Cobourg, ON (August 2, 2022) – The Town of Cobourg Communications Department is pleased to announce the launch of a new survey for the ‘Integrated Community Sustainability Plan’ (ICSP) project on Engage Cobourg, the Town’s online public engagement platform.

With input from two phases of public engagement, there is now a draft vision, goals, and preliminary action plan in place for Cobourg’s Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP). The Draft Plan was presented to Council for review and feedback during the July 11, 2022 Committee of the Whole meeting. Cobourg residents and business owners are now encouraged to take the online survey and share their thoughts on thedraft vision for the future, and the actions proposed to make Cobourg more sustainable.

Visit engagecobourg.ca to learn more about the planning process, review the draft vision, goals, and actions for the ICSP, and complete the survey to provide feedback. This limited engagement phase will conclude on Tuesday, August 16, 2022. A final engagement phase is anticipated in late fall 2022 to review the ICSP in full.

Phase one engagement for the Integrated Community Sustainability Plan ran from February 17 to March 16, 2022. This phase of engagement asked about the current state of Cobourg and what gaps might exist for sustainability improvement. Overall, the Town heard from over 187 residents who provided detailed responses and valuable insight. A summary of the engagement process, including the themes that emerged from feedback can be found on the Engage Cobourg project page.

From April 28 to June 8, 2022, the phase two engagement process was implemented to ensure stakeholders and community members could share their insights and feedback on vision and objectives. This included a survey and online workshops on vision and objectives. Throughout phase two we heard from 72 community participants. Participants were invited to consider the different dimensions of sustainability, from environmental to economic, and to provide feedback as to their lived experience of sustainability, their vision for how sustainability is attended to and supported in Cobourg, and what key goals the ICSP should contain.

Background
In December 2019, Cobourg’s Town Council passed a resolution to declare a climate emergency and accelerate a transition towards carbon neutrality within Cobourg in response to the unprecedented global climate crisis. This resolution follows Council’s 2019 - 2022 Strategic Plan, which aims to position the Town as both an environmental steward and model sustainable community, and prior sustainability work done in the 2010 and 2020 Climate Action Plan processes.

In response, an Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP) will be prepared to help realize the aims of the climate emergency resolution and preceding plans. The Plan will comprise specific and achievable actions that both the community and the municipal government of Cobourg will take to build on existing environmental progress and advance new measures to respond to the climate emergency.

Alongside the strategic direction provided by the ICSP, the Town is also leading two concurrent projects to prepare Green Development Standards (GDS) and complete a Green Energy Retrofit (GER) Feasibility Study. The GDS will explore how the urban development process can support environmentally sustainable outcomes that can include, but are not limited to, energy efficiency and management, active transportation, stormwater management, water conservation, and solar readiness. Meanwhile, the GER will evaluate the potential opportunities, resources, and tools available to retrofit multi-unit residential buildings with energy-efficient and renewable energy systems with the ultimate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from residential sources.

The ICSP/GDS/GER project will be informed by a number of different inputs, including the sustainability context of Cobourg, established standards and lessons learned from other communities in Ontario, municipal and regional priorities, and stakeholder feedback.

Visit engagecobourg.ca to view the complete public engagement project and to learn more.

Register on Engage Cobourg Today!
Residents of the Town of Cobourg are encouraged to create a profile online and participate in current public engagement projects. To register on Engage Cobourg, an online public engagement platform designed to gather feedback and comments from residents, visit www.engagecobourg.ca and click the Register Today! button. For questions or help registering please email communications@cobourg.ca.