City of Courtenay Annual Report 2022

OCP Policy Highlights The points below draw attention to how the policy content is presented in order to deliver on the OCP's objective of enduring public engagement beyond the creation of the OCP itself. • Keystone and bold land use best practices such as strategically focusing privately invested development growth in parallel to public investments in municipal infrastructure, and avoiding expanding municipal boundaries unnecessarily. • Permitting a variety of housing options into all neighbourhoods. • Better integrating parks, greenways, and streets to create a seamless and enjoyable active transportation system. • Reducing the amount of land dedicated to parking and repurposing road space to support public life. • Adopting higher energy performance building standards than provincial minimums and being a partner in retrofit options such as Property Assessed Clean Energy financing mechanisms. • Incorporating living landscape elements into site design for water, energy conservation, and biodiversity purposes. • Designing with nature, and keeping the K’ómoks Estuary ‘living’ (Q’waq’wala7owkw). • Reducing life-cycle costs of municipal infrastructure by focusing on conservation efforts and adapting to climate change.

• Ensuring equitable access to municipal services and layering in equity priorities into servicing decisions. • Designing spaces with the needs for social connection and accessibility in mind. • Supporting neighbourhood and community development-based organizing as a source of community capacity and resilience. • Expressing diverse identities in public realm art and cultural programming, and ensuring residents and visitors know they are in K’ómoks First Nation territory by the prominent tangible and intangible celebration of their culture and heritage. • Ensuring healthy food access and growing opportunities are within walking distance for all residents. • Supporting value added food manufacturing land uses as economic development, paired with supporting the Comox Valley’s renowned rich cultural capital. • Promoting business retention, development, and investment that are increasingly green, low-carbon, climate resilient, place-based and equity-responsive. • Supporting economic development that places people at the heart of strategies, able to access adequate supports such as child care and housing in order to participate in the economy.

Artist rendering showing a Neighbourhood Centre. Climate-friendly design opportunities featured

City of Courtenay | 2022 Annual Report

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