Unincorporated areas within a regional planning context are often of an essential ‘in-between’ nature — facing unique community-specific and site-specific challenges. These challenges include: identifying appropriate growth management strategies, examining how growth containment is best effected, and determining how this is best integrated in the unincorporated rural area context — especially where these areas are adjacent to rapidly growing incorporated urban-region centres. There are also considerations around how concepts, such as Complete Communities and Agricultural Urbanism, can be applied to such contexts — and how such concepts may facilitate a tighter, and more seamless, relationship between the typically polar opposite interventions under the banners of regional planning and community design. This practicum examines how the concepts of Complete Communities and Agricultural Urbanism are and/or could be applied to unincorporated rural areas as part of an approach to a combination of planning and design — as placemaking. The Regional District of Nanaimo’s Rural Village Centre (RDN RVC) strategy provides the main case study context, along with several other ostensibly comparable BC regional district settings as potentially informative precedents. It was discovered that there are increasing linkages between regional planning and community design that may be further advanced via a placemaking perspective. Of special note are the opportunities associated with adaptations of the concepts of Complete Communities and Agricultural Urbanism in the unincorporated rural context; referencing these concepts can enhance the linkages between the ‘unincorporated rural settings’ and their ‘incorporated’ municipal neighbours. The research has helped to identify where there may be room for improvement around RDN RVC strategies, and how they may be better applied in the future.

Unincorporated areas within a regional planning context are often of an essential ‘in-between’ nature — facing unique community-specific and site-specific challenges. These challenges include: identifying appropriate growth management strategies, examining how growth containment is best effected, and determining how this is best integrated in the unincorporated rural area context — especially where these areas are adjacent to rapidly growing incorporated urban-region centres. There are also considerations around how concepts, such as Complete Communities and Agricultural Urbanism, can be applied to such contexts — and how such concepts may facilitate a tighter, and more seamless, relationship between the typically polar opposite interventions under the banners of regional planning and community design. This practicum examines how the concepts of Complete Communities and Agricultural Urbanism are and/or could be applied to unincorporated rural areas as part of an approach to a combination of planning and design — as placemaking. The Regional District of Nanaimo’s Rural Village Centre (RDN RVC) strategy provides the main case study context, along with several other ostensibly comparable BC regional district settings as potentially informative precedents. It was discovered that there are increasing linkages between regional planning and community design that may be further advanced via a placemaking perspective. Of special note are the opportunities associated with adaptations of the concepts of Complete Communities and Agricultural Urbanism in the unincorporated rural context; referencing these concepts can enhance the linkages between the ‘unincorporated rural settings’ and their ‘incorporated’ municipal neighbours. The research has helped to identify where there may be room for improvement around RDN RVC strategies, and how they may be better applied in the future.

This study involved a regional hydrogeological assessment of the Comox Coalfield on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Two site-specific geological and hydrogeological investigations were conducted. The first involved generating a 2.5 dimensional hydrostratigraphic model of part of the Quadra Sand Comox-Merville Aquifer using lithology information from 196 drilled domestic-use groundwater wells. Well logs were standardized with respect to lithologic and hydraulic characteristics. Contact surfaces were created for identifiable hydrostratigraphic units employing an iterative geostatistical interpolation process that incorporated contact points from well logs and interpreted points based on the regional hydrogeology. Modeled hydrostratigraphic surfaces were compared to logged contacts and to exposures at Willemar and Lazo bluffs at Comox. Six lithostratigraphic units were identified in the coastal exposures. Hydraulic conductivity values, estimated from grain size data using the Hazen method, for the lowermost 4 units were: 2.3 x 10-3 cm/s, 9.1 x 10-6 cm/s, 9.4 x 10-3 cm/s, and 4.7 x 10-6 cm/s, respectively. The hydrostratigraphic model was verified using statistical variance analysis, field reconnaissance data, and the identification of a separate surficial aquifer within the study area. The model identified all units mapped in the field and two units below sea level, inferred to be the Cowichan Head Formation. The Comox Bluff model successfully predicted, within 2 m vertically, subsurface hydrostratigraphic boundaries 80% of the time. The second component of the study included a hydrogeological investigation of stacked Quaternary and Late Cretaceous bedrock aquifers at Oyster River. This investigation incorporated drilling logs, borehole geophysics, aqueous geochemistry, pumping and recovery test data, and hydrostratigraphic interpretation of surficial exposures. The potential for hydraulic communication between the Late Cretaceous Nanaimo Group fractured sedimentary bedrock and the overlying unconsolidated Quaternary aquifers was examined. Two adjacent groundwater observation wells were drilled; one completed in bedrock (146.9 m) and one in the surficial sediments (7.3 m). The deeper well penetrated the Trent River and Comox Formations of the Nanaimo Group. A water-bearing fracture zone approximately 3 m wide was encountered at 135 metres below ground surface, coincident with the Comox Y and Y Lower coal seams. Dissolved methane gas was detected in the bedrock aquifer, with an initial concentration of 2,123 mg/L. Schoeller diagrams reveal that the gas in bedrock is coal related. A pumping and recovery test in the deep well suggests that there is unlikely any hydraulic communication between the bedrock and surficial aquifers encountered at Oyster River. This assessment is based on infrequent water level measurements in the shallow well, which did not consistently draw down during pumping of the deeper well. However, the pumping rate was not sustainable for this test and it could not be held constant. Fracture transmissivity and hydraulic conductivity for the bedrock aquifer were estimated using the Theis Recovery method at 7.06 x 10-7 m2/s and 2.29 x 10-7 m/s, respectively. The hydrogeological research conducted at Comox and Oyster River highlights the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary approach for subsurface investigations. This study contributes site level data upon which regional inferences can be built for the Comox Coalfield.

The retail landscape has changed significantly since the mid 20th century, evolving from a city centre focus through strip malls, shopping centres, shopping malls, mega-malls, big box stores, and to the newest form of retailing - the lifestyle commercial centres. One constant through this evolution has been the permissive role of land use regulations in shaping the form and location of retailing. At issue is whether local governments, and in particular land use planners, have abandoned a holistic approach to evaluating the public good and instead focused solely on the economic benefits gained from new development. This study offers a new approach to understanding the "boxed in" relationship between the retail landscape and the public good: that is, boxed in by the form of available retailing, by the paradoxical lack of choice brought on by an obsessive belief in "larger is better", and by permissive decision-making that focuses too strongly on the economic benefits of more and larger retail stores. A case study of the retail landscape of Nanaimo, British Columbia is included to illustrate a practical example of this relationship. Drawing on primary research on the impact of shopping locations on individuals combined with in-depth interviews and archival research, the retail landscape is examined. The intended outcome of this research is to challenge local governments, and in particular land use planners, to more fully consider the question of the public good when evaluating land use proposals.

Heteromorph ammonites and dinoflagellate cysts from the Upper Cretaceous Northumberland Formation on Hornby Island, British Columbia, Canada are examined. The collection and preparation of new material has enabled the recognition of eleven species of which only three have been reported from the locality. Of these taxa represented from three heteromorph ammonite families in the study area, five are new occurrences and three are new to science. This expansion of the Hornby Island ammonite fauna is presented alongside a pioneering taxonomic survey of dinoflagellate cysts from the same rocks. Together, these macro- and microfossils reinforce a late Campanian age for the Northumberland Formation with the upper extent of the section approaching the Campanian-Maastrichtian boundary (CMB) interval. The palaeoecology and evolutionary relationships of these heteromorph ammonoids are considered with new insights into their ontogenetic development and neritic palaeoenvironmental circumstances. The dinoflagellate cysts and associated terrestrial palynomorphs have also allowed for enhanced palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and depositional setting inference. The scope of the studied material, and the presence of key index taxa, enables refined biostratigraphy and a stronger basis for correlation of the Hornby Island succession with neighboring coeval biotic provinces. / Graduate / 2018-08-10