Image: Town of Saint Andrews website
Saint Andrews council has given final approval to a pair of long-term planning documents.
Councillors unanimously approved the town’s updated municipal plan during a meeting last week.
The planning document sets a number of priorities and objectives for the town over the next decade.
“The municipal plan is really the overriding vision document for the next 10 years for the Town of Saint Andrews,” Mayor Doug Naish said in a recent phone interview.
Naish said work on the plan started nearly two years ago with the formation of a high-level steering committee of community members.
The residents, who represented different sectors in the community, then presented a planning-type document to council, he said.
“We’ve had extensive public consultation, particularly since March of 2020, when second reading went through, and then a lot of suggestions for changes took place,” said Naish. “Council spent a great deal of time in meetings making sure that all of the loose ends were tied up and all of the thoughtful things that were put forward by the community were considered.”
Naish said the 36-page planning document, which has to be updated every 10 years, has several key focus areas.
“The environment and climate change had significant changes,” he said. “Heritage preservation, architectural heritage, and housing was a new thing that was always in the municipal plan but very much not emphasized like it is now.”
Council also approved its first secondary municipal plan which focuses on the historic business district and the town plat area.
The document guides land use and development in those areas while helping council with long-term planning.
Naish said the secondary plan is not a requirement under provincial legislation but was something the town believed was necessary.
“For the most part, it’s really as it says. It’s a design manual so that if anybody wants to build and renovate in those areas, they have something to turn to that gives them professional advice about what is the right way to do things here.”
You can view the two documents on the town’s website.
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