Town of High Level Integrated Sustainability Plan

The Town of High Level, located 165 kilometres south of the Northwest Territories’ border, developed an integrated sustainability plan using sustainable planning frameworks from The Natural Step, the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association and EarthCAT. The plan involved all municipal departments and included the five dimensions of sustainability: cultural, economic, environmental, governance and social. The town intended to build capacity for sustainability planning within the community and instill a sense of community in High Level, which had traditionally experienced high levels of migration. With these two considerations in mind, the community consultation process was a foundation for the plan. The town established a community advisory group to lead the project. It represented a diverse range of interests and experience within the community, and included two elected representatives and two municipal staff. The planning exercise began with a community visioning process to ensure a commitment to sustainability principles. This exercise also involved strategic planning to determine priority areas through an assessment of the town’s baseline situation and development of statements of success, goals and targets. The project team then planned actions to meet each of the sustainability goals and targets, prioritized the actions, and developed an implementation and monitoring plan. In doing so, the planning team prepared and evaluated several possible development scenarios and recommended a preferred option. As part of the process, the town intended to update statutory policies. The deliverables were a Strategic Sustainability Plan and an updated Municipal Development Plan.