Cumberland’s Official Community Plan revision process is getting closer to completion with first and second readings by Village council expected in January.
About 20 Cumberland residents attended a Cumberland committee of the whole meeting last week as Stantec Consulting Ltd.’s Mark Crisp went over the second draft of the revised OCP, including some highlights from the public feedback collected so far.
“The biggest thing that we saw, that jumped out obviously, is that we must have stronger governance language,” Crisp told the committee, noting ‘shall’ and ‘will’ have replaced ‘should’ throughout the draft document.
“We found that there was generous support for our objectives and there was some reservations around economic development, growth and land use,” continued Crisp, adding the current state of village infrastructure was another area the public provided plenty of comment on.
“A lot of people had issues with the road conditions, the traffic, those things, so we noticed that was a significant (area of interest) — 197 comments just on those areas.”
The 160-page document is divided into parts — plan overview, vision and goals, land-use policy direction, implementation, glossary of terms and maps — that can be viewed at www.cumberland.ca.
Cumberland’s committee of the whole recommended various changes to the second draft OCP during the meeting, which are also posted on Cumberland’s website. These changes will be considered for ratification at the Dec. 9 council meeting.
Grace Doherty of the Local Citizen Advisory Group said LCAG is pleased with how the second draft looks.
“We really like the changes made, specifically the overview and the vision statement, there was significant changes made, and it really reflected what we felt was the essence of Cumberland,” she said, noting LCAG is pleased with the stronger language around environmental protection and heritage preservation, too.
Meanwhile, the public can continue to comment on the draft OCP until the close of the public hearing, which is expected in March, after council gives the bylaw first and second reading, which is expected in January.
The revised OCP is expected to be adopted in May.
To provide comment about the OCP to Cumberland council, visit www.cumberland.ca.
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