The New Capital Plan Process for the City of Vancouver
online survey on your priorities for the capital plan
Malcolm Bromley, the General Manger of Vancouver Park Board, outlined the new Capital Plan process for the City of Vancouver and the Park Board at the May 30th Vancouver Park Board meeting.
While in the past the capital plan process has been more project-centred like one-off capital projects such as renovation of Community Centres, the new approach to capital planning will be based on a “functional service base model”. This will mean that capital planning will determined by the identified needs of citizens or “service demand”.
Between 2012-2014 the City of Vancouver will plan capital projects around $600 million budget. This spending will have to fit into a10-year strategic direction from the current three-year cycle.
The planning process will identify long-term priorities and challenges that will be identified by Senior mangers from the city such as the GM of the Park Board, Head of Engineering, the Head of Social Planning and the City Manager. Planning at this stage will attempt to develop convergence of objectives from the different departments in order to meet common strategic goals. The Community Centre at #1 Kingsway is be an example of the convergence of objectives where a new community centre was built with a library and also market rental units.
The new capital plan process will attempt to unify, longer-term planning among City departments and agencies and will be based on a performance-based management, which
integrates more strategic decision-making throughout the organization. Hopefully, this will result in more effective cooperation across departments and boards.
This capital planning process has three objectives fulfill: 1. Maintain existing assets in good condition (recapitalization); 2. Meet the needs of new residents (growth-related investment) and; 3. Respond to new priorities. By planning in this way the city is attempting to connect the real need for public amenities to re-zonings and development-related commitments.
Timelines of the New Capital Planning Process
• 2012-2014 co-ordinate capital plan submission with other departments, GM of Park Board, Head of Engineering, Head of Social Planning (May)
• Submission of capital plan forums to citizens (May)
• City analysis and review of all submission (June)
• Draft capital plan to council and boards (July)
• Co-ordained city public process (July)
• Final approval by council September
• Plebiscite goes to the public in election (November)
The whole effect of the new process will be to break down silos between the city departments and boards in order to leverage as much from capital spending as possible. It seems to be a typical pattern of government to be either expanding or contracting, moving to specialization of department or to moving to holistic strategic planning, in the name of attempting to use tax money more effectively. When Susan Mundick was GM of Park Board she divided the parks into 3 districts and just before she “retired” she was reorganizing to eliminate the 3 districts. The proof of whether the new capital planning process is “working” will not be known for a number of years and in the end will be evaluated by the projects and partnerships it produces.
One the most apparent advantages of a 10-year capital planning process is it will allow the City to dream big and when opportunities for capital dollars are forthcoming from senior levels of governments – the municipal projects will be ready or as the GM of the Vancouver Park Board quibbled, “ready for opportunities when they knock”.
Here is a link to the power point presentation:GM’s power point slides
Brent a very comprehensive synopsis. I will use your notes for my commissioner work on Park Board !