On Saturday November 7th, two University of Guelph, Rural Planning and Development students traveled to Ryerson to compete in the 1st ever OPPI Student Case Competition. Queens, York, Waterloo, UofT, and Ryerson were the opposition schools, as they went head-to-head to develop the transit hub for the City of Hamilton's Light Rail System. The site to be planned was the Queenston traffic circle location near the historical City Motor Hotel, where planners from Hamilton suggest they wanted to implement mixed use buildings incorporating both residential and commercial amenities. Representatives from the City of Hamilton opened the competition with an overview of the site in which the plans were to be developed by the students. From 10-4pm the students drew their plans and developed digital presentations to be shared with the judges at the end of the day. Each of the schools had their own perspective as to how to plan the complicated intersection such as giant programmable community spaces, a hub for local trail and park connections, as well as a large green space for pedestrian use proposed by the students of Guelph. The competition was extremely competitive and the winners of the event and free access to the 2016 OPPI conference to be held in Hamilton were the Graduate students from Ryerson University. With our Rural Planners being thrown into a very urbanized case study, they were able to develop a very environmentally conscious plan incorporating the sense of Healthy Communities, Walkability, and the Complete Street.

Please consider joining a team for the OPPI Student Case Study Competition next year! Its a great networking and learning opportunity!