Planning

Planning Program

The Planning Program, in fulfilling its legislative mandate, provides strategic environmental planning to support local land use decisions on a watershed basis through an open and balanced approach.

The Planning Program supports many of SNC’s other programs and directly contributes to the following objectives: Protecting, Enhancing and Restoring Water and Land; and Protecting Life and Property from Flooding and Erosion.   Planning services contribute to the SNC's objectives and targets and meets legislative requirements by providing watershed and ecosystem based planning advice. The information is provided in a timely and efficient manner, to guide municipalities, landowners and watershed stakeholders in the land use planning and authority regulation and permitting processes.

Planning services provide leadership and expertise in ecosystem management by promoting planning on a watershed basis. This is achieved through cooperation, integration, and partnerships with our municipalities, partners and other clients to implement the vision, goal, objectives and targets of SNC’s overall watershed objectives.

The Planning Team ensures that development within our Review, as a whole, works to jurisdictional boundaries and does not adversely affect the natural integrity of our riverine, valleyland, shoreline and other significant resources. The Program also works to protect new development against potentially adverse impacts due to flood and erosion hazards often associated with natural systems. The benefits of this integrated, multi-facetted approach are therefore diverse, with the ultimate goal of finding appropriate balances between the needs of society and the needs of nature.

SNC has been actively involved in the municipal planning process for many years. The plan input and review function of SNC has been identified as a key mechanism through which to perform the `prevention' component of our mandate. The preventive program focuses on ensuring any proposed development is adequately designed to protect the interests of all parties involved.

Through involvement in the various land use planning processes, SNC provides input to comprehensive planning documents and comments on the resource management implications of development proposals to the approval authority (i.e. local and regional councils and committees). Our water and related land management goals are, therefore, considered as an integral part of the decision-making process.

Planning staff provide input to and reviews of the following Planning Act applications: 

• Plan of Subdivision

• Consent (Severance) Applications

• Minor Variance

• Official Plans and Amendments

• Comprehensive Zoning By-laws and Amendments

• Site Plan Control agreements

In addition, SNC staff provides a service to member approval authorities when dealing with technical support documents, such as:

• Geotechnical/Slope Stability Studies

• Tree Retention/Conservation Plans

• Fisheries Impact Studies

• Natural Hazard Issues

• Water Quality & Water Quantity Concerns

• Sub-watershed Studies

• Environmental Impact Studies

• Stormwater Management & Drainage

• Sediment & Erosion Control Plans

• Hydrogeological & Terrain Analysis

There is an administrative fee associated with SNC’s Plan Input and Review.  The appropriate fee will be charged to the proponent of the application and is determined based on SNC’s Planning and Regulations Fee Schedule (see Forms and Fees).

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