A city programme that builds small public gathering structures where neighbours meet, and where locked storage holds emergency supplies that residents chose together.
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Neighbour Hubs: Shared Emergency Supply Spaces Built with Neighbourhood Associations in Victoria
General Information
ISIG
A City of Victoria model for building neighbourhood gathering spaces that store shared emergency supplies and help neighbours get to know and support each other.
A Neighbour Hub is a wooden structure with seating, planters, a bulletin board with local emergency information, device charging and locked storage, placed on a street, boulevard, park or plaza. A neighbourhood association hosts each hub and gathers a volunteer Hub Team, residents help shape the site, size, look and supplies, and the City pays for, builds and insures it and carries out major repairs. Three design templates (Fern, Jewel and Hive) in three sizes, from 3 m to 12 m, make the model easier to repeat. The solution names three hubs, installed in 2019, 2021 and 2022.
When emergencies happen, neighbours are often the first people to help one another, and the City of Victoria’s preparedness approach rests on the idea that well-connected communities work together and protect those around them. Victoria is a city of roughly 90,000 people on southern Vancouver Island in British Columbia, where local governments lead emergency planning for their area with provincial support. The City’s emergency management division is part of the Victoria Fire Department and offers preparedness workshops for neighbourhoods.
The hub model grew from a 2018 partnership between the City and Building Resilient Neighbourhoods on a pilot called "Connect and Prepare", which focused on resilience and emergency preparedness. The hub idea took shape with Neighbour Lab, a Vancouver-based design studio. The first hub went up in 2019 on Leonard Street, close to Cook Street Village, after about four months of design with local residents. A second followed in 2021 at Harbour Road, Victoria West, and its design began in early 2020. In 2022 the City asked Building Resilient Neighbourhoods and Neighbour Lab to produce three design templates, informed by a public engagement process in which more than 200 people took part. The third hub, at Kings Road in Hillside Quadra, was built to the new Hive template. The City’s stated goal is a hub in every neighbourhood, and locations were to be announced later.
Hazard Type
Geographical Scope - Nuts
Geographical Scope
Population Size
Population Density
Needs Addressed
Neighbours are the first to respond in an emergency, but many people do not know the people next door, and help in the first hours depends on those links. Three linked problems thusly stand out:
- Weak local ties. People who do not know their neighbours are less able to work together or look after those who need help.
- Supplies and information are not close at hand. Emergency supplies are usually held far from where people live, and local hazard information is not visible in the street.
- Preparedness work does not reach everyone. Workshops depend on people attending, whereas a hub in a public place offers a visible, informal way to start a conversation.
The guide says every hub should be open to people of every age, background and ability, and should be accessible and barrier-free, and a local article describes varied, accessible seating. No group is targeted for special measures. Based on the available information, it can be inferred that people who are less mobile or live alone may benefit if neighbours know each other.
The City of Victoria leads with identifying sites, funding and building the hub; it owns it, provides insurance and does major repairs. A neighbourhood association is the official host, approves the project and the location, and provides or names the volunteer Hub Team that plans, activates and looks after the hub. The City’s emergency programme sits within the Fire Department, and the design studio and Building Resilient Neighbourhoods supported the design.
The model is adaptable to other settings: a municipality can lead, as in Victoria, or a community organisation or NGO can take the lead role, with the municipality or another owner providing land, insurance and funding.
The model is meant for places that already have a municipal emergency programme and some preparedness education, but little preparedness at street level. Each hub adds locally chosen supplies, held under three keys (one for the neighbourhood association, one for the Hub Team and one for the City), local emergency information, and an event space for first aid kit building and fire or earthquake safety sessions. The guide says a hub might serve as a muster point, a supply distribution site, an off-grid charging station, a communication centre or an exchange site, but it describes no drills or formal activation role.
The hub itself is simple infrastructure: a wooden structure with locked storage, planters, lighting, a bulletin board and charging. It needs a public site with water access for planters if used, a City able to build and insure it and send crews for repairs, and a site check for tree roots, utilities and refuse collection. It can therefore work in a city with developed public works, or in a setting with basic infrastructure if local materials and a low-cost design are used and the charging is solar. The model is adaptable. Hubs are not built to withstand specific hazards and do not replace emergency facilities.
To give residents a say in where the hub goes, how it looks and what it stores, and to build a team of neighbours who will look after it and use it.
City staff invite a neighbourhood association to join as partner and host. The association forms a volunteer Hub Team, which spreads the word and gathers residents’ input on location, size, design and the list of emergency supplies, through door-to-door flyers, posters and social media. The City supports the engagement work. For the 2022 templates, a public engagement process took place in spring and summer 2022, and a local engagement for the Kings Road hub ran from May to September 2022. Once a hub is built, residents are invited to hold events such as a “party with a purpose”, a paint-in, a resilience walk, and emergency preparedness sessions.
Residents’ input is considered on location, size, design choices and supplies, and the host association approves the project and the recommended location. The City sets the design templates, funds and builds the hub and holds one of three keys, and it approves certain projects and events.
Volunteers in the Hub Team gain a continuing role in caretaking, events and recruiting new neighbours. The guide encourages preparedness events and links them to provincial campaigns, and it lists local grants that can fund activities.
Vulnerable Groups
Governance
Emergency Preparedness
Engagement Level
Empowerment Level
Implementation
The model joins preparedness with placemaking: the same structure is a bench, a meeting point, a bulletin board, a charging point and a store for emergency supplies. Supplies are chosen by each neighbourhood, with City guidance, and kept in locked storage opened with three keys held by different parties. The guide notes that hubs do not hold food or perishables. Three design templates (Fern, Jewel and Hive) and three sizes keep the model affordable and repeatable while allowing community customisation, such as painting and added features. The City also points to side benefits: more eyes on the street, support for local businesses, and traffic calming when a hub narrows a roadway.
English
The City of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada), through its Engineering and Public Works department and its Emergency Program, working with Building Resilient Neighbourhoods and with Neighbour Lab, a design studio, and with a neighbourhood association hosting each hub.
Transferable implementers: any municipality or local authority that can own and fund small public structures, together with a neighbourhood or community association as host, and a design studio, NGO or community initiative able to run co-design with residents.
The City’s emergency management division is part of the Victoria Fire Department and is responsible for preparedness, planning, risk reduction, response and recovery, and it partnered with Building Resilient Neighbourhoods on the 2018 Connect and Prepare pilot. The hub programme is small, with three hubs named in the sources, but the City has a wider emergency role.
An implementer would need a municipal or community body with some emergency preparedness experience, the ability to own and insure public structures, a link to neighbourhood associations, and design and community engagement skills, which can be provided by a partner.
The City of Victoria (Engineering and Public Works, the Emergency Program and the engagement team); neighbourhood associations as hosts; volunteer Hub Teams made up of residents, individuals or non-profit organisations; Building Resilient Neighbourhoods; Neighbour Lab; local residents, businesses, school, faith and sports groups; and local grant funders such as the Victoria Foundation.
- The City identifies opportunities for a hub, either together with large infrastructure works or as separate initiatives paid from grants or dedicated budgets, and invites a neighbourhood association to become the host.
- The association assembles a volunteer Hub Team of individuals or a non-profit organisation to work with City staff.
- The Hub Team engages residents, using several channels, to gather input on location, size, design and the list of emergency supplies.
- The City checks candidate locations, for example for tree roots, underground utilities and refuse collection, and the association and City staff confirm the final site using residents’ feedback.
- The City pays for and constructs the hub, provides the chosen supplies, and issues three keys to the storage.
- The Hub Team looks after the structure, following a sign of approved terms of use and a regular maintenance schedule, and the City handles major repairs.
- Residents and groups use the hub for events, projects and emergency preparedness activities, supported by local grants.
- Human: City staff for site selection, engagement support and maintenance crews; a volunteer Hub Team; a design partner for co-design.
- Financial: a City budget or external grants for building the hub, insurance, and the emergency supplies, and local grants for activities after it is built.
- Technical: a design template, the structure with locked storage and charging, and a site with room for it.
The guide says hubs are built gradually, either with larger infrastructure works or on their own, using grants or dedicated budgets, and it does not publish a budget. External grants for building are an alternative to a stable local budget.
The hub process has defined steps, from identifying a host to building and then stewardship, but no fixed timeline or monitoring plan is published. The first hub was designed over about four months, and the second over more than a year, during the pandemic. The wider model developed from 2018, with templates produced in 2022 and a stated aim of growing the programme to every neighbourhood.
Experience of the Implementing Organisation in DRM
Target Audience
Resources Required
Timeframe & Phases
Participation Results
The programme’s own record shows several lessons: Stewardship matters because public spaces will not always be used as intended. A project that works for one street can be repeated using standard designs, as the move from individual benches to three templates shows. Residents’ input is easier to gather when a neighbourhood association hosts the process.
No public information on challenges met at the installed hubs was found in the sources reviewed. The City’s guide anticipates several: It says visitors may sometimes disregard the terms of use, which it treats as normal for public spaces, and responds with a stewardship team, a regular maintenance schedule and a way to ask the City to deploy crews for graffiti or damage. It expects volunteers to be hard to recruit and suggests approaching school, faith and sports groups, local businesses, and neighbours door to door. It addresses site problems by checking locations for tree roots, utilities and refuse collection. The first hub was built by residents and designers working together over months, and the move to three standard templates in 2022 suggests an effort to make the model easier to repeat.
The guide links specific implementation risks to specific measures. Misuse and damage are met by terms of use on a sign, a maintenance schedule, volunteer stewardship and City crews. Theft or misuse of supplies is addressed with locked storage opened by three keys held by different parties, and by not storing food or perishables. Liability is covered by City insurance. Unsuitable sites are handled with checks before building. Unequal reach is addressed by using multiple channels to reach residents and by inclusive design. Volunteer fatigue and funding for activities are addressed through recruitment suggestions, fundraising ideas and local grants.
Risk & Mitigation Plan
Scalability and Sustainability
The City owns the hubs and covers construction, insurance and major repairs. The neighbourhood association hosts, and a volunteer Hub Team provides everyday care and activates the space with events, funded by small local grants and fundraising. Based on the available information, the model is sustained as long as the City budget for new hubs and repairs continues, and as long as each neighbourhood keeps a team of volunteers. No public information on the City’s long-term budget for the programme or on how supplies are checked and refreshed was found.
The model can be repeated in other municipalities, because it uses standard design templates in three sizes, a clear set of roles for a host, a Hub Team and the City, and a process for gathering residents’ input. The partnership between a municipality and neighbourhood associations, the template designs, the locked supply storage and the stewardship roles are scalable. The choice of supplies must be adapted to local hazards and climate, the legal and insurance arrangements for public structures, the materials and design, the owner of the land and the hub, the funding, and the way volunteers are recruited.
Technology is limited to charging stations (described in local articles as solar-powered), minor lighting, and a bulletin board, with social media used to promote the hub and recruit volunteers. The innovation lies in the design of the space and the governance model.
No public information on the cost of a hub was found in the sources reviewed. The City pays for construction and insurance and provides the emergency supplies chosen by each neighbourhood, and the first hub was reported in 2019 to have been paid for by a City grant programme. The cost presumably varies with the template and the size, from 3 m to 12 m, and with the supplies chosen.
No public information on ongoing costs was found. It can be inferred that they include City crews for major repairs and graffiti removal, insurance, periodic checks and replacement of stored supplies, and volunteers’ time. Activities at a hub can be funded by annual local grants, including My Great Neighbourhood Grants, Growing in the City Grants and the Victoria Foundation’s Neighbourhood Small Grants.
Long-term use depends on a continuing host and Hub Team, since the City cares for major repairs but expects neighbours to look after day-to-day care. The City plans to expand only as budgets or grants allow, and the sources name three hubs between 2019 and 2022. The guide points to annual grants for activities and fundraising by residents to keep hubs active.