The city has started work towards a major rewrite of the Official Community Plan – a document that lays the foundation for community building and how expansion should occur.
According to Mayor Sharie Minions, the last update to the OCP was done in 2007, and there has been rapid growth since then, and a new OCP is a priority.
“Some municipalities will refresh their OCP every 5 years with a minor rewrite. We’re going for a larger rewrite, essentially starting from scratch,” she said. “We will be looking at the old OCP but we really are doing a major overhaul of our OCP which is usually done every 10 to 15 years.”
Port Alberni has typically seen a declining population over the past few decades, but 700 units have been built over the past 5 years and there’s been a 258% increase in residential building permit values.
The city has hired community planning consultants McElhanney to begin a 6-month process of engagement and research, and say public participation in critical to the success of the project.
“I can’t stress enough how important it is for the community to participate in this process,” she said. “We really want to make sure that what goes into this plan is the community we want to be working towards building, and we can’t do that on our own as seven people. We need the community to come out and give their input.”
Minions said she want to see more emphasis on multi-family housing, waterfront redevelopment and protection of parks in the new OCP.
Comments