The City of Kelowna has passed the first reading of its new Official Community Plan, and one councillor has taken to Instagram to express his excitement.
An official community plan is one of the most important documents any city has, but in terms of readership, it’s rarely a best seller.
“It’s a 300 hundred page document, but it’s 90% of what we do as council,” said Councillor Loyal Wooldridge.
He wants people to take a look before the 2040 Official Community Plan goes to a public hearing next month.
“This is a project and a policy that we’ve been working on for three years, and it truly shapes how our city grows and where we invest,” said Wooldridge.
The new OCP calls for a stop to the planning of new suburban neighbourhoods, prompting some criticism.
Limiting the construction of new single-detached homes, critics suggest, could cause further escalation of housing prices.
“That statement we hear quite often from the development community,” he said, but he points out that existing neighbourhoods will continue to build out.
“There’s over 6,000 lots that are allocated in this new OCP. We are permitting just over 200 per year, so that’s showing that we have a lot of inventory that will continue to come on line.”
Wooldridge said the plan calls for multiple-family housing in places where we haven’t seen it in the past, but with the OCP in hand, there are no surprises.
“We’re giving people a really clear direction about what urban centre development looks like and what kind of forms they can expect in their neighbourhoods.”
You can find a comfortable chair, kick back and read it all right here.