After several months of work, the town of Quispamsis now has its first strategic plan in place.
Council unanimously approved the proposed plan during its regular meeting Tuesday evening.
The document is designed to guide council’s priorities and focus areas over the coming years.
Council voted last fall to hire Toronto-based MDB Insight to complete the plan at a cost of nearly $40,000.
The plan has four strategic themes: infrastructure management, commitment to community, economic development, and capacity building.
“Within each of those we have identified a series of goals and objectives,” Trudy Parsons, executive vice-president of MDB Insight, told council Tuesday.
Listed within the plan are a total of 14 objectives, which include:
- Adopt plans that ensure fiscal and operational soundness
- Investigate feasible strategies to address water expansion
- Optimize utilization of assets/infrastructure that contribute to being a community of choice
- Develop a responsible growth strategy incorporating climate change considerations to improve physical infrastructure and multi-modal transportation
- Implement strategies and methods that enhance citizen communication and engagement
- Expand trails and active transportation options to improve connectivity
- Create an environment that encourages developers to increase the number of affordable and accessible housing units and types available
- Identify bylaws and policies that need to be created or reviewed to remain relevant, current, and are being effectively implemented
- Create an environment that supports the attraction of commercial development
- Collaborate with regional growth agency to promote and support innovation among local businesses to fuel a diverse economy
- Collaborate to promote the Town as a destination
- Enhance internal communication channels to maximize staff engagement, and promote cross-departmental collaboration
- Conduct an internal review of staffing levels and organizational structure, capacity, capabilities, corporate succession planning, and physical workspaces to ensure readiness for growth
- Support Council’s capacity to communicate effectively with the public
Parsons said there has been a lot of opportunities to gain input and insight from council, town staff and the community as part of the development of the plan.
In total, 31 front-line staff survey responses and 568 community and business survey responses were received, and 14 community stakeholder interviews were conducted.
Parsons noted the plan is a living document that will need to be reviewed and possibly revised as time goes on. She suggested council review progress on the plan each year ahead of the budget review process.
“There will be new initiatives, there will be changing circumstances, there may be new priorities that emerge over the life of the strategy,” she said.
Deputy Mayor Mary Schryer said council has learned through the pandemic that things can change quickly and they have to be flexible.
“As the world tries to get back to normal after COVID and we don’t know what the future is going to bring, we have to have the flexibility within our plan to move,” said Schryer.
Coun. Emil Olsen said he is glad to see the plan become a reality after months of work.
“After many meetings and lots of ideas, I think that they gathered the intentions of council and staff. It’s something that we recognized some time ago that was needed in our community,” said Olsen.
In an interview last fall, acting CAO Aaron Kennedy said the plan was identified as a top priority during an internal performance audit in 2019. The town had hoped to begin the process last year, but Kennedy said it was postponed due to the year-long delay of the May 2020 municipal elections.
