(Matt Ryan/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Survey first step in process

City of Meadow Lake to develop new community plan

May 21, 2023 | 6:00 PM

The City of Meadow Lake is working on updating its Official Community Plan (OCP) and Zoning Bylaw.

The city related its existing documents are out of date and no longer work well for the community, so it was time to update the plan.

“These plans begin with engagement and discussions with our community, our neighbours, city staff and council,” the city said.

The survey to collect feedback from the public closed on May 15. This process is one of the steps in the engagement effort as the new plan is being developed.

City Clerk Ferne Hebig told meadowlakeNOW, when it’s completed the new community plan will help direct council on future decision-making. The final plan is expected to be done by the end of 2024.

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Hebig is looking forward to having the new plan complete and in place.

“It will be pretty exciting,” she said. “Essentially, when you have a community plan that really does represent your community, and how you want it to grow. Every decision that council makes should be able to be tied back to the official community plan.”

Hebig added the new plan will also help administration in its work.

“It would be the goal of administration, once we have this new plan that does represent our community really well, to make sure that when we are bringing decision requests to council that we are able to show them how that decision ties back to that plan,” she said.

The total cost of the project to develop the new community plan is around $100,000 over two years. The city is budgeting around 80 per cent of the cost in its 2023 fiscal year, and the rest next year.

Jennifer Taylor, senior planner with Associated Engineering, based in Saskatoon, is working on the project for the city.

The last time a community plan was done for the City of Meadow Lake was almost a decade ago, in 2014.

In addition to the public survey, organizers also want to hold a number of open houses and meetings for the public to gather input.

“They will also be going out to our local community groups to discuss certain aspects that might be specific to that group,” added Hebig.

She encourages residents to look out for ongoing upcoming engagement sessions, and participate as much as they can to provide their input.

Hebig noted the community plan will look at everything from recreation to roads.

“It will cover recreation and parks. And it will also cover infrastructure – water and sewer and roads,” she said. “[The plan] will also cover community housing and any other community-type [initiatives] the city might want to highlight, promote or put a focus on.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @meadowlakenow