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Lacombe County public engagement process recognized

Oct 10, 2018 | 4:05 PM

Following a successful review of Lacombe County’s Municipal Development Plan (MDP) and Land Use Bylaw (LUB), the Alberta Professional Planners Institute (APPI) recognized the County’s two year-long process and their public engagement approach.

“An engaged and educated public is a powerful tool for any municipality, and we thank our ratepayers for giving us their time and working with us during our MDP/LUB review,” said Lacombe County Reeve Paula Law. “We are so proud of our planning team, whose creativity and “outside the box” thinking managed to catch our ratepayers’ attention, and led to a comprehensive review of the MDP and LUB that reflects the desires of the community.”

In order to collect meaningful feedback from the community, you need an engaged community. The County is incredibly lucky to have residents who are willing to give up their time and share their vision and direction for the successful development of the County. Lacombe County was recognized by APPI for putting together a strategic campaign that ensured they were reaching out to the public in a number of ways – through school presentations, educational booklets, videos, targeted social media advertising, public meetings, round table discussions, workshops, and interactive web forms. With that feedback, they constructed a user-friendly guide that sets out the unique vision for the future of Lacombe County.

Dale Freitag, Manager of Planning Services said “the recognition we are receiving from our peers at the APPI is appreciated, and we hope our success will inspire other communities to seek out new ways to engage their communities. Lacombe County would also like to thank the hard work and time the County residents gave as part of the process and share this recognition with them.”