Lac La Biche County approached consulting firm Stewart Weir to help them create a growth plan for Plamondon, and last Wednesday night was the first public input session in the process.
The meeting was to help identify what type of growth the residents of Plamondon want.
On the wall of the Festival Centre hung three large diagrams of Plamondon, in the centre was the hamlet as it is today, on the left was a “conservative” projection that shows no growth beyond what is serviceable by existing municipal utilities, and on the right hung the “growth” projection, where the hamlet is filled to capacity with residential and commercial zones.
Kirsten Davis, the Project Director for Community Infrastructure, explained that “the two proposed outlines are purely to elicit discussion. We’re just at the start of this process, at the moment we don’t have any idea of how, where or if any growth will happen.”
After meeting with nearly 20 interested citizens, Davis said, ”Almost everyone supports growth, but mostly residential and environmental, they want their community to keep the same feel and for it to be attractive. People aren’t much in favour of commercial or industrial development.”
One of the changes that’s going to have to be made is extending the environmental reserve area to cover the flood plain through the hamlet. Some people at the meeting felt this was a great opportunity to create more walking and cycling paths through the community.
“New developments have stricter codes for building close to water and flood plain. We’ll have to figure out what to do about buildings that are there already because in the future that will be an environmental reserve area,” said Dave Dittrick the Acting Manager for Planning and Development with Lac La Biche County.
Stewart Weir is a global consulting corporation composed primarily of engineers and surveyors. They have worked with the Lac La Biche County in the past, as well as other municipalities and private developers.
“We use this public method a lot, even though discussion can sometimes go off topic, you get a good idea of what people want for their community,” said Davis.
The next public info session is planned for the fall, when the consultants will present detailed plans with the from Wednesday’s meeting.
“The meeting in the fall will allow people another chance to give input before it goes to council,” said Davis.