North Shore Design Charette – summary

Posted on: December 19, 2020
The North Shore Neighbourhood Plan Design Charrette was held in November.
The intensive five day process is designed to solicit ideas and create vision for the future. It resulted in these concept drawings.
Figure 1: North Shore Design Charrette roll-up concept image from Saturday’s Zoom call.
Saturday morning (Nov 21) the City of Kamloops and its design team hosted a video call (due to COVID restrictions) to unveil the results of the 2020 North Shore Design Charrette process.
 
The team noted that they used a set of design criteria to drive the design process, as indicated in Figure 2, below.
 
These drivers were:
  1. The area planned must be structurally reasonable, must have a clear idea what the area can look like and must be logical in the way we envision it.
  2. The area should be considered as a binder or zipper between communities. In other words; connections, transportation, intersections must serve the greater needs of the community and promote coming together.
  3. Designs must honor the past, build on the present, and imagine the future. One of the key attributes of the North Shore is to embrace its history, and to ensure we are not blindly charging forward erasing what has been. Instead we move forward with strategy and design to embrace the eclectic buildings and sites that exist, and bring them into the 21st century, through inteligent upgrades and embracing the “funky”
The team identified the corridor design would make more sense by segmenting it into three natural sections: The Hub at the corner of Tranquille 8th, the Fortune Market or Village (from Oak to Clapperton), and The Industrial/recreational District from Clapperton to the Overlander Bridge.
 
Figure 2: Design Drivers and Area identification illustration from Saturday’s Zoom call
 
In figure 3, you can see how the density of The Hub becomes a driver for recreational opportunities within the zone, as well as providing enough consumers to attract and maintain more significant retail merchants. This type of zone could be largely walkable, and as such needs to have integrated pathways, transportation and accessible spaces for its residents and visitors alike.
North Shore Hub Concept showing 8th/Tranquille/Fortune interchange zone from Saturday’s Zoom call.
 
The Tranquille Market / Village corridor (Figure 4) could become the fun, artsy, multi-cultural neighbourhood, attracting global cuisine, artistic entertainment and the eclectic mix of properties already in the zone (albeit updated to reflect current building codes etc.). This multicultural zone would become the driver of the Multicultural community in Kamloops, in essence the “melting pot” of variety.
Tranquille Market / Village Concept from Saturday’s Zoom call
Finally The Industrial/recreational District from Clapperton to Overlander could become a hybrid zone of river front access and park space, light industrial buildings, higher end commercial and residential, balanced with loft style developments in the current Briar Rd areas. There are challenges to developing this zone due to restrictions under federal and provincial regulations for salmonid bearing waters; however a strong vision that builds on the connection to the water, while welcoming the city, can create a positive and unique space for development, in the coming years.
 
It is critical to note these visions are not something we can move to tomorrow, they need consideration regarding what else would need to be reviewed such as zoning, transportation, recreation and other plans. The ideas would be 90 percent on private developers to achieve, and that means our municipality must also believe in the vision and be willing to navigate the current systems to support this future vision with all of us.
 
It is a lofty goal to completely revision and reinvent a community, but I believe passionately that it is one we can achieve together. The foundational pieces are already here, in place. It is now time to build forward.
 
For more information on the North Shore Neighbourhod planning process, including next steps, visit the City of Kamloops’ Let’s Talk site here.