Time to work out a plan

The City is about to design a “road map” to its future as a consultant is soon to sign on to begin work on the city’s official community plan. The brainstorming for the future sessions that haven’ been updated in over 20 years.

The Official Community Plan will in effect, lay out a road map for future residential, commercial and industrial uses of land. In addition to those features, the updated plan will also focus in on demographic issues and quality of life concerns for the years to come.

We gather that the Official Community Plan (which we could not find anwywhere on the current city website) is not to be confused with this Strategic Plan draft that we did find the site, or the Five Year Financial plan that can be found there. If nothing else there will surely be lots of plans to go and ask for at city hall when all is said and done.

One plan that the city is apparently working on, is an increased use of consultants to determine the needs for the city. Besides the consultant soon to be hired for the OCP, the city would like to hire a consultant to oversee the maintenance requirements for the city’s recreational facilities and a consultant to look at the operations at the airport.

Always a touchy issue, the use of consultants is a suggestion that in the past has made more than a few on the city payroll nervous about their futures. It will be interesting to see what the local reaction will be to the prospects of a battalion of consultants, setting a new course for Prince Rupert

The Daily News had details on the process of planning a community plan, in Wednesday’s paper.

CITY LOOKS TO START ITS ‘ROAD MAP’ TO THE FUTURE
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Page Three

The City is hoping to hire a consultant soon to work on the city’s official community plan (OCP) review.

“We are just drawing up a contract,” said Gord Howie, the city’s chief administrative officer at council last week.

The consultant will be visiting Prince Rupert soon to finalize the contract and the work schedule.

“As all Official Community Plans do, we will really look at the community and set out a road map residentially, commercially and industrially,” said Howie.

The last update to the plan was done more than 20 years ago in 1985, and revamping the OCP was identified as a high priority during the last municipal election by the public.

Council intends to build into the OCP a look at community’s demographics and as well as a quality of life survey.

“We want to set up a system to continue to measure the quality of life in the city,” said Howie.

The city will work with the University of Northern B. C. to gain the expertise of a social work major, who will be in Prince Rupert as a co-op student to undertake the quality of life component of the plan.

“She will be working under the direction of the consultants to do the social component of the plan,” said Howie. It’s a wonderful opportunity for her and a wonderful resource for the city as she will provide 300 hours-worth of service.

Meanwhile, the city has received some grant funding for the study, which san cost upward of $30,000, through the Prince Rupert-Port Edward Economic Development Commission.

“Those funds have been earmarked to look at things like the increase in demand brought on by economic development,” said Howie.

Later in the year, the city also plans to hire a consultant to provide a long term maintenance program for the city’s recreational facilities.

This will allow council to budget for maintenance rather than being struck blindly by equipment break down as civic facilities age.

Other planning will consider hiring a consultant to look at airport operations, including the ferry, which costs the city close to a million dollars a year.