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City of Victoria has rejigged their planning site. It has been a great resource but now it is even better!
http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/departments_pln.shtml
Victoria Planning Site
Started by
G-Man
, Dec 13 2006 04:01 PM
2 replies to this topic
#2
Caramia
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- Member
- 3,835 posts
Posted 13 December 2006 - 10:44 PM
Awesome! Thanks! A huge improvement.
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
#3
Mike K.
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- Administrator
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- 83,512 posts
Posted 05 March 2007 - 10:35 AM
I think this may be the most fitting location for this article.
In the eye of the beholder
Artist and planner Mike Dillistone brings a unique vision to the urban environment we inhabit
Kim Westad, Times Colonist
Published: Monday, March 05, 2007
After seeing a series of Mike Dillistone's paintings, Budget Steel takes on a whole new look.
Instead of dump trucks, cranes and piles of steel and iron consumer debris being recycled, you also see the vivid colours and the sense of movement in Dillistone's paintings. And the age-old lesson that art is everywhere is reinforced, if you're open to seeing the familiar in a new light.
Dillistone has a unique perspective on art, development and the community. The 46-year-old married father of three recently quit his secure job as Esquimalt's director of development services to pursue painting, as well as doing planning consulting.
It's a combination of passions that seems an odd mix at first. Dillistone admits to getting some quizzical looks when he hands people his business card that says "art" on one side and "planning" on the other, but he says the subjects are actually complementary.
And those quizzical looks often turn into a discussion about art, reinforcing Dillistone's belief that everyone has a bit of the artist in them. "Talking about art changes the atmosphere," he said. Dillistone has seen that happen with people ranging from truck drivers to CEOs.
He wants to take that wider, more encompassing view art can give a person, and apply it to planning.
"I don't want to sound egotistical or presumptuous, but I think planning is an art, not a science," said Dillistone. "How can we create places and spaces that work? We need to explore the values and esthetics of spaces and how we organize ourselves. That's an art form, not a science."
After 21 years as a municipal planner in Esquimalt, Victoria, Vancouver, Surrey, Richmond and Whistler, he's seen planning become increasingly based on regulation and saying no, rather than using imagination.
"Planning is about building a community. Do we want creative, stimulating and beautiful communities, or places that are scientifically designed?"
He's an avid traveller, and when sitting in a piazza or village square, he's soaking it in to paint and also studying why it draws people out to gather, while many Canadian squares sit barren.
European societies seem to know how to create that sense of place that sometimes seems missing in North America. Here, the emphasis is more on isolation, Dillistone said, with bigger and bigger homes on large lots distancing people. North America also tends to try to remove what isn't appealing, whether it's a blue-collar business or homeless people.
If society pushes the things they don't like to see out of the way, it allows people to forget about them, rather than think about them, he said.
He's a fan of diversity in communities -- visually, architecturally and culturally. And these can go hand in hand with a good tax base and sound property values.
Design can and should push limits, Dillistone said. Higher density can seem like a bad word to many, largely because they may have seen bad examples of it. But done thoughtfully, with good design and communication, it can add to a neighbourhood. "A lot of it has to do with education and seeing things done right. If people don't understand the possibilities, they're not going to want them."
Dillistone is working on another series of dilapidated buildings, saying one of the things he likes to paint is "the landscape our society is creating, not what we idealize."
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007
In the eye of the beholder
Artist and planner Mike Dillistone brings a unique vision to the urban environment we inhabit
Kim Westad, Times Colonist
Published: Monday, March 05, 2007
After seeing a series of Mike Dillistone's paintings, Budget Steel takes on a whole new look.
Instead of dump trucks, cranes and piles of steel and iron consumer debris being recycled, you also see the vivid colours and the sense of movement in Dillistone's paintings. And the age-old lesson that art is everywhere is reinforced, if you're open to seeing the familiar in a new light.
Dillistone has a unique perspective on art, development and the community. The 46-year-old married father of three recently quit his secure job as Esquimalt's director of development services to pursue painting, as well as doing planning consulting.
It's a combination of passions that seems an odd mix at first. Dillistone admits to getting some quizzical looks when he hands people his business card that says "art" on one side and "planning" on the other, but he says the subjects are actually complementary.
And those quizzical looks often turn into a discussion about art, reinforcing Dillistone's belief that everyone has a bit of the artist in them. "Talking about art changes the atmosphere," he said. Dillistone has seen that happen with people ranging from truck drivers to CEOs.
He wants to take that wider, more encompassing view art can give a person, and apply it to planning.
"I don't want to sound egotistical or presumptuous, but I think planning is an art, not a science," said Dillistone. "How can we create places and spaces that work? We need to explore the values and esthetics of spaces and how we organize ourselves. That's an art form, not a science."
After 21 years as a municipal planner in Esquimalt, Victoria, Vancouver, Surrey, Richmond and Whistler, he's seen planning become increasingly based on regulation and saying no, rather than using imagination.
"Planning is about building a community. Do we want creative, stimulating and beautiful communities, or places that are scientifically designed?"
He's an avid traveller, and when sitting in a piazza or village square, he's soaking it in to paint and also studying why it draws people out to gather, while many Canadian squares sit barren.
European societies seem to know how to create that sense of place that sometimes seems missing in North America. Here, the emphasis is more on isolation, Dillistone said, with bigger and bigger homes on large lots distancing people. North America also tends to try to remove what isn't appealing, whether it's a blue-collar business or homeless people.
If society pushes the things they don't like to see out of the way, it allows people to forget about them, rather than think about them, he said.
He's a fan of diversity in communities -- visually, architecturally and culturally. And these can go hand in hand with a good tax base and sound property values.
Design can and should push limits, Dillistone said. Higher density can seem like a bad word to many, largely because they may have seen bad examples of it. But done thoughtfully, with good design and communication, it can add to a neighbourhood. "A lot of it has to do with education and seeing things done right. If people don't understand the possibilities, they're not going to want them."
Dillistone is working on another series of dilapidated buildings, saying one of the things he likes to paint is "the landscape our society is creating, not what we idealize."
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007
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