Plan It Colchester

Since the early 1980s, land use planning in the Municipality of Colchester has been primarily carried out in the sewer serviced communities around the periphery of the Town of Truro. This targeted approach to planning left much of Colchester’s land area unplanned, and with recent population increases in several of the municipality’s nearly one hundred suburban and rural communities there is growing pressure for development, and the need to thoughtfully manage such development. As a result, the Municipality of Colchester initiated ”Plan It Colchester”, a process to develop comprehensive land use planning policy and regulations for the entire county.

UPLAND’s involvement initially encompassed the first, “visioning and education”, phase of consultation for the MPS and LUB development. This sought to determine the overarching values, priorities, and concerns of the community. The process involved in-person and online engagement tools, such as open houses and pop up events, an online survey and interactive mapping activity, as well as small group discussions on “hot topics”. With planning being a new concept in many of the communities of Colchester County, a big focus was placed on educating the public on the benefits of planning and the risks associated with no planning. The initial engagements were extremely successful so the Municipality then hired UPLAND to carry out the drafting of the unified planning documents, conduct draft engagement, and carry the documents through to adoption.