| Article Index |
|---|
| Green Space Model |
| Clarence Stein |
| All Pages |
GREEN SPACE MODEL FOR A PLANNED COMMUNITY
People new to Kitimat often comment on how well the town is laid out. The layout is the result of the Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan's) decision to create a planned community that fullfilled the needs of the skilled workers and their families that would be coming to Kitimat to work in the new aluminum smelter.
The Green Space Model was a key element of the plan as was the walkway system that gives access to the green spaces.
Famous American planner and architect, Clarence Stein, along with town planners, Mayer and Whittlesey of New York City, were the planning team and consulted many experts to produce a social and physical master plan for Kitimat.
Three of the proposed ten neighbourhoods were constructed, Nechako, Kildala, and Whitesail with citizen safety and peaceful open space garden settings as primary elements. Each followed Stein's design and featured:
- green space and walkways,
- separation of pedestrians and vehicles,
- residential streets laid out in a series of horseshoes and cul-de-sacs,
- traffic routed onto boulevards at the edge of each neigbourhood or funneled into main avenues to bypass residential streets,
- and under or overpasses to cross busy streets.
In more recent decades, three subdivisions, Cable Car, Forest Hills and Strawberry Meadows, have been developed. Kitimat remains a community with an abundance of green space as originally envisioned by Clarence Stein where the citizens continue to make good use of and enjoy the 45 km of walkways.