A fresh, new vision for downtown Okotoks was presented to council last month.

The draft Downtown Urban Design Master Plan, created by 02 Planning and Design Inc., was supported in principle by council.

Colin Gainer, senior planner with the Town of Okotoks, says the draft plan will be referred to key advisory committees and further public consultation will also be held on the current document.

Gainer says the final plan would be intended to guide future development and redevelopment in downtown Okotoks.

"It's designed to establish high-level design concepts and principles, both looking at the public realm improvements for the downtown area," Gainer explains. "But also private property redevelopment as it would occur in downtown over kind of a long term, 25-year time frame."

Gainer says the Downtown Urban Design Master Plan grew from an ongoing process which incorporates principles established through the Community Sustainability Plan, the Branding, Development and Marketing Plan as well as the Economic Development Strategic Plan.

The draft document contains eight big moves for the downtown area, including visions for a plaza and open spaces, a gateway feature to direct people to the downtown core; a green Main Street with trees and widened walkways; a redesign of the Veterans Way and Daggett Street area to accommodate larger outdoor events; mixed use buildings with environmentally-friendly features; sensitive infill to help preserve the character of existing heritage buildings; a mid-rise neighbourhood concept for the east end of Elma Street; as well as pedestrian-friendly plans for the riverfront area that preserve and protect the river valley.

"The Downtown Urban Design Master Plan is not a statutory, binding plan for the downtown," Gainer explains. "It's really designed to perform an important underpinning of that future downtown planning policy and development regulations."

He points out that there have already been several public consultations, including workshops with students from Holy Trinity Academy and Foothills Composite High School, held to bring the document to this point and there will be more to come, likely sometime early in the new year.

"We'll be taking that draft plan back and making sure that we've understood and gotten it the way that consultation has directed us," Gainer says. "If there are any further tweaks and changes, that's the kind of thing we would look at before the final plan would go back to council in February."

A copy of the draft plan is currently posted on the Town of Okotoks web site and Gainer says additional information will be posted as it becomes available.

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