The Real Estate Foundation continues to support initiatives related to sustainable land use and smart growth. Our "diary" offers references that define "smart growth" and illustrate various approaches.

Smart Growth in the Metropolitan Vancouver Area
An online visual presentation that addresses the question: Is Vancouver a "smart growth community"?

• Part 1 - Smart Growth in Vancouver: A Recipe for Smart Growth
• Part 2 - Density
• Part 3 - Diversity
• Part 4 - Design
• Part 5 - Transportation/Regional Accessibility

Smart Growth on the Ground
The Real Estate Foundation is a major funder of this initiative, which intends to move "sustainable community development practices from market niche to market share." For detailed information, visit www.sgog.bc.ca.

How Do We Practice Smart Growth?
The Real Estate Foundation offers this collection of 20 projects in British Columbia that address sustainable land use concerns. Many references can be linked online.

• html version
• PDF version

Smart Growth Resources
This collection offers links to North American websites addressing smart growth topics. It was compiled to support the presentation made by Tim Pringle, Executive Director of the Real Estate Foundation, at the National Executive Forum on Public Property conference, held in Vancouver in 2003. The theme of the conference was "Sustainable Development Opportunities and Implications". Mr. Pringle's presentation focused on how the concepts of sustainable land use and smart growth can provide useful frameworks for addressing communities' social, economic, and environmental well-being.

Water Balance Model
The Water Balance Model for British Columbia simulates what happens when rain falls on a site. It creates an understanding of how to get stormwater into the ground and keep it out of pipes. It is a free, Internet-accessible, interactive tool that local governments and landowners can use to quantify the effectiveness of site designs that incorporate absorbent landscaping, infiltration facilities, green roofs, and rainwater harvesting. The Real Estate Foundation is a key sponsor of the Water Balance Model project. For more information, visit www.waterbalance.ca.

"Sustainable Community Design: A New Approach to Rainwater Management" is an article by Kim Stephens and Tim Pringle in the June 2004 issue of Innovation magazine.

Sustainable Development Resources
At the 2004 BC Land Summit conference, held from May 12-14 at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Tim Pringle made a presentation entitled "Developing Rural and Mountain Communities". The presentation and a selection of references are available online.