Powell River’s Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP), completed and awaiting final adoption by city council, provides a roadmap for the community to embrace and implement sustainability.
According to the plan, tabled at the Tuesday, August 4 committee of the whole meeting, a sustainable community is one with a robust, resilient economy serving a strong, equitable inclusive society, supported by and living within a highly functioning natural environment.
In introducing the finalized plan to the committee, Thomas Knight, the city’s director of planning services, said the ICSP is complete and has been published.
Knight said the ICSP is meant to be an action plan for the city. He said Myrna Leishman, former committee chair and city councillor, was emphatic the committee did not want the ICSP to be a report that is shelved.
Knight said the first part of the report identifies all of the strategic plans and boils matters down to the key things that Powell River should be doing as a community.
“There’s a number of things built into sustainability, so under this ICSP, it’s trying to address what those things should be: whether they relate to the economy, arts and culture or the environment. What are the key action things we should be doing as a community moving forward?”
Knight said the actions needed to move forward with the plan are listed, but less clear is who is going to carry them out. Financial resources, however, are in place to assist, he acknowledged.
He added that much of the process’s $50,000 budget has not be spent.
Mayor Dave Formosa said he shares Myrna Leishman’s concerns about the ICSP not sitting on the shelf.”
He added the ICSP is a good addition to the city’s strategic planning process and thanked all of those who worked on the committee. A wide variety of people contributed.
“I can see a lot of stuff coming into play over the next three years as we finish our term on council together,” he said.
Councillor Rob Southcott, a member of the sustainability steering committee, said it was a huge privilege to be part of the committee.
“It’s a document that holds such a huge sense of optimism,” Southcott said.
Councillor CaroleAnn Leishman, committee of the whole chair, said it had been a privilege to work on the committee, first as a citizen, when her mother was chairing the sustainability committee, then as an elected member.
