Hervé Rivet is a man with a plan. The Director-General of Brownsburg-Chatham has been overseeing the development of a strategic plan for the municipality in recent months.
“It’s going to give us a game plan for the next five years starting January 1, 2020,” he recently said of the process, which is now half-completed.
Since January of this year, the municipality has held meetings with residents, community organizations, council, and its employees to identify which programs, services, and projects they would like their local government to focus on during the next five years and what kind of a municipality they would like Brownsburg-Chatham to be in 10 years.
According to Rivet, the consensus from the discussions and public session held in the spring is that Brownsburg-Chatham needs to be a place where people want to move to and raise a family. He said “winning conditions” must be created to attract new businesses, which in turn could create a domino-effect demand for other new businesses such as a new supermarket—something Brownsburg-Chatham does not have presently.
One of the challenges, Rivet said, is the municipality’s proximity to Lachute, which is experiencing economic growth. The challenge for Brownsburg-Chatham is to attract the overflow development from its neighbour.
Beginning in September, council will examine the findings of from the discussions and then decide which ones are affordable in the next five years. They will become part of an action plan that council will adopt in October so the plan can be included in the 2020 municipal budget.
The municipality also conducted a survey to get input from citizens about what they want to see included in the plan. Rivet said they anticipated 200 responses by the July 8 deadline, but the target amount was already reached by July 2.
