Mount Pleasant’ Heritage Working Group
TERMS OF REFERENCE

Background

The Terms of Reference for the Mount Pleasant Community Planning Program were passed in April of 2007. The Community Plan Process is led by the City’s Community Planning Division. It will update the 20-year old Mount Pleasant Community Plan and produce plans for its shopping and residential areas, action plans for pressing social concerns, and longer-term policies to address community-wide issues. The process focuses on public outreach, engagement, and community capacity building, so that short and long term initiatives can be more readily sustained.

Council recently endorsed a program to upgrade the Vancouver Heritage Register, the first meaningful change since 1986. This Register is a listing of buildings, streetscapes, landscape resources (parks and landscapes, trees, monuments, public works) and archaeological sites which have architectural or historical heritage value. The purpose of the Heritage Register Upgrade Program is to update the Register listing of historic places to better represent heritage values important to the city and its communities, and to reflect the increasingly diverse and multi-cultural nature of Vancouver.

The intent of this project on Mount Pleasant’s Heritage is to produce information that will inform both of these larger planning processes.

Goals

The Mount Pleasant Heritage Working Group (MPHWG) is being formed to provide input to consultants on an Historic Context Statement (HCS) for Mount Pleasant. The HCS intends to respond to a full range of heritage values (beyond simply architectural merit) and includes the identification of significant historic ‘places’ (e.g., buildings, sites, neighbourhoods) that respond to the historical themes that emerge from the HCS. Responding to a full range of values (beyond those embodied in architecture) expands our understanding of the places that are important to a community (e.g., the writer Joy Kogawa’s house). This information will be used by participants in shopping area and residential area workshops being held in Mount Pleasant in March/September 2008.

Objectives

The specific objectives, expressed in terms of products, of the MPHWG are to:


  • Provide input to consultants on a contextual essay documenting the historical development of Mount Pleasant.
  • Use the contextual essay to inform the creation of a set of themes in the Historical Context Statement.
  • Identify historic places that respond to the themes.
  • Suggest ideas for conserving or interpreting historic places.

The products will inform the development of Shopping Area Directions, Policies and Plans for Mount Pleasant. By the time of the March shopping area workshops, historic places (e.g., buildings, sites, neighbourhoods) in the shopping areas need to be identified according to a set of themes that have emerged from a historic context statement on Mount Pleasant. The products are also needed to inform the development of the Residential Sub-area Directions, Policies and Plans.

Role

A working group will be formed by city staff consisting of key stakeholders of special interest groups such as business and land owners, religious organizations, historians, the Mount Pleasant Community Liaison Group, representatives from the Vancouver Heritage Commission and the members of the general public.

The role of the working group is to:

  • To provide input and advice to staff and consultants through critical review of products;
  • To provide information that will contribute to the completion of the historical context statement and set of themes;
  • To help identify conservation management opportunities and constraints on the type of places recommended for addition under the theme;
  • To bring a diversity of perspectives, knowledge, interests, and experience to the Program; and
  • To participate in workshops.

The Working Group will be involved at key points throughout the development of the products.  Working group members who represent specific stakeholder groups should see themselves as representing the interests of that group.  It is expected they will communicate with their groups regarding the scope, purpose, and progress of the project.

Schedule: Meetings, Time Commitment and Communications

The working group will be asked to attend the following meetings:

January 29, 7-9 – Working Group discussion of Historic Context Statement (HCS) and emerging themes.
The members are asked to read the draft HCS and prepare comments in advance for the meeting.

Mid-February – Working Group review and confirmation of the set of historical themes.

February 19, 4-8 – Open House to present HCS, set of themes, and to identify historic places that respond to the themes. Members should attend.

End-February – Working Group confirmation of historic places that respond to themes, and ideas for strategies to conserve, manage, and celebrate the places identified.

Communication with working group members will be primarily by e-mail and telephone. Copies of documents will be mailed or e-mailed, depending on the participants’ preferences.

Key Success Factors

  • Materials are delivered on time to working group members.
  • Working group members prepare for the workshop by reviewing the material.
  • The workshop is structured to draw out knowledge of the working group in a way that results in the development of the framework and criteria.
  • Working group members commit the necessary time to participate.
  • Technology facilitates communication so that working group members have the opportunity to comment in writing or verbally, depending on available time and their personal preferences.
  • Sufficient time is provided to make good use of the knowledge of the working group, and there is a willingness on the part of all participants to learn from each other.
  • Working group members communicate with their constituency groups.

Consultants’ Contact Information
Helen
Cain
Bruce MacDonald
Donald Luxton & Associates Inc.
1030-470 Granvillee Street
Vancouver, BC V6C 1V5
604-688-1218