Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

For decades in Canadian cities, land use and transportation planning have operated in silos, causing many of us to live far from where we work, learn, shop, and play. As a result, our cities commonly struggle with car dependency, traffic congestion, noise pollution, low rates of active travel, high housing costs, poverty, and loss of nature. These challenges are worsened when populations grow more quickly than what the municipality has planned for. Integrating land use and transportation planning is critical to healthy urban policy. Kingston, Ontario is confronting this challenge. The City's 2009 Official Plan projected Kingston's population would reach 141,500 in 2036. More recent projections estimate it will reach 220,900 by 2051; a growth rate far faster than what was projected 25 years ago. Against this backdrop, and for the first time in its history, the City will be updating its Official Plan and Transportation Master Plan simultaneously and in an integrated manner to "ensure that Kingston continues to be a livable, diverse, equitable and prosperous City". The City has called this initiative YG220K. As with any update to a major planning document in a Canadian city, YG220K will involve extensive consultation and engagement with City staff, interest holders, community champions, and residents throughout 2025. Through this HCRI grant, our team's goal is to generate critical insights from Helsinki, Finland - a model city for healthy urban policy - to inform YG220K. Our team will mobilize our learnings from Helsinki through a multi-pronged strategy: consultations with two technical advisory teams; a full-day healthy urban policy workshop; resident engagement with YG220K 'Project Champions' and community pop-ups; a graduate planning studio course in healthy urban policy; and a post-grant team meeting to discuss future grant opportunities. Leveraging the City's YG220K engagement framework will enable our team to effectively implement this ambitious strategy.