“It’ll be much the same for 2016,” says Duncan Mayor Phil Kent, looking ahead at the city’s priorities.
“We had a pretty active year in 2015 — a lot of capital projects and development applications and things like that. It was a very, very, active year, lots of review of bylaws and policies and things like that. It will actually be much the same this year,” Kent said.
With the Kenneth Street development now complete, and the Dakova Square building well underway, capital projects inside the City may not be as obvious but work just outside the city’s borders will benefit residents in 2016.
“We have projects ongoing with the flood mitigation both with the regional district, Cowichan Tribes and then the continuation of phase two of flood mitigation with North Cowichan,” Kent said. “Those projects are underway now and will probably be completed before mid-year.”
Desk work also figures in for Duncan council in 2016.
“We were undertaking a good part of this year in a review of our zoning bylaw. A draft has been developed and now we’ll have to go through the process of vetting that bylaw and putting it out for public review and putting that bylaw in place,” Kent noted.
“We’ll be starting the review of our Official Community Plan.”
The mayor said he isn’t sure how far along the process will get in 2016 but developing the review process will begin this year, as will preliminary work on an amalgamation study with the Municipality of North Cowichan.
“It’ll be a busy year,” he said.
Kent also said he foresees opportunities with the Telus fibre optics installation that’s been taking place around town.
“I think there’s some opportunity certainly there for some economic development and it certainly is an advantage for business and for residents as well to have that kind of high-tech telecommunications in the community,” he said.