[joshlemer]

Summary of the YIMBY Winnipeg meeting last Wednesday: https://www.yesinwpg.com/2020/02/07/...3mHFOUXuSln-kU

Events, valentines, budget and more! We had a productive meeting with big plans for 2020.
This February meeting was our last meeting before our February 19th secondary suite workshop. As such, we finalized some of our plans for the event and prepared a final, major promotion campaign for the event.

If you want to attend our February 19th secondary suite workshop, better buy now before tickets sell out. Follow this link to our EventBrite page to buy tickets NOW.

Infill Valentines
Edmonton Planner Jason Syviaxy has delivered Infill Valentines to celebrate the way infill completes streets. A Winnipeg resident has adopted the idea as a way to welcome people in infill houses, which can be (unjustly) very controversial in some neighbourhoods. We’re hoping to expand the campaign in Winnipeg this year.

If you want to get involved, please email us back at yesinwpg@gmail.com. We’re planning to deliver Infill Valentines from February 12-14.

Late March Event
We discussed our planned late March event, a community info-session on infill. We noted that there was some interest in it from other organizations and we’ll remain in dialogue with them. We also assigned a person to facilitate and are currently looking for another co-facilitator to help with more technical infill questions. We also discussed promoting the event, noting that we wanted to get people who have been underrepresented in past infill discussions. We noted that this will require effort and more targeted communications/marketing approach.

Budget for All Winnipeg
Another agenda item was the Budget for All group in Winnipeg. This is a coalition of many civic groups opposing proposed City of Winnipeg service cuts. YIMBY Winnipeg has discussed budget proposals in the past with concern (see “Proposed City Budget cuts show need to densify mature communities“). We reocgnized that there was some overlap in opposing cuts, particularly to transit and multifamily garbage/recycling pickup, and our mandate of supporting land-use and urban development reform to encourage a more walkable and sustainable city. With this in mind, we agreed to support the Budget for All coalition.

Project-based advocacy
In the past, YIMBY Winnipeg has gone to public hearings to support particular proposed projects. This has been a contentious process and is very time consuming. It dropped off as a major activity when we pivoted in fall of 2019 to focus on advocacy around the Residential Infill Strategy. We agreed to look at getting involved in project-based advocacy again, but with a strategic focus on which projects serve as a springboard for a broader public conversation on infill and land use.

Tactical Urbanism
Tactical urbanism or low cost alterations to an urban environment to improve it as a gathering place was discussed. It was noted that Anders Swanson is someone to get in touch with if you’re interested in tactical urbanism