In 2011 Council decided to do a re-write of the County's Land Use Bylaw and Municipal Development Plan. The County sent out a Request for Proposal and as a result hired Zap Municipal Consulting. Since the fall of 2011, Dave Dittrick of Zap Municipal Consulting has been working with Administration and Council to come up with new statutory documents. Council has met with Mr. Dittrick and Administration in November, February and again in April to discuss the proposed changes.
Following the meeting held on April 26, 2012 for Council, the first public consultation of the plan was held in the evening. As part of the public consultation, Dave Dittrick presented some of the ideas that are being proposed in the new documents. He followed his presentation with a questionnaire that residents completed giving their views on some of the items that are being looked at. At the meeting held with Council this questionnaire was presented and there was discussion as to what would be the best method to obtain public input regarding the plan knowing full well that not many people take the time to come out to the public meeting that would be held. At that time it was suggested that the questionnaire could go into the tax notices as well as be put on the internet for completion. Administration thought that this was the intent of Council, however it became apparent at the meeting that this was not the case.
The planning department has provided a copy of the questionnaire - under each question they have indicated the purpose for asking the question. We are looking for direction from Council as to if they would like to amend/add/delete any questions and how Council would like us to get this out to the public for input. Currently there is an advertisement in the local papers indicating the purpose for collecting the data and that it is available online (however it is currently not on the webpage).
Estimated cost of mailing the questionnaire to land owners is $4,000. Including the questionnaire with tax notices would increase postage expense slightly but would ensure that it was delivered to all landowners in the County. A bulk mail drop costs approximately $350.00 however it does not include landowners that reside outside of the municipality.