16-Civ-B6 Urban and Regional Planning, May 2017: worked solutions

Paper format. 16-Civ-B6 Urban and Regional Planning, National Examinations, May 2017. Three hours, CLOSED BOOK, an approved Casio or Sharp calculator permitted. Ten questions are printed. Part A (Questions 1 and 2) is compulsory and worth 25 marks each, with every section to be attempted; Part B prints Questions 3 through 10, of which the candidate answers FIVE at 10 marks each, for a paper total of 100 marks. Either SI or Imperial units may be used, and Note 6 states that most questions require an essay-format answer in which clarity and organization are themselves marked.

Check — scope and assumptions. Part B prints eight questions and asks for five, so a real candidate leaves three unanswered. All ten questions are answered in full below, because this document is a study resource rather than a submitted paper; Questions 6 and 10 likewise cover every listed option rather than the two the paper asks for. Questions 1 and 2 give a scenario but no dimensions, so where a quantity is used to make an argument concrete it is introduced as a stated assumption (site area, floor space ratio, growth rate, per-capita demand) and flagged in the text. Those assumptions are the candidate’s own under Note 1 of the front page, and any defensible alternative would earn the same marks.

Reference texts for 16-Civ-B6.

Hodge, G., Gordon, D.L.A. & Shaw, P., Planning Canadian Communities: An Introduction to the Principles, Practice and Participants, 7th ed., Nelson Education — the core Canadian text for this examination code, and the text Question 8 names directly.
Levy, J.M., Contemporary Urban Planning, 11th ed., Routledge — planning history, theory, tools and the North American regulatory framework.
Hodge, G. & Robinson, I.M., Planning Canadian Regions, UBC Press — regional planning, growth management and metropolitan governance.
Grant, J.L. (ed.), A Reader in Canadian Planning: Linking Theory and Practice, Nelson — Canadian case material on participation, suburbs and sustainability.
Provincial planning statutes — in British Columbia the Local Government Act (official community plans, zoning, development permit areas, heritage) and the Land Title Act Part 7 (subdivision and the approving officer); in Ontario the Planning Act (official plans s. 16, zoning s. 34, site plan control s. 41, plans of subdivision s. 51), which supplies the “Official Plan” wording used in Question 2.
Transportation Association of Canada, Geometric Design Guide for Canadian Roads, and the Canadian Capacity Guide for Signalized Intersections — road allowance widths, intersection spacing and the capacity analysis behind a traffic impact study.
Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, Canada-Wide Standards for Petroleum Hydrocarbons in Soil, and the provincial contaminated-sites regulation — the technical basis for the site-condition work in Question 1.
Canadian Institute of Planners, Code of Professional Conduct and Policy on Planning Practice and Reconciliation.

Because this is an essay paper, the answers below are written as continuous argued prose rather than in the numbered-step calculation format used for quantitative subjects. Enumerated lists appear only where the question itself asks for a list of a stated length, which on this paper is Question 1(c) (ten items), Question 2(b) (five items) and Question 9 (five fields).

16-Civ-B6 Urban and Regional Planning: May 2017