News

Fall 2007 - UNB Alumni News feature article
June 29, 2006 - Grand opening of first retail store on Endowment Development Lands
Oct. 7, 2005 - Announcement of first retail partner, The Home Depot
Oct. 13, 2004 - Guest Column in The Daily Gleaner by Ian Methven
Oct. 4, 2004 - UNB News Release: UNB Adopts Land Management Strategy

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Oct. 13, 2004 - Guest Column in The Daily Gleaner, Page A8

Time to Move Beyond Old Uses of UNB Lands

by Ian Methven

When King George III granted 5,950 acres to the University in 1800 "to support the fledgling institution" he or his advisors obviously realized the value of land as a critical and potentially profitable asset. In fact, legally protected land rights are the foundation of any healthy and vibrant economy, and a primary asset of most individuals, corporations and governments.

Unfortunately, this is often not recognized, with the result that governments at all levels, for example, fail to realize the value of this asset. For many decades after 1800 the land grant to the university remained as a largely unrealized asset except for the sale and use of wood from the property.

With the establishment of the Faculty of Forestry in 1908 the educational, research, recreational and environmental attributes of the asset were realized. In more recent decades the University has engaged in the exchange, lease and sale of land in response to external requests and pressures, but has maintained the overall size of the land holding.

These activities, while generally well managed, were largely reactive in nature with the initiative coming from the private sector or government. There was, in other words, no strategic land use plan or asset management system in place for optimizing the returns to the University as envisaged by King George, his advisors, or the early settlers of the Fredericton area who worked so hard for the establishment of what was then Kings College.

We have now entered a new era as a result of financial pressures, land pressures, a more complete realization of the value of a well-managed land asset, and the responsibility of the university to the development of its broader community - the City of Fredericton and the Province of New Brunswick. It is time for leadership and imagination; leadership in the sense of bringing about significant and difficult change, and imagination in the ability to break free from traditional views of the role of the UNB Lands in general and the UNB Woodlot in particular.

Fortunately, leadership is not new to New Brunswick, the University or the City of Fredericton. This is particularly true when it comes to issues of land, whether it is land administration, land and resource management, or the application of geomatics technologies in land-use planning where we have received worldwide recognition.

Over the years, New Brunswick has developed powerful and productive partnerships between the private sector, the university and government. The result is that we developed one of the first commercially available web-enabled online land information systems in the world, and visitors come here from around the world to see our land administration system at work. In the forestry sector, we have developed forest resource management policies, strategies and plans that have been emulated across Canada, and have developed planning software used around the world.

The Woodlot Implementation Plan moves us into an added dimension of this leadership; the integration of built and natural environments into a cohesive and integrated whole. The goal of this challenge is to develop a quality living and working environment for the citizens of Fredericton, while meeting and respecting the asset management, teaching and research objectives of the university, the planning needs of the City under the Capital City Municipal Plan Review, and the ecological values of the environment in which the development will take place.

The overall context for the Woodlot Implementation Plan, in the words of the Interim Report, will work towards, "The creation of a mixed-use urban village designed in accordance with "smart growth" principles, emphasizing tree preservation, a diversity of land uses, housing choice, a high level of community amenities, parks and open spaces, a public trail network, and an emphasis on pedestrian use."

This vision will be accomplished through allocating the area into two integrated parts depending on the most appropriate use. A Heritage Development Area, and a Heritage Conservation Area.

Initially there will be a Mixed Use Development Area that will cover 270 acres or seven per cent of the Woodlot area at its north end, and is bounded by Regent Street to the west, the Vanier Highway to the north, Kimble Road to the east, and Corbett Brook to the south. Development will include a commercial retail sector on the east side, a residential area to the south, and a business prestige industrial area to the north.

The Heritage Conservation Area is defined largely by the watercourses, such as Corbett Brook, and their immediate watershed areas including wetlands and bogs such as the Regent Bog. In addition, special features such as the Corbett Caves, natural features such as tree stands of special interest, and green spaces of aesthetic value will be preserved. Corridors will also be established across heights of land to connect the watersheds and create a habitat continuum for wildlife. Thus the Heritage Conservation and Heritage Development Areas will interpenetrate each other to create an integrated fabric of land uses all traversed and linked by nature trails.

The Mixed Use Development Area of the Woodlot Implementation Plan provides an exciting and challenging development for the citizens of Fredericton and for the University of New Brunswick. It represents a major step into a new dimension of integrated urban and natural environment planning in our leadership position in land administration and management, and a major opportunity for the exercise of our collective imagination in finding new approaches to the management of the University's land assets.

Dr. Ian Methven is the Director of the Centre for Property Studies and former Dean of the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management at UNB Fredericton.