Revelstoke’s Official Community Plan is now slated to be updated this year.
Revelstoke city staff are recommending council approve an application for a Federal Gas Tax Strategic Priorities Fund Capacity Building Grant to cover the estimated $100,000 project. If the application is successful, up to 100 per cent of the cost of updating the OCP could be covered.
An official community plan is the baseline document that sets future plans for the city, and guides decisions on a broad range of projects, such as planning for major infrastructure projects.
The most recent updates to the OCP took place in 2009, two years after Revelstoke Mountain Resort opened. Official community plans give a comprehensive vision of public policy including land use, housing, and recreation.
Typically, OCPs are updated every five years. The current plans has faced criticism since it was completed. When it was written, the new resort was booming and the full impact of the global recession had yet to take hold. The plan projected population growth far in excess of what’s actually happened. This is problematic, for example, because the document recommends infrastructure upgrades based on population increases that haven’t materialized as forecast.
The updates to Revelstoke’s OCP would include incorporating information from the 2013 Integrated Community Sustainability Plan. The ICSP identifies community goals, priorities, and strategies for achieving sustainability goals.
“The ICSP was never fully integrated into the OCP and several components of the ICSP and OCP remain misaligned. The most recent OCP update was completed in 2009. The City of Revelstoke has grown and changed significantly since the OCP was created. As a result, there are aspects of the OCP that need to be updated,” writes Revelstoke Director of Community Economic Development Nicole Fricot in a report to city council.
The report to council states if the grant application is successful the next step would be to seek out a qualified consultant through a request for proposals. The anticipated time-line for the project is September 2017–August 2018.
What are your thoughts? Does Revelstoke’s Official Community Plan need to be updated in order to better reflect changes in our community that have taken place since 2009?
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