The City of Duncan is starting a major campaign to acquire as much public feedback on its plans to update its official community plan as possible.
An OCP describes the long-term vision of communities and is a statement of objectives and policies that guide decisions on municipal and regional district planning and land-use management.
Faizal Charania, a member of the city’s OCP advisory council, said it’s important the public knows how much the city is trying to get residents’ honest and enlightened input on such a vital document that affects everyone personally on multiple levels, not just building or zoning.
Duncan city council decided in January to delay adopting its new OCP, likely until the middle of 2023, to allow for more public input.
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Charania said that at the last OCP advisory committee that was held March 21, members discussed the details of the latest round of public engagement — which includes in-person sessions, mail outs, posters, website information, and more — that is part of the marketing “blitz” that will be held this spring.
He said the goal of that meeting was to come up with well thought out questions to ask the community in ways that will provide the committee with meaningful data upon which to craft as representative an OCP as the committee can.
“A Cowichan Tribes representative has been engaged from the beginning and was present at the meeting,” Charania said.
“The OCP engagement page on the city’s (website), bigconversations.duncan.ca/OCP, will complement the other ways to keep informed and participate as a 24/7 hub which we, as a committee, and city staff will keep an eye on.”
Charania said people don’t have to be residents of Duncan to participate, and the city is encouraging everyone to get involved.
“If Duncan can get the train station that many online votes, we can get more public engagement than any similar project to this point,” he said.
robert.barron@cowichanvalleycitizen.com
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