City seeks 'balance' with Official Plan

The city is “eager” and “ready” to begin gathering input into a revised Official Plan, the city's chair of the planning committee said.

Ward 7 Coun. Dave Kilgour said the process needs to bring together all residents to help “mold” a document that will address the needs of the entire community. Tonight, the city is launching the start of its five-year review of the Official Plan, a document used to establish goals, objectives, and policies to manage and direct physical change and its effects on the social, economic and natural environment for a 20-year planning period.

The goal is to formulate policies that are consistently applied across all areas of the amalgamated city, with an end product that is easier to interpret and more efficient in application. It covers five main sections: managing growth and change, protecting the natural environment, investing in infrastructure, developing quality of place, as well as healthy people, healthy places.

“From our end, we are ready and eager to accomplish what we need to accomplish,” Kilgour said.

All residents have to be in it together, he said, because the city as a whole stands to benefit from an updated Official Plan. Currently, decisions made by the planning committee are based on policies developed decades ago.

Developing the Official Plan take a great deal of work, he said. Greater Sudbury presents a range of challenges and opportunities given its unique planning context. The largest municipality in Ontario based on total area, Sudbury encompasses a broad spectrum of land uses including mining, agriculture, manufacturing and commercial, as well as permanent and seasonal residential uses in urban and rural locales.

The physical settlement pattern, largely tied to the historical development of industrial uses, is defined by a number of communities of varying size and distance from the main urban area of Sudbury.

The Official Plan functions as much more than a land-use planning document — it also encompasses objectives related to social, economic and environmental matters, according to the city's planning department. It essentially guides every municipal decision, from the creations and expansion of roads, to the location of parks, schools, business and long-term care facilities.

Tonight marks the first opportunity for the public to get involved in the review. The planning committee will play host to a special meeting at 7 p.m. in council chambers. Extensive public consultation will take place in shaping the revised plan, with a rough draft expected “perhaps a year from now,” Kilgour said.

Paul Baskcomb, director of Planning Services for the city, said his staff is looking for input from all residents, not just “experts” on the various subjects covered in the Official Plan. He said his staff is prepared to hear the “hopes and desires” of many resident, and all “are fair game in my books.”

“Seeking balance is a word that will likely be worn out by the end of this,” Baskcomb said.

For more information about the Official Plan, visit www.greatersudbury.ca/officialplan.

Posted by Arron Pickard