With phase one of the city’s Official Plan review complete, city politicians hope to see more members of the public step up and weigh in throughout the remainder of the process.
Consultants from WSP, retained by the city to carry out the review, presented an update on its work to city council on Monday, laying out the proposed vision and ‘Made in Orillia’ guiding principles for the city’s new Official Plan.
The review kicked off last fall with a special meeting of council, followed by a visioning workshop with the public, an online survey, and consultation with local high school and university students, among other public consultation efforts.
About 60 people attended the visioning workshop, generating 145 written comments, and 196 respondents completed the online survey — numbers that several members of council said they hoped would have been higher.
“I was surprised at how little response there is,” said Coun. Tim Lauer. “There's absolutely no issue that creates the passion the property issue creates and I'm surprised that we haven't got a little bit more feedback.”
Coun. David Campbell applauded the efforts to date.
“I think you've done a good job (advertising public consultation). I've certainly seen it on social media, I've seen it out there,” said Campbell. “I'm not sure what you can do differently, but I do agree that we need to somehow pump up that engagement — maybe free pizza.”
As the city’s primary land use planning and policy document, the Official Plan sets the agenda for addressing growth, development and the city’s vision for the future, among other things.
The Official Plan is also the guiding document for housing, natural heritage, parks, intensification strategies, city infrastructure, and more.
The Official Plan review will be carried out over four phases — vision and planning principles, issues and policy directions, drafting the plan, and finalizing the plan — set to conclude by the end of 2025.
On Monday, WSP officials presented the draft vision statement for the new official plan, which is meant to outline the city’s long-term goals for the future, reading as follows:
“Orillia thrives as a complete community with unique hometown character, linked by commitments to civic and environmental stewardship and providing opportunities for all. With a vibrant downtown, situated along the Trent-Severn Waterway, we celebrate our culture and heritage in every season.”
Building on the vision statement, the four overarching themes for the new plan are inclusion, resilience, reconciliation, and collaboration, and the ‘Made in Orillia’ guiding principles will address the following:
- Complete community, in terms of land use, parks, services, intensification, and more;
- Sustainability and stewardship;
- Integrated mobility and infrastructure;
- Safe and afordable housing;
- Strong and diverse economy;
- Wellness and creativity
These ideas, said WSP’s Matt Rodrigues, will be interchangeable with a wide variety of issues.
“One, for example, is resilience: we can look at resilience in the context of climate action. We can look at resilience in the context of infrastructure,” he said. “We can look at resilience in the context of the economy. We can look at collaboration from wellness and creativity. We could look at it from stewardship, we could look at it from housing.
“We really want to make sure that we're considering these elements through all the guiding principles without sort of pigeonholing us into one space," said Rodrigues.
Specific policy directions related to the vision statement and guiding principles will be discussed in phases two and three of the Official Plan review process, Rodrigues said.
The next steps in the process include preparing issues and options reports, phase two community consultation, and a policy directions report.
“We don't have a specific date just yet, but we'll be hosting our phase two community consultation, as well as consultation with stakeholders, agencies, Indigenous communities, and pulling that all together into a policy directions report, which will ultimately come back to council before putting pen to paper on a new official plan,” he said.
At Monday’s council meeting, city politicians endorsed phase one of the official plan review in principle.
“I love the visioning statement, and I just wanted to compliment WSP on the report itself. I actually enjoyed reading it. That's not always the case,” said Coun. Janet-Lynne Durnford.
“Once this goes up on the city website, I would really encourage citizens of Orillia to read it. It's very easy to read. It's extremely clear, tons of great information in there.”
During discussion, Coun. Ralph Cipolla questioned how the new Official Plan will affect the looming possibility for a city boundary expansion.
“This Official Plan review is based on the land that we have within our current boundaries,” responded Jill Lewis, city senior planner. “However, there is going to be a point in time … where we're going to need to discuss and get direction from council on the amount of intensification that you would like to see within our current urban boundary because that will ultimately affect the extent of an expansion that you will need to accommodate future growth.”
