Tache reviews development plan

A public open house gave RM of Tache residents a chance to get a glimpse at the updated development plan.

Hosted on Tuesday in Lorette by Landmark Planning & Design, the business tasked with the review, various boards showcased any proposed changes to the plan, which has last been updated in 2016. The plan itself states it should be reviewed every five years.

Development plans are long-range land use policy documents adopted by a municipality and approved by the province.

Using provincial land use policies, it helps guide municipalities as they implement zoning bylaws, approve subdivisions and make development agreements.

RM of Tache planning and development officer Brant Bosiak said there are very few changes in the updated plan which he called a “housekeeping review”.

Bosiak said the document is being refreshed, with current statistics and updated demographics. Updated maps will show where landowners have applied to redesignate their land from agricultural to rural residential.

“There’s nothing big being proposed,” he said.

The poster boards on display backed that up, with changes including things like removing the rural area and town area classifications which previously existed for all policies, and instead have a list of land use policies that includes, agriculture, escarpment, rural living, village, neighbourhood, Main Street, employment and recreation and open space. Those categories were previously included and, in some cases, replicated in the rural and town area classifications.

That didn’t stop many visitors from reading much more into the evening.

Some were under the impression the evening was to review Plan 20-50, a proposal by the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region. Others confronted Landmark Planning and Design staff with questions about their involvement with Plan 20-50.

Andrei Friesen, partner and planner with Landmark Planning and Design said they’re simply working on an updated revised land use plan for the RM of Tache with input from the RM and residents.

“We’re taking the existing plan and making minor updates to it,” he said.

He added that changes in the proposed plan are small.

“It’s a lot of formatting within a document to simplify, to make it easier to implement, instead of flipping back and forth between numerous sections, rural and urban land uses are in one section because they’re all land use designations,” he said.

He confirmed the drafting of a new plan has not been subject to any involvement or direction from the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region.

“To date, this development plan review has been influenced by feedback received from people that live and work in the RM of Tache,” he said. “A periodic review of the development plan is stipulated within existing development plan policy.”

“We are planning consultants that have been hired to work for the RM of Tache and represent their best interests,” he added.

He admits that not everyone entering an open house like this knows what a development plan is.

“Development plans overlap with secondary plans, with zoning bylaws, with individual development applications,” he said. “They’re all inter-related.”

Information on the RM of Tache’s development plan will be posted on landmarkplanning.ca.

Council has yet to approve the updated plan.