Village of Telkwa Integrated Community Sustainability Plan

The Village of Telkwa, BC, will take the rare step of simultaneously developing an Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP), an Official Community Plan (OCP), a zoning bylaw, and an affordable housing needs assessment and action plan. Using the triple bottom line and cradle-to-cradle sustainability methodologies, this highly integrated project will also incorporate relevant municipal policies such as development cost charges and pertinent administrative bylaws. Like other small communities in northern B.C. whose economies are based in forestry, agriculture, and tourism, the Village of Telkwa has limited staff resources and no municipal planner. However, this situation also provides an opportunity to be more adaptive to policy change. An intimate and varied grassroots consultation process, including an educational component, will result in a “made in Telkwa” OCP informed by an ICSP that respects public opinion; that identifies the nature and scale of change occurring in the village; and that sets out potential initiatives to meet economic, environmental, social, and cultural sustainability goals. Those goals will be consistent with other relevant plans and policies such as B.C.’s Climate Action Charter and the greenhouse gas reduction targets for the village, and will be associated with tangible budgets, time lines, and milestones for completion. The plan will also list indicators of success that will be measured and written into the village’s annual report to residents. With all of major planning documents being reviewed at the same time, Telkwa is making a commitment to changing the entire framework within which municipal decision-making occurs. In fact, the ICSP will actually extend the village’s interests, providing a source of unified input into regional matters that affect Telkwa residents. Other rural communities will be able to apply Telkwa’s experience, documented online and at professional conferences, to capitalize on their particular strengths, available funding sources, policy tools, and internal capacity and flexibility to accomplish their own short- and long-term goals.

(Project description from original funding application)