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Kelowna  

Prepare for the unthinkable

The City of Kelowna needs to plan for the unexpected.

That's the opinion of Keith Culver, a professor of management at UBC Okanagan, who spoke Monday on the city's Imagine Kelowna initiative.

"Plan for almost unthinkable possibilities," Culver said when asked how he would plan for the future of the city.

"I would say we need to be planning to be resilient in the face of possibilities, that would even include the possibility that we were different as a wine region. We are staking a lot of our planning today on agri-tourism and attracting people to wine."

He said the world is in the throes of climate change which could change our ability as a wine region.

"What do we do if climate change affects our productive capacity as a wine region negatively? We need to be conscientious there."

Culver cited advancements in technology such as the Internet, the drop in oil prices that affected the oilsands in Alberta and Kelowna at the same time, and the earthquake in Japan that resulted in the Fukushima nuclear disaster, as events that had an effect on planning.

He said the city, in its planning for the future, needs more than one Plan A.

"It's very comforting to have a single 25-year strategy; it makes us feel like we are doing the responsible thing. It makes us feel like we're in control," said Culver.

"But, if we're honest with ourselves...we realize our predictions have holes in them. We really need to come up with more than one Plan A so we can be resilient to possibilities."

More importantly, Culver said, so the city can take advantage of those possibilities.

Imagine Kelowna is an 18-month initiative designed to create a long-term community vision.

What kind of community can we be? How can Kelowna adapt to future challenges? And what do those challenges look like? Those are some of the questions being asked as part of the initiative.



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