To revise the city’s official community plan and zoning bylaws, the City of Moose Jaw has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) in 2021-2022 seeking a contractor to help prepare an updated plan.
Wallace Insights has been hired to update the official community plan, and they are working in partnership with Crosby Hanna & Associates who were hired to focus on updating the city’s zoning bylaws.
“We started last year (2022). It involves two things: it’s an update to an official community plan. It’s also an update to Moose Jaw’s zoning bylaw. Both of these documents are used by the city to administer the policies and bylaws around growth and development,” explained Allan Wallace, planning director at Wallace Insights.
“They (existing policies) are both around 15 years old, so they need an update… to adapt to new trends and things like that,” he said.
Wallace Insights is now at the stage where key areas have been identified, and the firm is seeking feedback from Moose Jaw’s residents before moving forward.
“If people are really interested in Moose Jaw in the next 10 years and how it grows and develops in terms of housing and density, shops, services… etc., then these events are really good to come out to,” Wallace said.
The community café is designed to be a free-flowing come-and-go event, and all local stakeholders (residents) are welcome to attend.
“These are important meetings because we want to validate the policy ideas that we have down on paper,” Wallace said. “It will be very informal and very informative as well.”
The café will be organized around 12 information boards. Each board will have someone available to answer questions and provide deeper insights behind policy considerations.
“Nothing is set in stone; things can change from this point forward. We’re just getting some feedback,” explained Wallace.
To facilitate conversation, people are encouraged to linger, hold discussions, and refreshments will be provided.
“People can also map out some of their ideas if they like to draw. It’s verbal, it’s drawing, it’s leaving sticky notes, it’s putting dots in places — that sort of thing. There are multiple ways to get involved, and we want to make it as comfortable for everyone as we can,” said Wallace.
“We’ve identified 19 themes that have come out of these engagements,” Wallace said.
These include attracting attention to more residents, being age-friendly, climate change resilience, diversified housing, quality of life, strategic density, Indigenous partnerships, orderly growth, and a thriving city centre.
“Commercial areas are clustered in the north and northeast. In other words, most of the land zoned for commercial use in the future is clustered in one area of the city, leaving what I would call a ‘retail desert’ in the west and southwest area. People really have no place to shop or get groceries other than driving across the city,” he explained.
Residential dwellings are also considered. “(They) should be in locations which assist things like public transit, retail areas, be close to recreation facilities, (and be) close to services that would benefit from having more people living close by.
“It’s using density what we would call ‘strategically,’ as opposed to just accommodating it anywhere,” Wallace added.
Transportation is also being considered, such as helping seniors get around town and connecting the biking trails across the city.
“We also want to focus some attention on the city centre, which includes your downtown. It’s going to be the important attributes that you have downtown, such as your heritage Main Street and the preservation of what’s important on that heritage Main Street…,” he said.
“What we’re trying to do is get feedback on some early directions, so we don’t (go ahead with plans) that don’t pertain to Moose Jaw or that it can’t support,” he reiterated.
“There are definitely some areas that we can modernize… and that’s what this is about.”
The plan is to utilize feedback from the cafés to prepare and submit an official draft to city council for review by the end of first quarter 2024. The zoning bylaw draft is likely to be submitted around the end of the second quarter in 2024.
“It’s a future-looking document, but these policy directions are key to guide decisions made by council now and into the future,” said Wallace. The document is provincially approved and will require action to be taken. “It’s not just a planning study,” he explained.
Wallace Insights is a planning, development, and sustainability consulting firm based out of Saskatoon, Sask. The firm provides consultation on a wide range of topics from affordable housing to economic development, and from to transportation to sustainable growth.
There will be two identical community cafés open to the public. The first will take place on Thursday, Oct. 26 from 4 – 8 p.m., and the second will take place Saturday, Oct. 28 from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The Moose Jaw Events Centre is located at 110 First Avenue Northwest and the café will be held on the mezzanine level.
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