18-Geom-B6 Land Use Planning and Environmental Management · May 2013
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams, May 2013 — 04-Geom-B6, Land Use, Planning & Environmental Management. Three hours; closed book (approved Sharp/Casio calculators permitted). Format: seven questions of equal value (20 marks each); the paper directs that answering any five (5) of the seven constitutes a complete exam (100%), and the first five as they appear in the answer book are marked. All seven questions are solved in full below so the set serves as a complete study resource. Content is framed in the Canadian planning context (the Canadian Institute of Planners definition of planning; provincial planning legislation and official community plans; Canadian metropolitan and small-town examples), consistent with the Engineers Canada / EGBC syllabus for this exam.
Reference texts: G. Hodge & D. Gordon, Planning Canadian Communities: An Introduction to the Principles, Practice and Participants (Nelson, current ed.) — the standard Canadian reference for this exam code; Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP), definition and code-of-professional-conduct materials; World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (the Brundtland Report, 1987); R. T. T. Forman & M. Godron, Landscape Ecology (Wiley, 1986); C. A. Perry, The Neighborhood Unit (1929); provincial planning statutes (e.g., Ontario Planning Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.13; British Columbia Local Government Act) and representative official community plans / regional growth strategies (Metro Vancouver, the Greater Golden Horseshoe Growth Plan, the National Capital greenbelt).
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
Metropolitan regions can grow into several idealised structural forms, distinguished by where density concentrates and how the built-up area relates to its transportation network. Four are commonly identified, each illustrated by Canadian metropolitan experience.
1. The concentrated (centralized) form. Growth is focused in and around a single dominant, high-density core, producing a compact, monocentric region. Toronto and Vancouver both retain powerful central cores — downtown Vancouver’s dense residential-and-commercial peninsula, sustained by the region’s deliberate policy of concentrating growth, is a leading Canadian example of a re-centralized metropolis.
2. The corridor (linear) form. Development stretches out in bands along major transportation routes — historically rail, later expressways and rapid transit — leaving wedges of open land between the corridors. The Greater Golden Horseshoe along the Lake Ontario shore, and Metro Vancouver’s growth strung along the SkyTrain and highway corridors up the Fraser Valley, show the linear form; at the largest scale the Quebec City–Windsor corridor is a national example.
3. The satellite (constellation / multi-nucleated) form. Growth is directed into a set of distinct sub-centres or satellite communities, each with its own core, separated from the central city and from one another by open space, and tied together by transit. Metro Vancouver’s Regional Town Centres (Metrotown, Surrey City Centre, Coquitlam) under the Livable Region Strategy, and Ottawa’s satellite communities (Kanata, Orléans, Barrhaven) held apart by the National Capital Greenbelt, are Canadian illustrations.
4. The dispersed (spread / sprawl) form. Low-density development spreads outward more or less uniformly, with no strong core and heavy automobile dependence. The post-war suburbanization of the “905” ring around Toronto, and the low-density outward spread of Calgary and Edmonton across the prairie, exemplify the dispersed form — the pattern that compact-growth and regional-growth strategies are now designed to contain.
In practice a real Canadian metropolis is a blend of these forms, and the purpose of regional planning — Metro Vancouver’s regional growth strategy, the Ontario Growth Plan — is deliberately to steer growth from the dispersed form toward concentrated, corridor and satellite forms served by transit.
