Brum: Eight pieces to make the whole

• Working with property owners to identify priorities and details for street improvements based on needs and costs.

• Reviewing and proposing appropriate amendments to development standards and allowed uses.

• Identifying issues with difficult-to-develop properties, such as potential brownfield sites and vacant older buildings.

• Identifying successes on all levels to attract new investment and celebrate the efforts of the city, residents and businesses.

Building partnerships between businesses, the city and area agencies toward workforce development and industrial cluster development is essential to retain, expand, recruit and grow our economy. Just as the implementation steps will be unique to each site, each site is a collection of individual nodes — each with its own character, purpose and condition — requiring different levels of attention and investment.

One example of a subarea with such distinct nodes is Fourth Plain. As with the other seven area plans, the Fourth Plain plan contains focus points, such as the intersection of Fourth Plain and Fort Vancouver Way. Fourth Plain is the “front door” for many of the city’s businesses and residents, and the plan indicated that the area had not yet reached its full potential for residential and commercial growth. City economic development staff and community partners are now beginning to tackle the job of implementing the Fourth Plain plan, starting with the node at Fourth Plain and Fort Vancouver Way.

Other of the eight subareas are Downtown, Central Park, Section 30 Urban Employment Center, Lower Grand Employment Area, Riverview Gateway Subarea, 112th Avenue Corridor, and Fruit Valley Subarea. Adjacent influence areas are also considered to be part of the process, and the scope of the planning effort is sizeable, substantial and challenging.

The challenge is that the plans were created in the pre-recession era, and resources since that time have diminished and attention has lagged. Even at state and federal levels, funding and resources are now especially scarce. Implementing the subarea plans will require targeted resources and focus, but as we emerge from the recession with our plans in order, the subarea plans will become the foundation for community growth and economic development opportunity.

As noted in the Fourth Plain plan, “the success of any plan does not depend on its adoption by a city council or by the quality of its physical design; success is achieved by actual programs and built projects that combine to change the landscape and the economy in ways that conform to the vision.” And, partnering with the private sector, the city is up for the challenge of addressing fundamental economic improvement by growing the local economy through implementation, which translates into: less planning and more doing.

Teresa Brum is Vancouver’s Economic Development Division Manager.