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City to spend 18 months on new community plan

Penticton is going to be catching up on 15 years of changes to the community, society and planning ideals.
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The City of Penticton will spend 18 months changing the community plan.

Over the next year-and-a-half, Penticton is going to be catching up on 15 years of changes to the community, society and planning ideals.

That’s how long it’s been since Penticton’s official community plan was last reviewed and updated. It doesn’t mean the plan hasn’t changed; since 2002, there have been 90 amendments to adjust to changing development pressures and trends, reflect new policies, strategies and plans.

“Due to all these amendments, there has been a loss of faith or meaning in our community plan,” said Ben Johnson, special projects manager. He said the plan should have been updated in 2007.

“Penticton is evolving as a city. It has a unique local economy,” said Johnson, adding that the city has new priorities. “For example, a greater emphasis on infrastructure management, affordable housing and a new Parks and Rec master plan, which I think really need to be folded into an OCP.”

The current OCP is complex, text heavy and technical, he said, but newer OCPs in other communities are more engaging, concise and illustrated, and so are more easily understood and accessible.

The OCP is intended to guide land use management and development in the community. Johnson hopes the updated plan will include principles and action around social, environmental and economic sustainability as well as being easier to use.

“We are trying to blend all of our infrastructure and facilities, parks and rec master plan, all of those things under one guiding document,” said Mayor Andrew Jakubeit. “Life 15 years ago was a lot different to what we are dealing with today.”

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This all comes at a cost, however. The city has allocated $250,000 for the OCP update.

Johnson said that price is reflective of the cost of consultancies, and takes into account that some of the work will be done by city staff.

“It doesn’t represent the full cost off what some communities do if they go entirely external,” said Johnson. “It does recognize that we have to bring in technical expertise, and there are costs to a robust engagement program.”

Related costs include Johnson, who was hired to manage the OCP process and other large projects being undertaken by the city over the next year, as well as the cost of the engagement consultant contracted in Sept. 2016.

“To get the community engaged, it costs money to go out to where they are, where we are getting a large cross section of the community,” said Jakubeit.

Anthony Haddad, director of development services said this is a process that is going to serve the community for the next 10 to 20 years.

“There is no point in going through a process like this and trying to achieve it on the side of someone’s desk,” said Haddad. “You need to have a strong work plan, a strong resource to lead the community through this process.”

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Looking at current workloads in the planning department, he said it was a good decision to hire more resources given the goals they want to achieve.

Johnson listed five principles for the process to reviewing the OCP, starting with “innovative, broad and inclusive engagement.”

Residents, business and property owners, renters, First Nations, the Regional District Okanagan Similkameen and others will all be asked to provide input.

Youth and newer residents, groups that Johnson said are traditionally underrepresented will be encouraged to have a voice in the process.

Part of that engagement will come through the task force that will be formed soon. It plans to have 17 members, representing business, development, industry, School District 67, along with 11 members with knowledge or interest in fields like the environment, culture, recreation, agriculture, youth and seniors.

The task force will also have representatives from the RDOS and the Penticton Indian Band. Johnson said the inclusion of groups outside the city would bring unique perspectives to the committee.

Coun. Judy Sentes questioned the size of the task force, saying that 17 members seemed to be an unwieldy number, though she applauded the attempt to be inclusive.

“It could make the process a little more challenging,” said Sentes. “I am going to hope that though the number is large, it is going to be a productive task force.”

Another of the guiding principles approved by city council is “clarity and openness.”

In this case, Johnson said key decision points will be openly communicated and rationalized, and the language used both in the process and the OCP will be straightforward, accessible and clear.

Jakubeit noted that a lot of the council business involves dealing with the OCP, and said an updated document should reduce that.

“The mandate from council to staff will be: that is our plan, that is what we want to start sticking to,” said Jakubeit. Everyone still has the right to appeal for a variance, he continued, but the hope is that requests are minimized with a more defined OCP.

“It is a living document, there will be some changes from time to time, but we want to have something that we can stick to,” said Jakubeit. “We can reflect back to that document for our decision-making process.”

“We have a fair amount of work that is underway right now that is going to feed into the OCP process,” said Haddad, explaining that work being done on infrastructure planning falls under the OCP, and the work being done on those subjects will add to the robustness of the updated plan.