City of Maple Ridge

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

Initiative

“Two roads diverged in a wood. I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.”

Robert Frost’s words have deep meaning for a City of Maple Ridge at a crossroads. A City with many hallmarks of a commuter city. But also a City with a desire for something more. Self-sufficient – where we get everything we need locally. A 15 minute city where live, work and play co-exist in close proximity. Lifestyle-led. More food secure in a pandemic world that has underscored a need for some new ways forward. And as data revealed as strength, a maker of things for the world that lies in the potential of the fastest growing industry sector in Maple Ridge in the last 10 years: Manufacturing.

Enter a first-in-a-generation Economic Development Strategy – a catalyst for weaving together an ambitious story of Maple Ridge’s future – cultivated from extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis, and community engagement. Uniquely powerful among myriad community plan in its ability to be the ONE plan that residents understand as a roadmap for the future given discussion about the nature and future of work sits at the top of human hierarchy of need.

The Maple Ridge Economic Development Strategy is grounded in a premise: that we can define a desirable future as communities and then work backwards to identify policies and programs that will connect that specified future to the present. This differs from today’s prevalent worldview, where we simply forecast past to future. Past to future assigns Maple Ridge a commuter community fate. The Economic Development Strategy pursues a bolder destiny with a Maple Ridge that can become a regional employment and export leader – in a region with acute scarcity of employment lands.

The meat and potatoes of the Economic Development Strategy is: Six goals. 70 initiatives. 2 key performance indicators.

Strategy highlights include:

Identification of quantitative value proposition (high growth manufacturing cluster, Best 5 Metro Vancouver business costs and house pricing) to focus strategic action on value proposition protection and enhancement at the core of accelerated investment and economic development.
Manufacturing sector focus (result of quantitative sector analysis) and sector development pathway, while also acknowledging local strengths in wholesale and construction sectors, and embracing ability for the City of Maple Ridge to be a manufacturing enabler for Invest Vancouver targets: apparel, green economy, life sciences, digital media, information and communications technology, trade and logistics, and ag-tech.
A pivot to greater City operation al emphasis on non-residential development – particularly industry in context of very significant, specifically identified economic, fiscal, social, and environmental benefits.
Use of a novel (incl. adaptive for scenarios), competitively positioned non-residential assessment ratio key performance indicator to project non-residential land requirements (backcasting) – the result being conversation pivot in the City to embrace the need for significantly more non-residential land than current projected need.
Creation of a sharp, measurable vision statement that provides consistency of goal line.
Re-energizing of strategic focus on downtown enhancement and dynamism.
Formation of a post-secondary partnership to establish physical presence in Maple Ridge as a follow-through from strategic priority-setting.
Strategic initiative embrace of a changing world where the nature and location of work is increasingly footloose – where we find value in attracting and nurturing more digital nomads, tech workers, professional services, and creative industries….some 20% of Maple Ridge’s current workforce.
Enhancement of supports for local entrepreneurs, including addition of four business retention & expansion initiatives, and intent to explore policy solutions that help entrepreneurs find physical space that bridges the gap between home-based business and large commercial and industrial spaces (Middle Ground Initiatives that bridge the commercial “missing middle”).
An economic development roadmap – a visualized plan on a page – that helps residents and investors connects dots in City of Maple Ridge strategic action to form a more cohesive strategic story.
Significant capacity building to nurture organizational culture embrace of a more aggressive economic development agenda.
A manufacturing influence brand campaign: Make It Here as a follow through from strategic priority-setting.
A focus on Economic Development Strategy document presentation as art form, in the spirit of Da Vinci who said “simplicity the ultimate form of sophistication.” Today’s challenge in a world of noise is to engage the reader’s heart and mind in an ambitious story of community….with the content quality and salesmanship needed to motivate readers to directly engage in identified strategic actions…even invest. The document visual moves away from today’s tendency to believe better reports are the heaviest that fall furthest down the stairs – said tongue in cheek. The documentation approach included production of an extensive Situation Analysis that laid the groundwork for strategy development under separate cover for internal use.

The future will be what Maple Ridge makes of it, using its Economic Development Strategy as a guidepost.

Results

The Economic Development Strategy was endorsed by Council in December, 2021.

An off-shoot from the Economic Development Strategy, Rynic worked with the City of Maple Ridge in 2021 on formation of a new post-secondary partnership with Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) with intention to establish post-secondary presence in Maple Ridge deemed critical to workforce development. The nurtured model is innovative in form (tri-partite – industry, government, university), and function (HUB-based built form, hy-flex classrooms, technology enablement, online excellence, and alignment with industry workforce development and research needs) that will set a post-secondary campus in Maple Ridge apart.