Future staff reports in Grey Highlands will include the environmental impacts of a proposed project.
At its meeting on Feb. 1, council unanimously approved a resolution from Coun. Paul Allen directing municipal staff to add a section to their reports that outlines the environmental impacts of a proposal.
“This was high on the list of concerns (from the public) during the recent election,” said Allen.
The resolution from Allen included a scale for staff to use to rank environmental impacts on a scale of negative three to positive three, with zero being no impact, negative values would refer to a negative environmental impact, and positive values would indicate a positive impact on the environment.
Allen’s resolution found support around the council table and with staff.
“In our Strategic Plan, we’re adopting an environmental mindset for all decisions. I like the concept,” said Coun. Tom Allwood.
Coun. Nadia Dubyk supported the concept, but wondered if it was necessary to have the positive or negative impacts ranked. She suggested perhaps the system could just use positive, negative or no impact.
Dubyk said simplifying the system would help staff “avoid betting hung up on the ranking.”
However, both staff and other members of council liked the ranking system.
“I love that this is coming forward,” said CAO Karen Govan. “For strategic planning purposes, it’s important to have the qualitative description as well. We can come up with something that pleases all of council.”
Municipal staff estimated it would take a few weeks to update the municipality’s reporting software format to implement the change. The resolution asked for the new scale to be added to reports by April 1.
