Planning for an Environmentally Friendly Community

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Introduction:

Action Chelsea for Respect of the Environment (ACRE) welcomes the opportunity to participate in the Chelsea Master Plan Review. Our organization, comprised of over 100 members of the community, is committed to assisting Chelsea work towards becoming a truly sustainable community. We congratulate the Municipality on the achievements made over the past decade, initiatives that have been recognized provincially, nationally and globally. We recognize that without the support of a receptive municipal government, many of the achievements that ACRE has been involved in would not been possible. However, we also believe that there is much work that remains to be done to live up to our reputation as a community interested in sustainability. We believe that by working together during the next five years, the government of Chelsea and its citizens can move much further towards truly being an environmentally-friendly community.

Instead of commenting exclusively on the perceived "hot issues" facing the community, our submission attempts to provide a set of principles and a comprehensive planning framework for environmental sustainability. We hope this approach will allow for a clear and transparent approach to planning that will then allow for setting priorities on the key issues facing our community.

We recognize that a community of 6000 people will have limits to both the number and scope of specific actions that can be taken in any planning period. Clearly, our community has made substantial progress, and is a recognized leader, in some areas of environmental stewardship. However, we are at a critical time in our development. We believe the Master Plan review provides an opportunity for Chelsea to move to the next level of environmental leadership and frame our development decisions within a strong environmental planning and decision-making framework. We hope that this submission will assist the Municipality in integrating the concept of "environment-friendly community" in a systematic and comprehensive way into the Master Plan and all future decisions guided by this plan.