A group of Grey Highlands residents are forming the first rural Ontario chapter of a movement called Strong Towns.
Grey Highlands Municipal League co-founder Dave Meslin says, “Strong Towns is a North American Group that helps ordinary people ensure that their towns and neighbourhoods don’t become taken over by sprawl and big box stores.”
The municipal league is an independent group of residents trying to boost civic engagement in Grey Highlands.
He says, “We can build real communities that are walkable and have mixed-income housing, rental homes and small locally-owned shops — or we can watch our farmland get paved over and replaced with generic low-density sprawl and Big Box stores.”
Strong Towns is a movement that emerged from the United States which encourages communities to develop without creating urban sprawl, placing less emphasis on cars, highways and parking and more emphasis on pedestrians, safety, and incremental investments in changes to existing neighbourhoods described as “‘little bets” instead of large, transformative projects.”
The Strong Towns strategic plan says its aim is to replace a post-war pattern of suburban development, saying “We advocate for cities of all sizes to be safe, livable, and inviting. We work to elevate local government to be the highest level of collaboration for people working together in a place, not merely the lowest level in a hierarchy of governments.”
Meslin says Strong Towns encourages people to set up local chapters called ‘conversation groups.’
“I think when citizens get involved and when they understand how the system works, they can have enormous influence on the outcome,” says Meslin, who believes that requires people to learn about zoning rules, design guidelines and official plans.
He adds, governments at the municipal and county levels make “really important decisions about the future shape of our communities.”
Meslin says, “As citizens, we can have influence between elections to create those guidelines, to create those zoning laws and impact the shape of future growth.”
The group plans to hold its first meeting in January.
