Squamish Environment Society

Why is the OCP important? Please see the following page for ‘OCP 101’ – http://www.squamishenvironment.ca/node/85 or carry on reading the SES OCP REVIEW summary below-

Nov 15th – SES OCP REVIEW summary –
The OCP will be ratified very soon by Council.

SES comments included:

- Priority to identifying and mapping green space habitat that is connected and provides wildlife corridors east west and access to rivers.

- A Community Initiative to combine goals of maintaining recreational values, green space corridors and identified environmentally sensitive land as public endowment lands set aside to contribute to natural asset legacy.

- Priority to protecting a variety of habitat types such as key valley bottom sensitive areas that have high biodiversity values such as wetlands.

- Determining physical quantifiable limits to growth in the valley such as air quality, water quality, solid (landfill) waste processing and liquid (river ecosystem capacity) waste processing, road congestion tolerances, recreation space retention and wild space retention. This can also be translated as a specific bed limit cap.

- Determining an urban containment boundary line up to which urban development can take place (green belt).

- Including a strong regional context statement that recognizes the importance of regarding our district as part of the Sea to Sky corridor, a region that is experiencing growth pressure and risks losing easily accessible “front country” recreation space and wildlife habitat. To minimize urban sprawl up and down the highway (green belt).

- Recommending the engagement of citizens and community stakeholder groups in sub-area planning.

- Commending the use of population as a trigger for opening green space land for development as it encourages infill of disturbed urban areas first – but the trigger population figure should be higher than 22,500 residents.

To view the complete document SES OCP REVIEW, please see attachment.

To view the OCP and maps go to: http://squamish.ca/downloads/draft-official-community-plan-ocp-schedules

To get involved with SES Conservation Committee please email Conservation@squamishenvironment.ca