Assessing Sustainable Building Technologies from a First Nations Perspective: The Community Plan as an Analysis Framework

Abstract

This report addresses knowledge gaps in First Nations housing development by illustrating how community plans can be used to examine sustainable building technologies (SBTs), suggesting that community plans can provide an analysis framework. The work supports a Housing Pilot-Project (HPP) underway in Wagmatcook First Nation (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia). The HPP emerged from Wagmatcook’s 2014 Community Plan Update, developed in collaboration with Cities and Environment Unit (CEU) at Dalhousie University. The HPP is to be a locally-focused, community-driven project that advances community Action Areas related to Housing, Health, Culture and Education, Governance, and the Local Economy. To support Wagmatcook First Nation’s Chief and Council to identify and select SBTs for the HPP that meet community needs and support community Action Areas, I developed a design guideline document based on an analysis of an inventory of SBTs compiled for the project. I then analyzed this inventory according to community Action Areas contained in Wagmatcook’s Community Plan Update. SBTs supportive of community Action Areas appear in the guideline document (see Appendix).