In a special Council Workshop held on Tuesday, January 7, Councillors were asked for their thoughts and ideas as the Official Plan Update project gets underway. Staff and project consultants, recently retained by the Town, walked members of Council through the work program. The project will unfold through 2020 including several phases:

• Developing our community land use and development vision,
• issues identification, and
• directions for planning policy

before a draft plan Official Plan is completed and a final plan is submitted for Council approval.

During an interactive discussion session members of Council shared their ideas and expectations about the Official Plan. “Collingwood has experienced rapid change in recent years and an updated Official Plan will help ensure that we are equipped with a land use vision and plan to guide us as we move forward,” said Mayor Saunderson who added, “I was impressed with the comments provided around the table and I’m looking forward to hearing what people in the community think.”

Council approved a terms of reference for the project last year and has since retained The Planning Partnership, a consulting firm with extensive experience in municipal planning, to help lead the project. The work program sets out many opportunities for public involvement.

The Official Plan guides land use planning in the community and addresses a wide range of issues such as where and how growth occurs, what neighbourhoods and buildings look like, where and how we work, shop and play and how we get around Town.

A number of factors are driving the need to update the plan:

• The Town has unique characteristics and needs to update its land use plan and vision for the future to help guide development.
• The Town has approved many new plans in a wide range of areas and related content from those plans needs to be contained in the Official Plan to help shape how the community grows;
• There were many changes to the Province of Ontario land use planning framework over the last year including to the Planning Act and a number of related pieces of legislation, the Provincial Policy Statement and the Growth Plan 2019. In Ontario, municipalities are required to conform to the land use planning framework set by the Province.

For more information and to monitor project activities please visit the project webpage at: https://engage.collingwood.ca/official-plan