District of Sooke council is about to blow the dust off its 2010 official community plan.
Council voted Monday to award a $200,000 contract to Vancouver-based DIALOG BC Architectural Engineering Interior Design Planning Inc. to assist the district in the review and update of the official community plan.
An official community plan, or OCP, is a municipal bylaw that defines policies for land use and development. Sooke’s last community plan was released in 2008. The provincial Community Charter recommends an OCP update every 10 years.
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Critics of the current plan say it’s wordy, inconsistent and contradictory.
Over the last six years, the district has had starts and stops as it attempted to rewrite the OCP. Those rewrites failed for many reasons.
DIALOG has completed OCP documents for clients nationwide, including communities in White Rock, Powell River and Abbotsford.
“[Municipal] staff believes that DIALOG showed the deepest understanding of the project scope and brings together a highly qualified team to work on Sooke’s official community plan,” stated a staff report to council.
The district received nine requests for proposals from OCP consultants, with the highest tagged at $199,981.79 and the lowest $150,410. DIALOG’s bid was $199,915.
The OCP review will take 18 months, with more than one-third of the project completed over the next year. The final document is slated for 2022.
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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