamiltonians. While it’s hard to miss,…
In 2004, the hit TV drama The West Wing came to shoot scenes for a couple of upcoming episodes in the Town of Dundas. The producers chose the Valley Town as it could easily pass as a quaint and vibrant setting that could emulate towns in New Hampshire. Other television shows and movies have since…
A vision is in place to turn part of King William Street into a performing arts district. It’s being led by Theatre Aquarius, which can’t meet demand for use of its 750-seat venue, Dofasco Centre for the Arts. Theatre Aquarius draws more than 100,000 visitors a year and generates more than $12 million in direct…
Density gets a bad rap these days. It’s often thought of as a dirty word, evoking images of monolithic highrise office towers or apartment buildings that create wind tunnels and foster a sterile street life around them. A concrete jungle. But we often hear about the benefits of dense, well-designed urban inner cities. Many recent…
Hamilton has a proud history of urban innovation with a lot of “firsts” over the years. In 1877, the first commercial telephone service in Canada began in Hamilton. In 1883, Hamilton installed Canada’s first incandescent street lights. Hamilton became home to Canada’s first sewage treatment plant in 1898 and by 1913, the city had the…
With the future of U.S. Steel Canada’s assets settled, it’s time to talk about the redevelopment of land that will no longer be used for steel making. As a community, we need to get ahead of this issue and have a serious conversation about how to best repurpose these lands on Hamilton Harbour so they…
As progressive urbanists continue to push Hamilton toward a more economically vibrant and resilient future, they can take inspiration from Canada’s west coast. The city of Vancouver has become the global darling of planners, architects, and urbanists as they study how Canada’s third-largest city has accomplished the impossible: reining in sprawl by promoting inner-city density.…
Civicplan wins Hamilton Urban Design and Architecture Award for excellence in precinct planning with partners DPAI and Theatre Aquarius The Urban Design and Architecture Awards recognize and celebrate excellence in the design of the urban environment. A high quality urban environment contributes to economic and social benefits, improves the image of the City, and creates…
