City of Courtenay Official Community Plan - 2026 update

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Policies 1. Continue to support a diverse range of land uses within the downtown including diversity of multi-residential housing choices, small scale commercial uses, and other supportive uses to promote the establishment of a complete community and 10-minute neighbourhood . 2. Encourage new government and post secondary institutions to locate downtown, including satellite locations. 3. Require commercial uses at grade along 4th, 5th, and 6th Streets. 4. Support uses and activities that encourage both daytime and nighttime activation. 5. Protect the historic, small-scale retail character of the 4th, 5th, and 6th Street streetscapes through the use of form and character Development Permit Area guidelines. 6. Explore opportunities for the application of regionally consistent Indigenous design guidelines. 7. Ensure compatibility of land uses between the downtown and adjacent urban residential neighbourhoods by providing transitional form, character, and densities. 8. Improve physical and visual connections to, along, and across the rivers, integrating nature and recreation with the downtown. 9. Protect the views of significant landscapes or natural features from public vantage points, including streets and sidewalks, from being blocked by new development. These include: Comox Glacier, Courtenay, Puntledge, and Tsolum Rivers, K’ómoks Estuary, and the Salish Sea.

10. Consider future use of public lands to promote community goals including for affordable housing, community gathering, and open space. 11. Create more public open spaces with an emphasis on place making and attention to the following areas: a) Ensure more public and semi-public gathering spaces are incorporated into new developments. b) Public plaza strategy to create public gathering spaces within the downtown. c) Consideration to the temporary or permanent closure of streets to support public life, including but not limited to Harmston Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets; d) Develop a capital and programming plan for Harmston Park as a neighbourhood park; d) Indigenous perspectives and worldviews, including K'omoks First Nation traditional use and practices, in the provision of recreational programming and in the formation of Harmston Neighbourhood park types, layouts, features, and purposes.