Official Community Plans
Official Community Plans provide a comprehensive policy framework to guide the physical, environmental, economic, social and cultural development of a municipality or any part of the municipality. A community plan is a growth management strategy for a municipality and enables it to set development goals, objectives and policies which council can use to manage land use, subdivision, municipal services, and public utilities. The plan generally addresses the following:
- sustainable current and future land use and development in the municipality;
- current and future economic development;
- the general provision of public works;
- the management of lands that are subject to natural hazards including, flooding, slope and instability;
- the management of environmentally sensitive lands;
- the co-ordination of land use, future growth patterns and public works with adjacent municipalities;
- source water protection; and implementation of the OCP.
Regional and Inter-municipal Planning
As municipalities grow there is an ever increasing need for communities to consider how to facilitate the kind of long term growth that they want. Increasing economic opportunities, an influx of new residents, greater demands on aging services, rising costs for new infrastructure and more interest in land development are just some of the issues that municipal councils are required to consider. “Functional Regions”, built on a foundation of comprehensive community planning and economic development are growing in number.
Inter-Municipal Business Licenses are one tool to strengthen the economy of a region. British Columbia offers a Mobile Business License Program. Saskatchewan has established an Intermunicipal Licensing option.
Inclusive Planning
Building Local Strength: Emerging Strategies for Inclusive Development. Produced by the Congress for the New Urbanism, this is a practical document for local governments, practitioners, and community leaders who want to understand what they might do to promote inclusive development. The profiles in this report show that both large- and small-scale strategies, combined with holistic approaches that look beyond housing, are needed to reverse the legacy of many 20th Century practices that fostered segregation and disinvestment.
In the Subscribers Only Section you will find:
- DIY Guidebook: Community Needs Assessment
- Experiences in First Nation, Inuit and Northern Communities – Community Planning
- Links to interactive tools to assist in land use planning in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities..
- Community resilience and planning guides for communities.
- Guide to engage citizens in the planning process.
- Guide to planning in heritage areas.
- Quality Growth Toolkit – and best practices.
- Case studies in community planning and examples of inter-municipal agreements.
- Toolkits for Aging Well in Communities.