Tannery District Sustainable Neighbourhood Master Plan, Cobourg, ON

The Town of Cobourg will develop its first Sustainable Neighbourhood Master Plan, integrating four fundamental pillars of sustainability – society, environment, economy, and culture – into a long range vision, aimed at promoting and facilitating the re-development and revitalization of the under-utilized Tannery District, approximately 3 ha of brownfield lands. The Tannery District Sustainable Neighbourhood Master Plan will utilize an innovative and integrated systems approach, complete with extensive public consultation and education, and will focus upon the waste, water, energy, transportation, and brownfields sectors, as well as important planning considerations such as land use composition, density, compatibility, built form, urban design, affordable housing, and heritage conservation. An overall vision, a series of goals, objectives, policies, recommended actions, and measurable targets will be established. The plan will complement other local initiatives, plans, and decision-making frameworks such as Cobourg’s Official Plan, Downtown Cobourg Master Plan, Tannery District Community Improvement Plan and Design Charette, GHG Emissions Reduction Inventory/Climate Action Plan, Urban & Landscape Design Guidelines, Heritage Master Plan, and Transportation Master Plan. The planning process will be community-driven and include a comprehensive and transparent public engagement program to provide opportunities for input from a wide cross-section of the community, including landowners, residents, businesses, interest groups, municipal departments and partner review agencies such as the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority. Given that the Tannery District consists of a number of brownfield sites in both public and private ownership, it will be important to fully understand the nature and extent of soil and groundwater contamination and devise detailed plans and actions for remediating the lands in a cost-effective and environmentally-sound manner. The lands owned by the Town were once occupied by a fish and animal hide tanning operation, which has since been removed but has remained vacant for many years and sits contaminated with an assortment of chemicals associated with the tanning process. Many privately-owned sites in the Tannery District study area are also vacant or used for surface storage purposes, but there are a number of properties still occupied by a mix of land uses, including active industrial and commercial operations, and residential dwellings. The main impediment to redevelopment of the Tannery District is the lack of a comprehensive strategy and action plan to provide effective guidance to prospective developers. Although aggressive for a municipality of Cobourg's size, the Town is confident that the implementation of such innovative initiatives as setting minimum standards for high performance green buildings (LEED, Green Roofs), promoting the establishment of alternative clean energy generating systems (solar, wind, geothermal, district energy), fostering multi-modal transportation methods, exploring new technologies in brownfield remediation, the use of Low Impact Development Stormwater (LIDS) management approaches, promoting creative food production opportunities (community/roof gardens, farmers markets) and the use of smart technology and connected digital systems is attainable and will form a major element in defining a culture of innovation for the Tannery District. Over time, the Town of Cobourg has had proven success in establishing innovative policies and actions for effective community-building and neighbourhood planning in the municipality. For example, the approval of the Harbour Area Secondary Plan by Cobourg Municipal Council in 1989-90 spearheaded the eventual removal of oil tank farms, coal piles, railway spurs and industrial operations from the waterfront and shifted public and private sector thought-processes into one of remediation and revitalization. These actions have led to the successful transformation of a bleak, brownfield harbour area into one of the most beautiful and sought after recreational waterfronts on Lake Ontario today. The Town of Cobourg firmly believes that it can deliver on its plan to revitalize the Tannery District into a sustainable and productive neighbourhood. (Project description from original funding application)