Town of Ladysmith Community Sustainability Plan

The Town of Ladysmith developed a sustainability plan as a first step toward implementing the sustainability vision it developed in 2008–2009, and as a starting point for a comprehensive amendment to its Official Community Plan. The town aimed to develop the plan using an experiential planning model that established a community vision based on the experiences of residents and visitors. Then, it expected to apply technical aspects of planning to realize the vision. Consultants reviewed the Official Community Plan and identified ways to close the gaps between it and the town’s sustainability vision. They proposed goals and reasonable targets for sustainable approaches to land use, transportation, green buildings, multi-use landscapes, innovative infrastructure, community health, economic diversity, and a local food system. Council and staff reviewed and revised these goals and targets through workshops and interviews. They used the revised list as the basis for amending the Official Community Plan by incorporating a set of integrated governance policies into all the community, corporate and core services that the town delivered. The sustainability plan aimed to define actions, goals, targets and a monitoring system. The latter would enable the town to implement its sustainability vision in an organized, structured and accountable manner. Consultants developed performance indicators and decision-making tools, and the town created implementation teams and conducted team-training workshops as part of the plan’s implementation phase.

(Project description from original funding application)