Sustainability Principles

Using the results of reviews of the various Comox Valley regional strategies, Longlands’ public consultations, and an understanding of the Longlands site’s physical capabilities, development principles specific to the Longlands Project were formulated. These principles are centred around the three pillars of sustainability – environmental, social, and economic systems (often referred to as the “triple bottom line (3BL)” approach).

The foundations for the project’s development principles are that the Longlands development must preserve and/or enhance existing environmental, social, and recreational values, and that Longlands must be a truly sustainable development that follows the 3BL approach. Adherence to a 3BL approach means that the project is forced to look beyond the site and consider multiple spatial scales - from the site-level, to its immediate neighbours, the Brooklyn Creek Watershed, and Comox Valley as a whole.

Five overarching development principles have guided the Longlands Project:

1. Follow an integrated design process to create a ground-breaking, sustainable development that preserves Longlands’ existing natural charm and character while providing the greatest social, economic, and environmental benefits for its future residents and the surrounding community;
2. Use site adaptive planning to facilitate understanding and respect of the site’s natural resource opportunities and constraints;
3. Achieve consistency with Smart Growth BC’s collection of land use and development principles, in particular its per-capita footprint target goal of 13 units / acre, with the lightest impact on the land possible;
4. Design the new community in full accord with the intentions and goals formulated in the latest drafts of the Comox Valley Sustainability and Regional Growth Strategies, as well as the BC provincial government’s BC Climate Charter; and
5. Ensure that the project meets or exceeds the highest standards of environmental stewardship and design possible, including compliance with the stated intents of the pilot-stage LEED-ND program for the community as a whole, and a target of LEED Platinum certification for buildings in particular.

These overarching development principles were further refined into a comprehensive matrix of specific goals and objectives, which form Longlands’ Sustainability Guidelines.