Victoria Real Estate Board’s School Competition

If you lived in Greater Victoria and were asked to plan for an influx of 100,000 new residents during the next twenty years, what would you do? Where would you start? The issue of growth management is one that bedevils professionals and laypeople alike. Yet, secondary school students in the Capital Regional District (CRD) faced it head-on in the Victoria Real Estate Board’s (VREB) recent school competition, Choices and Challenges - Managing Growth in Victoria.

The competition challenged students to come up with ways to best educate students and the local community about the effects of growth in the Greater Victoria area. The question posed was, How can the Victoria area accommodate 100,000 new residents over the next twenty years and still maintain its rich quality of life and high level of services? Teams from twelve secondary schools participated. Their projects addressed housing, employment, transportation, natural areas and parks, and community and social services. Students used a variety of media—photos, models, videotape, and computer-generated presentations. As well, each entry included a minimum two-thousand-word summary. A panel of five judges short-listed six submissions and then selected the three winning candidates: Belmont Senior Secondary ("Victoria in the Future: The Belmont Solution"), Claremont Secondary ("Untangling the Knot"), and Mount Douglas Secondary ("2016: Paradise Lost?"). The winners were announced on January 16, 1997, at the VREB’s Launch into ‘97 showcase at the Empress Hotel. Each of the winning schools received a prize of $10,000 to be used for the betterment of the student body. The prize money was a grant from the Real Estate Foundation.

The competition was the third step in a process that began in 1992 with a Real Estate Foundation grant of $4000 to the VREB for a research project on growth management issues. Subsequently, the Foundation awarded a grant of $48,000 to review all publications on planning and growth issues in the CRD and to produce public education material on these issues. This information was published in a highly readable tab in the Times Colonist in 1994.

"The public’s response to that tab was excellent," says Donna Curtis, Realtor and past president of the VREB. "The Foundation told us not to stop now. We struck a committee and presented the idea of a competition to public and private secondary schools. The response from schools was very positive."

All who reviewed the submissions agreed that the quality of work was very high. "I was very happy with all twelve submissions," says Wayne Strandlund, President of the VREB. "Students showed remarkable levels of awareness. I’ve had many calls from the public, teachers, and administrators, from people in industry who missed the presentation at the Empress and would like to see it repeated." In fact, the three winning teams presented their ideas to the Greater Victoria Economic Development Roundtable on Economic Issues in March, 1997.

"The Governors were very pleased with the work. It was obvious to them that tremendous effort went into the projects," says Tim Pringle, Executive Director of the Real Estate Foundation.

Indeed, the analysis and recommendations in the three winning entries suggest that the future is in good hands if today’s students have the chance to be involved in planning and growth management. Each of the three winning submissions is packed with intelligent observations and thought-provoking solutions; each is worth reading in its entirety as the following examples chosen at random show.

In their project, Mount Douglas students offer several viable suggestions for housing and transportation. For example, they propose that the District should "Concentrate housing developments near urban cores within each municipality as opposed to development outside current extents." Such a plan would increase density and economic and social interaction. Secondary suites in single-dwelling homes should be legalized. However, students are aware of the downside of legalization and recognize that it could lead to increased traffic in neighbourhoods and to substandard housing. The team also advocates a car-free downtown and more safe bikeways. Light Rapid Transit (LRT) is also considered as an alternative.

"Claremont students suggest a "carrot and stick" approach to transportation. As an incentive to using public transit, residents should be able to buy bus passes with pre-tax dollars. That’s the "carrot." The "stick" would be an increase in parking costs, insurance, and gasoline taxes. The team also favours a car-free downtown, HOV lanes and cycling / walking paths. Light Rapid Transit is a possibility, but many questions need to be answered first.

With regard to housing, Claremont proposes an increase in housing for seniors, which could take the form of small, renovated older homes, allowing several seniors to share the same house in existing neighbourhoods.

In its attempt to find housing solutions, the Belmont team learned through a survey that the public is opposed to in-filling. But the students argue that to increase densities some in-filling is necessary and could be controlled with a change in by-laws that "would prohibit in-filling for set periods of time in neighbourhoods (20 years)." One of Belmont’s suggestions for improving transportation and reducing traffic is to have a large fleet of public transportation vehicles as well as smaller transport vehicles to rural wards. For this team, LRT is not feasible at present.

The three teams also proposed solid ideas to improve employment, community services, and natural areas and parks.

As one solution to preserving green spaces, Belmont students suggest increasing property taxes by 1 percent to create new parks. Claremont’s team recommends the creation of a greenbelt surrounding Victoria. And Mount Douglas participants are in favour of regulations that would fix the amount of green space to be allocated per square kilometer.

Employment, an issue that dominates the ‘90s, undergoes rigorous analysis as well. Among the many recommendations, several stand out: Mount Douglas favours development of a high-tech park; Claremont believes in creating more high-tech companies and small businesses; Belmont proposes more development of geriatric care facilities. The calibre of thinking in these projects reflects self-discipline, organization, and plain hard work. For teachers who sponsored the teams, the students’ efforts were just as important as the results. All agree that the competition was an opportunity for students to learn about teamwork and to hone their research and organizational skills.

"It was a memorable experience," says Belmont teacher Terry McKellar. Once the students had made the commitment to compete, they pulled together as a team. I think a highlight for them was interviewing mayors and discovering a real difference of opinion between urban and rural mayors. Mayors in old core regions look to rural areas to accommodate growth. Also, the students felt that this competition was a commitment by business to be involved with the opinions of youth. Two of the team members really got turned on to urban studies. One is thinking of studying urban planning as a direct result of this project."

Claremont sponsor teacher Rea Casey also stresses the teamwork that went into the project. "Our team was a mix of Grade 11s and 12s from data processing and social studies classes," she says. "This was a terrific project. It gave my data processing students a chance to do really applied work, and the socials studies group could see what we were able to do for them. Preparing the project was also excellent training in research because the students had to go into the community and tap the resources there."

Casey found that the competition heightened her team’s awareness of the environs and people in the CRD. "They developed a real empathy for their community," she says. "And they realized there are no simple answers, because the problems are so complex."

Mount Douglas teacher Ben Greene shares many of the same thoughts. "Our students showed great initiative. It was an excellent experience in learning about group dynamics, and a real eye opener about the complexity of social change. The team looked at the pros and cons for every idea and learned a lot about political process and structure. They asked themselves tough questions. For example, should at least some of the District’s 14 municipalities amalgamate?"

Greene adds that team members hope to see some of the award money used to develop a curriculum that integrates local growth issues into social studies courses.

Although the focus here has been on the three winners, the fact remains that all students who took part in the competition deserve credit for their sense of optimism, their enthusiastic participation, and their valuable contribution. Young people are knowledgeable, caring, and optimistic about growth. We should encourage more of them to take part in the growth management debate.