This is an in-depth examination of how to create more livable, more successful in-fill projects and communities.

It looks at what is going on in Kingston Ontario with first. The rehabilitation of a major brownfield site (the former Davis Tannery waterfront lands).

Second, the development of a 1,500-unit neighborhood that must meet many needs and tests from a multiplicity of stakeholders including:

• the city,
• the developer,
• the planning community,
• neighbors,
• politicians at all levels of government,
• future residents,
• guests,
• visitors,
• tenants (both residential and commercial),
• buyers,
• investors,
• and more…

All of them working within a self-declared (by the city of Kingston) climate emergency to produce a community where people can live in an affordable, live-work-play, create-make-learn-grow, entertain-shop, exercise-grow-socialize, diversified-visitable, neo-urbanist, walkable, animated neighborhood. One that is both economically and environmentally sustainable.

This requires that the city develops policy planning tools and outside-the-box ideas as a way of attracting business investment and entrepreneurs as well as spurring innovation and creating/permitting development of mixed-use places that function better than current models.

This Nutopia: Background Report should be read in conjunction with its (shorter) companion document—NUTOPIA: RECOMMENDATIONS (included in your purchase).