Official Community Plan Update
Presentation slides regarding growth management strategies and public consultation for the Official Community Plan (OCP) update.
Vision
View Royal is a dynamic and inclusive community that manages growth, while retaining the charm of its traditional neighbourhoods.
Growth Management
Implementation of government regulations that control the type, location, quality, scale, rate, sequence or timing of development. More generally, the whole range of policies designed to control, guide or mitigate the effects of growth. By attempting to guide growth rather than react to its effects, communities engaged in growth management assume a proactive stance in ensuring that the very qualities that attract growth are not destroyed for existing residents and future generations.
CRD Regional Growth Strategy
Actions That Will Support Public Consultation
- Consolidate the OCP into a current, accurate, document
- Add related documents to the public resource list
- Terms of Reference for OCP update contract
- Detailed work plan
- 2019 Community Survey
- 2021 Council Survey
- Acknowledge the challenges presented by HNA & LE studies
- Identify one credible population projection that will guide the OCP
Opportunities
- 2021 Census Population & Dwelling Counts release February 9, 2022.
- Reduce the uncertainty caused by stale data
- Identify one census based population & dwelling estimate as starting point
- Include CRD definition of Growth Management in the OCP
- Follow those principles
- Investigate the role of land use capacity assessments
- Reduce reliance on population estimates
- Reduce uncertainty (risk) in development planning
- Consider example: 2020 Nanaimo Land Inventory and Capacity Analysis
You have seen a few attempts to forecast the future population of View Royal. When everyone uses different data the forecast is noisy, there is no clear signal. Yet calculations of housing needs, transportation requirements, job growth, commercial development, and so forth, are married to these population forecasts.
Living in View Royal, a town surrounded by other towns, in a very desirable part of Canada, the demand for growth seems almost limitless. Build it, and they will come. But because there is no more undeveloped land, “build it” means building over top of the View Royal we live in now. We need to tread lightly, plan carefully.
A land inventory and capacity analysis could provide insight into the number of people that would live in a future View Royal that follows a managed growth model.
I don’t believe the citizens of View Royal are interested in the fastest growth plan or the highest density plan. I believe we all expect the smartest plan, one that ensures the very qualities that attract growth are not destroyed for existing residents and future generations.