Want a say in how city develops? Here's your chance

THE city is scrapping its 20-year-old development blueprint and will go to Winnipeggers next spring to gather input for a new plan to guide the city's growth."We're at a time when we're going to be challenging Winnipeggers to think differently about their city," said Michelle Richard, project manager for the city's Plan Winnipeg initiative. "We really haven't done a planning exercise of this nature in 30 years."

Just this week, furniture giant IKEA announced it will open a huge store in the city and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights broke ground.

The city is expected to get 190,000 new residents in the next 25 years, said planning director Deepak Joshi. Winnipeg currently ranks fifth among Canadian cities in the number of new residents attracted through immigration.

Plans announced this year to build rapid transit and develop residential neighbourhoods and businesses along the transit lines also stand to dramatically alter Winnipeg's appearance, Richard said.

"All of these things are sort of leading us into this huge opportunity, this huge time for us to really move forward and capitalize on becoming a major urban centre," she said.

For more than a year, city hall administrators have gathered data about the trends influencing Winnipeg's growth.

City staff will go before Winnipeggers by next March to gather opinions about where Winnipeggers will live and work and how they will move around in the city of tomorrow. The public consultation could involve public round tables, symposiums and even interactive websites.

Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry Coun. Jenny Gerbasi has spoken critically about the Plan Winnipeg review and the fact a public exercise expected two years ago has been conducted behind closed doors.

Others in the community and even on city council have downplayed Plan Winnipeg's relevance and importance in city hall decision-making.

Richard said Winnipeg is one of the most exciting places in Canada to be a planner. "People want to be in Winnipeg doing this work. It is extremely exciting.... If you look at other areas across Canada, Winnipeg is just at that cusp, really becoming a vibrant, urban centre. And with that, there are huge opportunities and huge challenges. This is the kind of work we all went to school for."

joe.paraskevas@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 19, 2008 A12