The City of Moose Jaw and Moose Jaw Chamber of Commerce is inviting local businesses to provide input to help update the Official Community Plan and Zoning Bylaws.
A breakfast event is being held Thursday morning from 7:30 am to 9 am at the Moose Jaw Shrine Club (1767 Main St. N.).
The background research gathered for the project will be presented by Wallace Insights, consultants leading the community engagement.
Alan Wallace is a senior planning consultant and the Planning Director with Wallace Insights.
“The project is to update the City of Moose Jaw’s Official Community Plan and Zoning Bylaw. It’s something you don’t do every day. It’s done about once every 10 to 15 years. We want to hear from the business community. They’re key stakeholders in that community. We want to get some feedback on the future of Moose Jaw, at least the next 10 years from a business standpoint.”
Wallace notes the Official Community Plan covers a wide range of topics.
“What it contains is key policy options for residential growth, employment growth, the downtown, sustainability. We’re going to be putting some things in there around climate change, resilience. There’s a few things that are missing. Right now it needs an update. It hasn’t been updated since 2014 and actually the foundational principles go back to 2002. It’s time to look forward.”
He says planning is still in the early stages.
“We’re gathering input from major stakeholders, the general public. We’re running a free community event Wednesday night at 7 pm at the Mae Wilson Theatre. That’s going to be an interesting evening because we have a keynote plus five panelists who are going to talk about the future of Moose Jaw from a demographic point of view or from a point of view as to where they are in the age spectrum. We have somebody representing seniors, somebody representing youth, somebody representing the working-age community.”
Policy work is expected to start in May and continue for the balance of the year. That will lead to the redrafting of the Official Community Plan.