Scot Hein was the Senior Urban Designer for the City of Vancouver – one of those who contributed directly to the quality of this place, its public realm and its design. It was his choice to leave the City, I gather, though some feel he finally got fed up with the diminishing role that urban design plays in a city whose political masters have other priorities, and to the quality and kind of engagement with its citizens.
Here is the statement that he released to his colleagues and to a more general list. I don’t think he’ll be disappointed to see it here.
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With Thanks and Gratitude
Today I am leaving the City of Vancouver, and the important work of the Urban Design Studio, after 20 wonderful years of learning daily from each of you. I will tremendously miss our time together. A heartfelt thanks to you all for extending such a generosity of spirit that affirms your love for our city.
Reflective of our work together, I continue to appreciate a few simple ideas and remain hopeful of their influence:
We enjoy a magical relationship with nature, with a shared responsibility to protect and enhance at the regional, city, precinct, block and site scale. Revealing local aspects of larger environmental systems will strengthen community identity and contribute local amenity;
We enjoy a high level of public interest in urban design emanating from a shared “pride of place” and recognize our responsibility, collectively, to create special places for local communities to thrive;
We enjoy an enlightened approach to the creation of civic value through the regulation of market interests that can, when practiced thoughtfully and transparently, effectively align this value with community needs in the moment;
We recognize that thoughtful city shaping must start by co-creating design responses at the neighborhood scale that reinforce and enhance local, authentic identity;
We recognize that the opinions and insights of citizens matter, and that an honorable and creative process of design engagement is the most effective method of achieving shared outcomes;
We recognize that our larger civic identity is about strong neighborhoods which serve as platforms for the creation of social capital, and self-reliance, towards a sustainable future. We recognize that the image of the city should reflect this identity and
We recognize that urban design does matter, and that urban design performance is the driver of value creation, and that a rigorous process of co-discovering appropriate project scale, form and character must be conducted first before any new economic value is determined and assigned.
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I am looking forward to continuing the application of best practices in my new position as the University of British Columbia’s Urban Designer …. I am also excited to teach the summer studio for the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture’s Masters of Urban Design Programme while supporting the important work of The Urbanarium, a reformed non-profit society with an educational focus on best city building practices.
I share with all of you my fondest regards and best wishes. I tip my hat to you all. scot
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One of those who forwarded his statement to me suggested it would have more meaning if the verbs in the bold text were all read in the past tense. A little harsh, I think. But there is no doubt that Scot’s departure and other indicators (like Ray Spaxman’s missive – “Is Anyone Else Concerned“) reflect an anxiety in the design community that Vancouver is seeing the erosion of something critical: the legacy of a generation, post 1972, that made urban design a priority, found a balance between development and public values, and created one of the shining examples of urbanism in the late 20th-century.
Scot aimed his statement “With Thanks and Gratitude” to his colleagues. I know I’m not the only one who thought, Scot, those words capture exactly what we feel about your contribution to our city. Thankfully, it continues.
Scot is one of the most talented, principled and collaborative urban designers I’ve had the pleasure of working with. During my 6 years at City Hall, Scot was a partner, a friend, and a creative muse. I’m thankful that he remains a good friend.
Scot and I share a knowledge that skillful and collaborative urban design is a starting point, a bedrock, in any successful city-making, and a basis for real value creation and better problem-solving. Urban design as not a “nice-to-have” or something to be traded off against other goals. If Vancouver’s valuing of urban design continues to diminish, it bodes poorly for us all.
It’s devastating, and I’m personally devastated, that Scot felt he needed to leave City Hall. Frankly, City Hall needs him. City Hall also needs Assistant Planning Director Matt Shillito, and Director of Development Services Vicki Potter, both of whom are also leaving. Change is normal in any city hall, but these three individuals are not normal. They are, each of them, exceptional, and their leaving is an exceptional loss for planning in Vancouver. They have made exceptional contributions to our city, for which they should be thanked, and remembered.
I wish Scot, as well as Matt and Vicki, all the happiness in the world, and look forward to seeing them “around.”
Brent Toderian
Past Director of Planning 2006-2012
I value tremendously the opportunities I have had to work with Scot and respect the positive impact he has had on the built environment of our city. While serving on the Urban Design Panel, I always appreciated Scot’s attention to the relationship between proponents’ projects and their urban and natural surroundings, and the importance of that relationship being respectful and advancing the evolving urban character of the place. When I went back to school to earn my Masters of Urban and Regional Planning, Scot became a mentor and he has followed with enthusiasm and encouragement my successful transition into professional practice. It is gratifying to know that students at UBC will continue to have the opportunity to learn from Scot and he leaves big shoes to fill at the City and in its Urban Design Studio. Thanks for posting this, Gord.
A few quick words to add to the many that will be written in celebration of Scot (and Matt and Vicki and the many others who have made outsized contributions to this special place we call home). In my time at the City, Scot was a pure beacon of creative energy and inspiration – an exemplary practitioner and a true gentleman. Scot is underrated as a key part of that magic mix of human talent and intuition and institutional capacity that is at the heart of the “Vancouver achievement”.
Scot will be missed at City Hall, but the bench is deep and there is young talent ready to step up and take over where Scot and others leave off. Our collective challenge is to ensure that the institutional and community support is there to champion great and inclusive urban design and value creation. In other words, to respect the legacy that Scot built with the Urban Design Studio.
Thanks so much Scot – for all you’ve done to make Vancouver an even more special place. And I look forward to many more contributions in your new role for years to come.
In the 17.5 years that I worked with Scot at City Hall I came to appreciate not only his talent as an Urban Designer but his special ability in finding ways to bring disparate parties together so that important works actually got done! Those who work in the varied and wide reaches connected with city building understand how complex and frequently difficult this latter task – actually getting an inspired design built! – is. City of Vancouver’s loss will be UBC’s gain.
One more thing I have missed the last couple of years since my departure from City Hall…Scot’s wonderful sense of humour.
Best of luck, Scot, in your new role.
Ralph Segal Architect AIBC
What Neal said – +1
Every time a Scot, Ralph, Brent, Larry, Ann, Trish, Ray or whomever leaves City Hall, the same question arises – how will we ever get along without him or her. The answer, so far, seems to be quite well, thank you.
I think one of Scot’s real lasting gifts to the Planning Department and to our city is his interest in and dedication to growing capacity amongst his younger colleagues. I hope the people who make the decision to replace him will choose someone in the ranks at the hall. They are a talented group who have seen a master at work for a number of years now. They are ready.
Author
From Joyce Drohan:
Scot Hein has embodied the idea that city- building in Vancouver is a uniquely collaborative process bringing together community, design (practice and academe) , development and regulatory groups to achieve often surprising, consistently successful results.
Throughout his tenure, he has been a champion of good design, always seeking creative ways of getting to the best solution. So many of us engaged in city-building here in Vancouver have benefited from his creativity, humour, eloquence and passion.
Scot, with deep appreciation, we offer our thanks for your exceptional contributions to Vancouver.
Perhaps I’ve exaggerated the “business as usual” succession history at the hall. There are always pushes and pulls when one leaves an apparently great job. From what I’ve heard from various current and former planning department colleagues at the COV, the former vastly outweigh the former these days. Likely the same goes for Scot, I’m guessing.
The management slash political atmosphere is simply not supportive of Vancouver’s almost legendary commitment to the importance of good urban design, signified by the elimination of the urban design studio that Scot led, as I did before him. I still hope that younger talents there now will not abandon the ship and leave our City in even poorer shape for the future, what with Scot’s departure.
Oops. Make that former outweighs the LATTER.
Author
UBC urban-design prof Patrick Condon adds his thoughts in an opinion piece in The Tyee:
Notes on Scot Hein’s Quitting Vancouver’s Planning Department
An urban design prof passes on Hein’s farewell memo, and reads it through a dark lens.
By Patrick Condon, 9 May 2014, TheTyee.ca
A note about a recent resignation from the City of Vancouver Planning department is in order.
For the many in this city who don’t know Scot Hein, it’s worth pointing out, as I often do to my urban planning students at UBC, that almost everything you like about the City of Vancouver Scot has had a hand in.
Do you like the feeling of the green-way at the 12th and Arbutus project? Scot was a major force behind that.
Do you like the way many of our newer buildings add to the life of the city by presenting a warm and exciting edge to the city street? Scot had a hand in that.
Do you appreciate the same things that have made our city famous around the world? Attention to public spaces? A concern for human scale? Environmental remediation at Olympic Village? Trees? Benches? Small parks throughout the city? Generous sidewalks? Buildings that are not just about making an impression from a distance but also about making your life in the city more rewarding? Scot did that. Lots of that.
For a full generation Scot has been that unsung city official working at a high level of expertise but underneath the radar. Under the radar is where he likes it. Scot is happy if others could claim the credit. Because Scot knows that good city building is a collaborative, not a singular, effort.
Now after a full two decades the results of his efforts are all around to see. And yet very few know his name.
Some do of course. The developers who have sometimes chafed at his suggestions, only to realize in time that their projects were more valuable for his intervention. The neighbourhood residents whose ideas were ultimately, and to their delight, eventually realized in project form. The politicians and other public officials with whom he had the immense patience necessary to diplomatically share the benefit of his life long investigations of what makes a city a good place to live, and how we could use real estate development to both increased economic value but also, and most importantly, improve the day to day life of our people.
But I also know that his departure from the city was difficult. He is a man who often said to me, and others, that “I love my city more than my job.” And now in leaving his job the city has lost him.
Scot left us with a summary of his beliefs the day he departed. Something like a manifesto, it’s worth reading and considering. But as you do, please make one substitution along the way. Wherever it says “we enjoy” and “we recognize” please insert “we once enjoyed but no longer do….” and “We once recognized but no longer do…….” My sense is this comes closer to the truth.
Scot’s departure is too important to the City of Vancouver for us not to understand what a tragedy it represents.
I’m a resident of Mount Pleasant and have been to many of open houses and workshops in which Scot Hein participated in. I’d like to say thanks for treating everyone with respect and taking the time to explain things (many times repeatedly) to the groups. With Scot, I never felt any elitism nor talking down to the public. I don’t know how he and the rest keep their sanity. Best wishes.