Sustainable Community Plan for the Town of Collingwood

TOWN OF COLLINGWOOD SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY PLAN
Our Commitment to Sustainability
Collingwood is a town blessed by stunning natural amenities that has active and involved residents and
staff. We protect our natural environment; contribute to a diverse and vibrant economy; and act in
ways that enhance our community’s overall health and well-being through a social framework that
encompasses the arts, culture, heritage and recreation.
Collingwood Core Principles of Sustainability
Principle 1: Provide a framework for sustainability in Collingwood.
Principle 2: Achieve a long-term economic and social viability.
Principle 3: Recognize the intrinsic values of biodiversity and natural ecosystems, and protect and
re-store them.
Principle 4: Encourage appropriate sustainable use of resources and technologies to minimize
environmental negative effects.
Principle 5: Recognize and build on the distinctive characteristics of Collingwood including our human
and cultural values, history and natural systems.
Principle 6: Expand and encourage regional cooperation to work toward a common, sustainable future.
Principle 7: Foster public awareness and participation to work toward a common, sustainable future.
Principle 8: Advance the understanding of Municipal Government on the need for accountability,
transparency and promotion of sustainable core values and principles.
Principle 9: Establish performance indicators and bench marks to be able to measure the community’s
progress towards sustainability.
In addition, the commitment can be described in a visual manner using a software tool built for
Collingwood, NottawasagaQuest (Appendix A). NottawasagaQuest was developed to help residents
and stakeholders visualize changes in land use patterns over a 40 year time horizon based on a
series of present-day choices.
A 40 year time frame for the visioning exercise was chosen for the SCP to, in part, fulfil the longterm
federal visioning requirements, but also to highlight the significant changes that may occur
in infrastructure, funding models, climate change, etc.
During the series of NottawasagaQuest workshops, participants in Collingwood, Stayner and
Wasaga Beach discussed a series of choices based on a pre-determined set of questions about
their preferred future. These questions ranged from preferences about housing type to energy
and air quality issues. The most frequently chosen responses to the questions have been collated
and are noted below in green (Figure 3). The orange choices in Figure 3 refer to the “current
trend.” The current trend is the series of choices that would continue the status quo of planning
and projected plans in the Nottawasaga region.
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