St. Mary’s Plan Review

Located on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, the Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s is a rural municipality that encompasses the western half of Guysborough County. St. Mary’s is encountering challenges that other rural municipalities in Nova Scotia are facing: a declining population, with small pockets of community dispersed across a vast geography. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic brought renewed development pressures as people moved to rural areas in response to the flexibility provided by remote working opportunities.

The Municipality initially launched its review of the Municipal Planning Strategy and Land Use Bylaw in 2020. In 2021 the process stalled in the initial drafting phase and UPLAND was hired to complete the project.

Using our wealth of experience in rural municipal planning, UPLAND was able to re-work and polish the drafts into complete, effective planning documents. UPLAND worked closely with senior staff and Council to develop planning documents that suit the rural context of the municipality, are attractive and easy to use, and position the Municipality to effectively guide development over the next decade.

UPLAND then guided the new documents through the formal adoption process. With UPLAND’s help, the Municipality was able to adopt the new planning documents in October of 2022.