By Peter Ferguson
What do we want Lowertown to become by 2035? How can we make our community stronger and more appealing with more and better affordable housing? How do we attract a broad mix of new residents? How do we help address the issues of homelessness and drug use? How do we retain our heritage structures and build upon our cultural history? How can we encourage more and better retail and micro-manufacturing to add new economic viability and new services to the community?
To address these concerns, the Lowertown Community Association (LCA) will make the development of Vision 2035 part of its agenda for the next year. To explore this issue, the LCA is planning to hold a workshop/community discussion with a focus on developing a vision for Lowertown in 2035.
There would be three parts to the evening event, which is likely to be held in late winter 2020.First, there will be a panel discussion with concise presentations from a range of experts familiar with the Lowertown community on matters such as affordable housing, heritage and culture, community transportation, land use planning and sustainability. The second and related part of the exercise would be questions from the community directed at the panellists, to seek clarification on matters arising from the panel discussions. The third portion would involve breakout discussions among community members based on the topics covered by the panellists. Participation would be documented so that at the end of the evening each table could share an oral summary of its conclusions and provide the content for a subsequent record of discussion and a vision document to be developed by LCA Board members and posted on the LCA site. It would also provide the LCA Board with a better understanding of the topics of interest and concern to the community as it does its own yearly planning and topics for its subsequent monthly meetings.
In the meantime, if you have ideas as to the challenges that ought to be considered as part of a visioning exercise, please share them with Peter Ferguson, Vice-president of the LCA at peterferguson_4@sympatico.ca.