The overarching development plan for the community of Canmore has been out for public feedback over fall and winter and next week elected officials will get their chance to go through the document in detail.
A four hour council meeting is scheduled for council this Tuesday (Dec. 15) to provide feedback to administration on the Municipal Development Plan (MDP) beginning at 1 p.m. at the Civic Centre.
Manager of planning Alaric Fish said the response so far from the community has been engaged, with 400 people providing input at various events and through an online survey.
“Citizens felt inclined to respond to a wide variety of issues from land use to public art,” Fish said.
The public feedback has been organized into a document – 135 pages of comments – and into themes with personal information removed.
“It was felt for us to move the conversation forward it was easier if we can theme the data and see the breadth of the comments based on themes,” Fish said. “There is some inherent influence by grouping of topics, but we have tried to leave that in as unopinionated a manner as possible.”
“We are working hard to distil all that information and we are getting close to having major themes, which we will include in the package for council to review.”
The draft version of the MDP council will review next week and provide feedback on does not yet include changes based on public feedback so far – Fish said that is going to be up to council to determine.
It is clear, however, that affordable housing is an issue. The online survey asked residents if they support the proposed affordable housing policies – more than 25 per cent strongly supported them, 20 per cent supported, 15 per cent were neutral, slightly fewer did not support the policies and 25 per cent strongly did not support them.
The comments on housing varied from supporting creating an inclusive community with a diverse population to objecting to the municipality being involved in housing at all.
Other subjects covered include the urban growth boundary, patterns of growth, phasing of growth, intensification of density in existing neighbourhoods, community character, steep creeks and wildlife corridors.
