The Yellowknife Harbour in the City’s Old Town is an extraordinary setting in this compact, livable mixed-use waterfront district. The Harbour is home to an eclectic mix of neighbourhoods, including informal settlements of residents who have built temporary structures on public land and house boaters who live in the Harbour year-round. These unique characteristics are cherished by many community members, but others felt that their access to the public resources of the Harbour were being compromised by these residents. For years, overlapping jurisdictions presented obstacles to developing a clear framework that would consider the diverse interests of community members and guide the evolution of the Harbour. To address these challenges, the City of Yellowknife initiated a Harbour Plan to create a vision and implementation strategy for this area.
The Landscape Architect managed a complex process that was framed around three consultation events to enable all stakeholders to participate in the Plan’s development and review the team’s work in progress. In order to actively engage a distrusting community in the planning process, the project employed many innovative consultation techniques. The Landscape Architect designed a consultation program with venues, formats, and tools designed to enable residents to participate in an open, collaborative, and most importantly, calm and respectful way. The input received helped the team advance decision-making. The consultation events included workshops, 10 focus group meetings, attendance a First Nation’s drum dance, conversations with First Nation’s Elder Council, conversations with First Nation’s chiefs, and public presentations. This project was innovative in the methods it used to engage the First Nations in the planning and design process.
