Course:IGS585/OK2020WT2/GuestCoryLabrecque

Cory Labrecque - Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen

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	Reflection Authors and Commenters
Author	Ian Chambers	Ayla de Grandpre	Adam Kunis	Joshua Ayer	Luis Cadavid	Janna Wale
Commenter	Joshua Ayer	Luis Cadavid	Janna Wale	Ian Chambers	Ayla de Grandpre	Adam Kunis

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Ayla De Grandpre Upon reflection, what I found most intriguing about Cory Lebrecque’s presentation was the idea of potentially using housing as a way to overcome or adapt to the constraints of land availability in Keremeos. I had not thought that more “soft infill”, or densification of the built environment through the construction of structures such as townhomes, might provide multiple benefits in that it might attract younger families, who would counteract the aging-related issues going on in the community, as well as provide a potential solution to the inability to expand the town, given that it is essentially encircled by ALR land. This particular idea piqued my interest because it provided a real-life, applied example of what is called “synergistic adaptations”, or a solution or adaptation that addresses multiple and often very different issues, in the Adaptation Pathways literature that I have been reading. While I understood what synergistic adaptations were, it was really useful for me to discuss this example to solidify how seemingly different issues might be addressed through a common intervention. I think that this might be a good example for me to use to explain “synergistic adaptations” to the participants in my study, as the issues and context would be familiar to them. I also found the discussion on the socio-cultural impacts of amenity migration on the sustainability and resilience of the community very interesting. Over the summer I completed a literature review for Dr. Senese on amenity migration in the Okanagan, therefore, I had a good understanding of some of the trends, challenges and benefits of amenity migration in the region. I did not, however, realize the extent to which amenity migration was occurring in Keremeos until I completed some initial research for this class, and was shocked by some of the information that Cory Labrecque shared with us. In particular, I had not really thought about the proportion of amenity migration that was “vacation rentals”, rather than new residents. I believe this is one of the key challenges for the sustainability and resilience of Keremeos as a community, given its impacts on the housing market, rental availability, and perhaps most importantly, social cohesion. I had not considered the impact of vacation rentals on social capital – for instance, vacationers may be less inclined to commit, invest and care about the place, given their impermanence in it. This creates an issue in connectivity and perhaps even social strife, as new comers are seen as “others” who are not community-minded. These are issues that will undoubtedly need to be highlighted in our final project. Overall, I found Cory Labrecque’s talk very informative and useful for our project in this class. It was interesting to hear the perspective of a planner, which I would have assumed to have been much more focused on the built environment. I was happily surprised to hear that planners really do take the less tangible aspects of community, such as human connection and relationships, into consideration when planning.   Name of Commenting Author This is a reflection on the reflection of the author above.

Adam Kunis In Cory Labrecque’s presentation I found his application of population pyramids on small towns interesting and relevant to our Keremeos project. I had never considered the impacts of an aging population on access to resources for younger people. Resources such as public education, transportation, and affordable housing can be siphoned away as tax revenue is prioritized to the wants and needs of the aging population. Cory described the impact on public education as the “amalgamation of schools”. This means that local schooling facilities would be shut down and that residents would be required to send their students to other communities for education. In my childhood, I used to have to travel at least an hour to get to school. Beyond the challenges it posed to me and my family, it was also environmentally unsustainable. In our Keremeos project, it is important to consider that the village wants to grow sustainably. In order to attract a younger population to the village, it may be necessary to emphasize tax allocation to local public schooling so that prospective residents do not worry about the transportation costs and challenges that surround their children’s education. The second main takeaway from Cory’s presentation was the theater of local business. Cory described a scenario where rental spaces in a building or plaza were left vacant. The imagery that this can represent to customers and entrepreneurs may be a “death signal” in that the area is not worthy of visiting; Worse, it can be a signal that businesses will not thrive at that location. I appreciated Cory’s strategy to combat this effect by prioritizing the opportunity for a younger, entrepreneurial population segment through a pilot program. By utilizing the space for pilot programs, it creates reciprocal benefit. A pilot program may encourage an entrepreneur to take the risk in starting their business if they have the opportunity for reduced rent or a temporarily free storefront. In return, the pilot business may attract more customers, increase spending in the region (increased tax revenue), and provide new employment opportunities. This would be another key strategy in attracting a younger demographic to the village. I think to make both of these plans viable, Keremeos should emphasize collaboration and coordination with the regional district. Dr. Janmaat asked about the effectiveness of collaborative service sharing with the example of waste disposal. This question got me thinking about the role of the government in a free market and the challenges and benefits of services that are controlled by monopolies (in Canada it seems that the government often controls these sectors). The benefits of cost reduction and environmental regulation by working in coordination with the greater region to bargain may make infrastructure development more feasible. Additionally, if the entire region has similar demands, they may be able to take advantage of being an economy of scale to buy more at a discounted rate. Infrastructure development would also create labor demands which may allow for specialization and well-paying employment in the region. Janna Wale Adam, Like you, I had never really considered how demographics could influence many aspects of a community, and could even affect access to resources for younger people. This makes me consider whether this model could be scaled up, and could influence what we see at a country to country level . An example of this is how Covid19 severely affected Italy due to the large number of retiree's that live there. Perhaps in light of this, the community planning and structure of the regions that were the hardest hit will change in response. Wow that is a long commute! Growing up in my community, we often walked to school. However, many of the other kids living on reservation had a similar commute length to yourself, given that the reserves were a distance from town. Not only was the unsustainable, but it made after school activities very difficult, which in turn influences the retention rates within the school itself. Many people (myself included) ended up relocating to communities where school was more easily accessible. I wonder if something similar is happening (or would happen) if Keremeos amalgamated their school system. I also agree with your point about tax allocation. In order to begin to make changes in these areas, we need higher retention rates, and therefore need more support through properly funded programs.

Janna Wale  One of the big takeaways from Cory Lebrecque’s presentation was the stress that he placed on relationships and how relationships impact community planning. This was surprising to me, as I never considered how relationality could play a role in the success of a planning of a community. When thinking about the role of a planner, I always found myself imagining it being a more research oriented position, or as an outside-looking-in role. Speaking with Cory allowed me to consider the key roles that building and maintaining relationships can and do play in community planning, which is an occupation that I am now seeing in a new light. While reflecting on it, it draws a lot of connection back to the idea of complex systems from Dr. Lael Parrott’s presentation, and reminds me that these connections exist wherever we have a human-environment interface. Moving forward, I think having this understanding will enrich both my research work as well as the rest of my career moving forward. As well, his comment about loss of transportation to and from Keremeos really resonated with me. When Greyhound went under, my own community was cut off from the rest of the world, which significantly increased the amount of hitchhiking throughout the area. Because my community is located on the Highway of Tears (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Tears) I have a good understanding of what this loss of transportation truly means, and how that can and does influence the dynamic and relationships among the community. Relating this back to my previous note, this influence would also no doubt permeate the community planning as well. I imagine the Indigenous groups in Keremeos experience the same level of isolation and therefore may also turn to hitchhiking, which could result in similar statistics. I am very interested in the solutions being proposed to overcoming the gap left by Greyhound in Keremeos, as I know my own community would likely benefit from the proposed solutions as well. While the two communities are distinct, given their size and remoteness I imagine there might be substantial overlap between a lot of the approaches to many of the issues we previously discussed. I think this is something that we may be able to further discuss in our report of Keremeos. Speaking to Cory Lebrecque really changed my perspective on the role of a community planner, and really allowed me to make connections between Keremeos and my own community in terms of the challenges of being a smaller and more remote community. Overall, I see his presentation influencing some of the approaches and decisions I will make with respect to our group project. I have never spoken to a planner before, but thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Adam Kunis While Cory's presentation helped me understand the functions of a city planner, the responsibilities still seem fairly abstract. It's hard for me to comprehend how individuals must create a framework to progress a city in the direction they feel is best. I am curious about the qualifications required for a role like this and who they feel responsible for. I was sad to read about the Highway of Tears and it resonated deeply with me as I grew up in the vicinity of the Trail of Tears. It's shocking to read how the Highway occurred just 50 years ago and I feel that you are right, transportation innovation is essential. Relating it back to Keremeos, I am also now curious about their transportation options to other communities as well as within their community.

Ian Chambers Cory’s talk made me realize just how complex regional development and growth strategies are, and I appreciated him acknowledging that it is a messy process. As somebody who doesn’t have much knowledge in this area, I can easily get overwhelmed with ideas for our Keremeos project and thinking of how to make them work. Hearing Cory acknowledge that it isn’t an easy process and does in fact get chaotic was comforting. I enjoyed severral ideas that Cory presented that could be applied to Keremeos, such as the densification of housing, specifically in the city centre. Our previous research had found that house prices in Keremeos were dramatically increasing and combined with the amenity migrant statistics we suspected locals were getting priced out of the housing market. Hearing Cory confirm this was satisfying and felt like some of our work was validated. He talked about converting properties with single family homes into duplex’s or fourplex’s and referred to a 4 story walk up initiative in Okanagan Falls. This initiative provides independent affordable housing specifically for seniors and I believe that something similar could be beneficial for Keremeos. This idea of increased densification also seems to pair well with the new urban transect idea that Mark Holland presented us with. Increasing the density of housing in Keremeos and maintaining its small spacial footprint would keep many of the services and amenities in close proximity that suits the new urban transect, and possibly reworking some of the layout to provide easier or more efficient access would be beneficial. I think this would be a great idea to consider incorporating into Keremeos’ growth and development strategy if it isn’t already. Another idea that Cory presented was one regarding pilot businesses. Cory referred to building vacancies, specifically in the core, to be a “death sentence” and suggested pilot business program as a way to help revitalize the core and attract business and investment. I think this idea also fits well with the new urban transect and housing densification ideas as well, and it provides the opportunity to incorporate mixed use buildings into the core. Additionally it would help create some jobs and hopefully boost the economy of Keremeos. I’ll definitely be keeping his presentation in mind moving forward with our work on Keremeos. Joshua Ayer One of the things I unintentionally left out of my reflection was the validating effect of Cory’s presentation, which is something your reflection reminded me of.  It was really nice to have someone who is more familiar with the area confirm some of the observations we’ve made from our research in class.  I also thought the comparison with Mark Holland’s presentation was smart, they compliment each other in interesting ways.  What I really appreciated about your reflection though was the time and space you gave to thinking about practical applications.  The housing possibilities that Cory proposed interested me as well, but you took this to a high level in actually thinking about how it could work in Keremeos. To me, Cory’s ‘pilot business’ idea that you reflected on is exciting because it gets businesses into Keremeos and (who knows) maybe they’ll even come back/stay, but it also solves the problem of vacant space which does not send the right message to developers.  I also caught him referring to Keremeos’ ‘façade improvement’ program as another good idea which seeks to make those businesses more aesthetically pleasing.  It leaves me wondering how essential developing the core is to Keremeos’ longevity, I had not been giving it much focus, but your thoughts have made me wonder if it deserves more central attention.

Joshua Ayer

Cory’s presentation, somewhat expectedly, conveyed really well the complexities of the different jurisdictions relevant to the governance of Keremeos.  All in all, I thought the idea of toggling between the different levels of jurisdictions (municipal, regional, provincial, and federal) was reminiscent of Parrott’s presentation on landscapes and switching between micro and macro concepts of the whole. Regarding government, if we said the federal government is, for instance, the big picture (nationally speaking), then regional governance fits somewhere closer to the detailed end of the spectrum, which I thought, in listening to Cory had a lot of advantages in terms of the scale they are working with. It also reminded me a little of Mark’s presentation the week prior, as a lot of the questions I had afterwards were concerned with these levels of governance, how much freedom a government has to pursue the policy necessary to their goals.  For example, in Keremeos, how much control does the town government have over their water supply if their main water basin is linked with other local towns?  Even more so, does the Federal and Provincial government have power in determining how much is used, how it is used, and how much is conserved?  What sort of rules around conservation exist on all those levels? These were some of the questions that I asked Cory about, and though his answers were good and clarified some of the directions we should look in exploring them, he certainly didn’t simplify the matter.

I also thought what he had to say about inter-government cooperation was really interesting. Specifically, when he described the level of coordination as medium and admitted that a lot happens due to informal relationships.  It’s interesting to think that even once you do have all the jurisdictions mapped out and delineated that so much nevertheless depends on what is not official, or where there is overlaps between regional and town board members. In Ian’s reflection on Dr. Parrott’s presentation he compared the play of scales between reductionism and holism to representing a system mathematically by breaking it down into its smaller and smaller parts.  In this sense there is the appealing temptation to see these systems as following a somewhat predictable logic that can be made sense of by switching back and forth between the different scales. I do not get this sense when reflecting on government; once we add in a social (or political element) things seem less determined by an overarching logic, and less self-evident. I have this sense in an ecosystem or in a landscape that if I understand how the feedback loops and logic is working on one level than I can use that knowledge to understand what’s happening on other levels.  I do not feel like the same holds for governments, where what works here might not work somewhere else (like Dr. Lovegrove suggested) because it’s a different social and political context with overlapping jurisdictions. In studying Keremeos it is daunting trying to perceive all the networks.  

Ian Chambers

I enjoyed your reflection incorporating some of my previous reflection points, it has helped me clarify some of my own thinking. I definitely agree that it seems harder to use different scales of understanding when it comes to government. In my approach to understanding complex issues, I often take a dualistic reductionist and holistic approach. At different scales there are different relationships that need to be understood, and those relationships can help clarify the behaviour that occurs on another scale. In governance there are somewhat well-defined relationships between and within the different scales, but from Cory’s presentation it also seems like much is accomplished through informal relationships. These informal relationships must have some effect on the overall behaviour, but because they are informal, they are hard to define, leaving gaps in our understanding. I also find this challenging and daunting when thinking about our Keremeos project because we likely aren’t going to be able to figure out the entire network of relationships that actually exist. We will be working with a subset of relationships that may not be representative of the entire situation. This makes it extremely challenging then for any project as we won’t know all the relationships that will be affected and need to be considered.