Toronto's first major waterfront tourism redevelopment used clean fill from downtown construction excavation to create raw, new islands at about $100/ac! My firm developed and tested the island form with coastal engineers and wind tunnel tests, developed the site plans and construction details, and supervised construction of all site development excluding the architecture and underground utilities.

A world-class IUCN paleontological resource required extreme care in its management and use. We teamed with ecologists to develop one of the first uses of digitized field inventories to identify environmental sensitivity throughout the park. The field and research work covered palaeontological, archaeological, natural, physical and historical resources. We were accountable for the creation of the software program, and resultant overlays based upon local through international scales of both frequency/rarity of all features and resistance/sensitivity to damage through user activity.

A development of new land-filled islands with public and private marinas, boat launching, sailing club, fishing, community center and other park functions. After preparing the master plan and assisting in both environmental approvals and federal breakwater contributions, we coordinated all consultants in design and supervision. We were accountable for over $60 million in then-current dollars.

Ontario’s Crown (publicly owned and managed) lands cover over 190 million acres. Remote tourism operators and other segments of the northern tourism economy depend on visual and functional safeguards to preserve the sense of northern remoteness. We worked with tourism operators and woodlands managers to identify issues, and then prepared a set of guidelines for use in logging operations. The manual was designed for portable field use.

A radio station/non-profit partnership raised funds for the addition of a water play facility in famous Stanley Park. The objective was to make the facility accessible to kids of all ages, able or disabled. We worked with specialists to develop a concept of mixed rather than segregated use, and developed the site plan

This was one of the first environmental assessments in Ontario, involving a proposed highway through a wilderness-class park. We competed successfully for the assignment, on the principle that it was not a transportation project, but a multi-disciplinary examination with significant public participation. Our team of economists, sociologists, ecologists, physical scientists, engineers and archaeologists examined the problems of a small community isolated at the end of a long road, 70 miles from the nearest high school and many of the services that most towns take for granted. I was responsible for overall direction, presentations to Cabinet, and all public participation, including local, provincial, national and international interests.

Ontario has a world class park system, which at the time was funded out of general revenues in which park-generated revenues were not returned to the parks themselves. The system also focused on the sciences in research, classification and interpretation. There was little in the way of user or market research, and this assignment required a rethinking of the whole delivery system. We worked with management specialists, and were responsible for facilitating stakeholders and staff in a series of workshops that identified the desired attributes of a better system. We also researched park delivery systems in other jurisdictions, including British Columbia, Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Arkansas, all of which were more heavily attuned to volunteerism, partnerships and more entrepreneurial marketing approaches.

Conservation Authorities regulate watershed-based flood and fill policies. They are also responsible for acquiring land for conservation, and using such land for recreational and interpretive purposes. Issues arise over the desirable balance of the two with advocates for acquisition and user benefits wanting their view to be of the higher priority. We facilitated a series of watershed resident workshops, the purpose of which was to examine the issue, project tangible and intangible costs and benefits, and formulate policy recommendations.

A pioneering approach in which diverse stakeholders were treated as partners with a regulatory agency in recommending a fisheries management plan that would stop overharvesting while increasing local economic benefits. Forty lakes totaling 185 square miles of surface water were included, of which eighteen lakes were being overharvested. Jim Stansbury facilitated the co-management task force and assembled its report of publicly-tested 73 recommendations for the regulatory agency’s consideration. Most were adopted, and the co-management concept was considered a success.