Councillor’s Communiqué : May 2006 - Issue # 102

The final proposed version of HRM's Regional Plan (RP) was presented at Regional Council's Committee-of-the-Whole (COW) on Tuesday, April 25th, 2006. At that COW session, Council discussed changes to the plan, as outlined in the third draft and final report from the Regional Planning Advisory Committee. Later on that same evening, at the Regional Council Meeting, the Regional Municipal Planning Strategy and Regional Subdivision By-law were given First Reading. A Public Hearing to consider formal adoption of the RP, Regional Subdivision By-law and amendments to the Municipal Planning Strategies and Land Use By-laws of HRM necessary to implement the RP will take place on Tuesday, May 16th, 2006 beginning at 1:00 PM and will reconvene at 6:00 PM at Halifax City Hall. Council will sit until everybody that shows up on the first day of the public hearing is given the chance to be heard. As required by the Municipal Government Act, notices for the Public Hearing will appear in the Chronicle Herald and Daily News on Saturday, April 29th & May 6th, 2006. The RP, Subdivision By-law, amending by-laws, maps and RP Committee report are all available on compact disc by calling the RP office at 490-5857 or by email at regplan@halifax.ca or go on-line at www.halifax.ca/regionalplanning/index.html . Please note the RP

documents on this web-site are quite substantial. Many of the files are large and may take some time to open. Thank you for your patience. Your input will be critical. This is your last opportunity to give input on how our future growth ought to be.

Back in my June 2004 Communique (Issue # 79), I reported about the Eastern Shore area from Preston to Ship Harbour establishing a local Joint Emergency Management Team (ES-JEM) to prepare our communities for its next catastrophic event. Over the past few years, we have experienced several significant weather events from heavy rains, floods, wind storms, hurricanes, cold snaps, snow blizzards, and extended power outages. Response to any situation is dependant on the cooperation and participation of the community at large. Planning early for any disaster will certainly go a long way to mitigate any personal or property damage. Your cooperation and participation is vital to the success of any future response. The motto for ES-JEM is "Organizing to Respond". Their plan is to continue its efforts in promoting emergency preparedness training, and provide an organized approach for a coordinated response to any local emergency. The fire season is now in effect and hurricane season is fast approaching. We have to prepare ourselves for the possibility of another traumatic event.

Emergency Preparedness Week is May 7th - 13th, 2006. There are many web-sites with great information on how to prepare yourself for any type of weather - related emergency :

www.emergencypreparednessweek.ca

www.gov.ns.ca/emo

www.ocipep.gc.ca

www.nspower.ca/ManageOutages/BePrepared.shtml

There will be a public meeting Wednesday, May 17th at 7:00 PM in the Seaforth Hall to discuss the possibility of having the local Community Transit Service extended to better serve that area.

The proposal is to have a 3 kilometre extension added to the bus route. Basically to have the bus go down the road a little further and return via the Seaforth Back Road back to its current terminus at the Heather & Theresa Country Store. This will add approximately $3,000 to the annual operating budget of the bus service. The local residents need to concur to this enhancement and have the localized tax rate applied to their community's assessment catchments area.