Explore the Oxford Official Plan survey; they seek your input

April Nix will be a delegation at Woodstock City Council on August 13

By: MARK SCHADENBERG

The Oxford County Official Plan is exactly that.

Currently, the county crew is receiving survey results from you – the citizens – as you answer questions, ascertain the best selections in multiple choice formats in a Survey Monkey ask referred to as ‘community engagements’.

We’re in the midst of the heat of July as I type in my basement office, but I’m surmising that captain Oxford is actually April – not the month, but April Nix, who is the Manager of Planning Policy for our county. Paul Michiels is the department’s overall Director.

To back up to municipal guidelines and procedures, planning or the creation of a guidebook for future growth locally is a large County three-ring binder. When Woodstock city council approves a new subdivision, including its components like zoning, number of townhouses and detached family houses (Examples), that report would be analyzed by City Council after its arrival in our council in-box from the County Planning office, which in Woodstock is often the authoring tag team of Eric Gilbert and / or Justin Miller. Or perhaps, the subdivision could be for 5 industrial buildings between Juliana and the 401, which occurred last week on our council agenda with professional planners representing their 241-Carson and the County penning the report for lands across the street from Vuteq and Home Depot.

Each time we approve a plan with specific anomalies or requirements or proposed land uses the county’s official plan is essentially edited, but only after County Council approves the identical project at its next meeting.

The last Oxford Official Plan was finalized in 1995, but there’s been countless amendments since then certainly.

Watson & Associates report

What does Oxford’s future look like – population numbers, transportation and its infra-structure, residential intensification, residential types, (possible) boundary adjustments, agriculture and other land utilizations such as aggregates, and to some degree related discussions on recreation, green space and trails, the environment and weather, recognizing heritage and history, retail business and industry, supports for our aging population, plus technology and its effects.

Be sure to participate in the current online survey as the questions and weighing of the responses is paramount.

April Nix and her team – in my opinion – have been phenomenal in creating a wide-ranging survey. I sometimes make a comparison to say 9 + 1 = 10, but if you also ask about 8 + 2 and 7 + 3 you can trend the priorities each survey participant may have and it’s really not asking the same question three times.

“The survey development was a policy team effort,” Nix told me via an email this week. “We seem to be getting a fair number of responses to the survey so far. Last I checked we were over 250 and steadily climbing towards 300. The overlap with some questions was a bit intentional as it can help inspire more ideas for (survey participants) who don’t think about these things on a regular basis. We were also intentionally trying to be a bit thought provoking with certain questions as we expect difference in thoughts and opinions.”

Nix continued: “Between workshop feedback in June, Council feedback that is ongoing (we are bringing a presentation to Woodstock Council in August) and other various meetings, emails etc. we are getting lots of input overall which is going to help inform next steps for the project.”

As Nix mentions, community workshops hosted last month. The full timeline is included here with lots more info at www.oxfordcounty.ca

It’s your opportunity to: Speak Up Oxford !

www.speakup.oxfordcounty.ca

I’m reluctantly going to add that if this material is not of interest to you, be sure not to run for city and / or county council this autumn.

Some studies say Oxford’s population by 2061 could be over 220,000. How do we get there from here? It’s all about planning and understanding.

Again, these forecasted numbers may not be reached until 2070 or beyond, but be sure to scour through the Watson & Associates report linked at the bottom here. It includes 264 pages of paragraphs, pie charts, bar graphs, and well-researched statistics. Watson & Associates specializes in demographic trends, but maybe more importantly economics.

Look back a few writings in my blog at this site, but I’ve already penned an item discussing intensification in Woodstock – more houses or residential units in a limited acreage – up to 2031.

On the survey pages you can have your name added to receive on-going updates on the process such as future public meetings.

The responses will certainly be varied from the various county corners as Woodstock is already over 50,000, but what are citizens thinking in Tillsonburg or Ingersoll, or far-reaching edges of Oxford such as Verschoyle, Princeton (Immediately south of Princeton is actually Brant), Uniondale or Lakeside in north Zorra, Thamesford, Tavistock, Brownsville, Otterville, or someone residing is a white house in Washington. When I was a Realtor I followed happening in all facets of Oxford, and once sold a house in Hawtrey – a hamlet which was closer to Delhi in Norfolk County then the village of Norwich in Oxford.

Lots of ideas will be caught by April’s (Email: anix@oxfordcounty.ca) fishing net and compiled by her committee and staff into a plan, which should be a three-ring binder for the next 20 years or more at least a ‘pdf’ on my screen.

Nix summarizes the final product this was: “A report on establishing a ‘Vision’ for a new Official Plan (so establishing Goal/Purpose and Key objectives) will be taken to County Council in early 2027 by Community Planning Staff. The vision also helps inform policy directions, and development of draft policies and requirements that will be part of the various background studies and discussion papers that will also be coming next year.”

The Official Plan can be the glue or the sewing machine for many documents -- transportation master plans, previously approved amendments to property zonings, both climate and environment action plans, and the already-mentioned 264-page report by Watson & Associates.