The development of an Official Community Plan relies on a balance of both planning art and science. In our view, the development of a fully implementable OCP requires a functional understanding of local government processes and legislative obligations as well as a function understanding of the private sector perspective and limitations. This, carefully balanced, means the difference between an OCP that looks good versus one that performs as intended.
We are proficient in official community plan, local area plan, and neighbourhood plan updates and stakeholder engagement processes at all scales and complexities in local and regional government contexts across North America. We understand how to tailor our approach to match the context and expectations of every community: from rural area to city. We have also undertaken a variety of specific studies that feed into and support the OCP process such as “Housing Needs Assessments” which have become a local government requirement through relatively recent amendments to Part 14 of the Local Government Act, and Economic Assessments.
Some of our services include:
- Review and assessment of existing OCP policies and regional growth policies
- Review of environment and infrastructural assets of the community
- Demographic and socio-economic analyses
- Population and employment projections
- Economic base analyses
- Assessment of current land inventory and projected capacity of study area
- Public engagement processes, workshops and surveys
- Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis
- Action plan for the short-term, mid-term and long term
SELECTED PROJECT EXPERIENCE:
