The collaborative project is being recognized for its nature-based approach to shoreline management, reducing erosion and flood risks. Photo: C. Holbrook / Project Watershed

“ I think it's really valuable for the community to be able to have a project that's in the Comox Valley recognized at a national level … I think it'll really give other local governments from small communities ideas and inspiration to be able to tackle their own projects,” said Robyn Holme, CVRD.

The Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) received a Sustainable Communities award this week for Climate Adaptation from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Green Municipal Fund. The award was given on Tuesday February 11th at the Sustainable Communities Conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The CVRD did not attend, and will receive the award in the mail.

The award recognizes work done on the Dyke Road Park Project, a collaborative effort between the CVRD and many partners including K’ómoks First Nation, Project Watershed, Union of BC Municipalities, Stewardship Centre for BC, Nature Trust of BC, Real Estate Foundation of BC, Aquatic Ecosystems Restoration Fund, Guardians of Mid-Island Estuaries, and Pacific Salmon Foundation.

The collaborative project is being recognized for its nature-based approach to shoreline management, reducing erosion and flood risks. The CVRD’s Manager of Parks, Mark Harrison, said that collaboration was a major contributor to the success of the project.

“ I think one of the biggest successes was the partnerships, and specifically the partnership with K’ómoks First Nation. K’ómoks has been involved with the project from the onset and having their contributions and their inputs have been extremely valuable throughout the whole project,” Harrison said. “Having them there, making sure that all the archeological and the cultural sensitivities of the site were respected, I thought was probably the most critical part of that whole project.”

“We're building up the landscape adjacent to the road so the road will be protected from higher water levels or storm surges,” Pierzchalski explained. Photo: Casey Doucet / Project Watershed

Another collaborator in the Dyke Road Park Project is Project Watershed, a not for profit society based in the Comox Valley that does research and restoration work in coastal, estuarine, and freshwater systems throughout the North Island.

Caitlin Pierzchalski is the Executive Director of Project Watershed, and said the group’s role in the project has been largely to inform the ecological restoration elements, while other partners took on different sides of the redesign.

“So we focused on the foreshore and some of the riparian works, whereas some of the other folks were actually thinking of the functionality of the park from more of a social perspective,” she said. “So they were thinking about things like making the parking lot greener, reducing the overall footprint of concrete on the site, making the social values of the park really shine, so they're rejuvenating the boardwalk, they're changing the bird viewing platform, all of these things are going to make this space a really excellent place to get out and view the estuary and learn a little bit more about the culture and environment in our local setting. So it's overall a really cool project in that way.”

Pierzchalski says climate adaptation work in this case meant highlighting Comox Road as vulnerable to coastal flooding, and strategizing to buffer and protect the important transport corridor.

“It's one of those really interesting areas where you can do work that's beneficial to the environment that also really benefits human infrastructure as well. So it's really a sort of co-benefit situation. So in the case of Dyke Road Park, we're building up the landscape adjacent to the road so the road will be protected from higher water levels or storm surges. So if you see things like sea level rise or increased storm frequency, this will help protect the road,” Pierzchalski explained.

“But the interesting part is we're also restoring the environment through this work, so it will also have benefits to things like salmon and birds, and the environment overall, [and] water quality, so we have this mutual benefit between these two things where there's a human benefit and a benefit for the natural environment as well,” she said.

The CVRD’s Manager of Long Range Planning and Sustainability, Robyn Holme, said that this award recognizes the forward-thinking nature of this major collaboration project.

“It really recognizes all of the hard work that the entire team put into this project. It really was innovative in its approach and at times challenging to keep navigating the multiple-project objective, but I think that what we're seeing now is that with tackling climate change and building climate resiliency, we really need to be thinking outside the box,” she said. “We need to be thinking about how we can ensure that there are a number of objectives that are being accomplished when we're taking on such a big project.”

Holme said she hopes the success of this collaboration will set the standard for future projects.

“There's been a number of really, I would say, good relationships that have been established through the project partners. There's been trust that's been established. There's been essentially a roadmap that's been created on how to tackle these multiple partner, multiple jurisdiction projects,” Holme said. “And so looking to the future, I think we have a really good roadmap of how we would approach these again. We can look at this project, we can learn from those experiences and then be able to tackle new projects [of] greater complexity, with a better understanding of how to work together.”

Parks Manager Harrison says this recognition means a lot for this community of relatively small size.

“The fact that we're getting recognized for this award and we're this small little community on Vancouver Island; when you think about the vastness of Canada, all the communities that are out there, all the amazing projects that are happening nationwide. For this small community to be recognized for this project at a national level is really quite something,” he said.

Harrison says on behalf of his colleagues at the CVRD and the large group of project partners, “we're really thankful for the recognition, and I think getting that recognition makes us feel like we're on the right path, and we're moving forward in a good way.”

Project Watershed’s director Pierzchalski looks forward to the impacts of the project.

“I hope that people can really see the beauty that is the convergence of all the different perspectives that are being held by this project. We have park and recreation space, we have ecological restoration, we have the K’ómoks First Nation cultural values. All of these things are really being upheld by this project,” Pierzchalski said.

“And so I think when people are finally able to come out to this space and enjoy the park,” she continued, “they'll be able to see and sort of revel in the beauty that is the intersection of all of those things and how they really all uplift each other. And so I'm really excited for folks to get out to the site and be able to see that and enjoy it and just revel in the beauty that is the K’ómoks Estuary.”

Project completion and park reopening are slated for Fall of this year. More information on the Dyke Road Park project and construction updates can be found on the CVRD website.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada. Reporting done in the Comox Valley is done in partnership with CVOX.