Community Improvement Plan

The Township is holding an Open House to gather your input on the Draft Community Improvement Plan. The purpose of the Open House is to provide an opportunity to review the draft document, ask questions, and provide feedback on the proposed updates.

What is a Community Improvement Plan?

A Community Improvement Plan (CIP) is a municipal tool to create financial incentives (ie. Grants, loans, or rebates) for private landowners or organizations to take on improvement projects. Improvement can take the form of construction, converting old to new uses, maintenance and repair, or rehabilitation of buildings or land. This is the Township’s first CIP.

The draft CIP would apply to all lands within the Township’s municipal boundary and includes:

• A summary of the goals and objectives of the CIP program, including the types of improvement which are eligible;
• An incentive (grants and rebates) program related to housing, environmental sustainability, redevelopment of brownfield sites, support for small, new, or scaling businesses, tourism and place-making;
• Terms and eligibility requirements to qualify for incentives within the CIP;
• An outline of the process and application procedures;
• An overview of how the Township will implement and monitor the CIP over time.

How to attend?

For more information and a copy of the draft CIP, visit www.engagegb.ca/CIP

For questions, contact the County’s Director of Development and Infrastructure, Michael Benner, at mbenner@georgianbluffs.ca or a member of the consulting planning team, Marilyn Cameron, at mcameron@jlrichards.ca.

The project to develop the CIP includes:

• Defining a CIP program area for which the program will apply.
• Understanding what types of community improvement residents and businesses would like to see.
• Understanding what types of incentives would be most effective to encourage community improvement.
• Understanding what eligibility criteria would be most effective for applicants of the CIP program.
• Developing a draft CIP program and sharing it with the public and key stakeholders for feedback (e.g. the farming community, the business community, Grey County, and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing).
• Creating a finalized CIP program with incentives for Council’s adoption.

The Township of Georgian Bluffs has hired J. L. Richards & Associates to engage with the community and assist in developing the CIP program.

A Community Improvement Plan (CIP) is a tool under the Planning Act that enables municipalities to encourage community revitalization through financial incentives such as grants, loans, rebates. A CIP can cover a variety of community improvement themes within a certain area, to enhance and revitalize properties.

It can be used to:

• Increase attainable housing stock, including secondary suites, multi-unit housing, purpose-built rental housing, rooming house developments, and apartment dormitory-style developments.
• Increase value-added agricultural uses, agri-tourism, and facility improvement projects.
• Promote the redevelopment and/or conversion of brownfield, vacant, and greyfield properties.
• Support downtown revitalization of storefronts, publicly-used frontages, and streetscapes.
• Support the adaptive re-use of commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings.

Through funding available from Grey County, the Township of Georgian Bluffs is looking to start a CIP program to promote economic development and support the businesses and farms that are vital to our community. We’d like to hear from you! What kind of CIP program and incentives would be most useful for Georgian Bluffs?