What we Heard about the draft plan released

The City of St. John’s has released the summary of its second round of public engagement to guide actions that will address climate change in the community. The document will be presented to Council at Committee of the Whole on Jan. 12, 2022.

The purpose of the engagement was to inform residents and other interested stakeholders about the draft plan, seek feedback, and to share information about the primary elements of the plan – adaptation and mitigation.

Feedback collected during this second phase of public engagement has been shared with lead staff and a project consultant who are developing the Community Climate Plan for City Council.

Public Engagement for this project included 1,600 visits to EngageStJohns.ca over the life of the project; 217 visits during the draft plan engagement phase; and 14 active engagements on the draft plan. Thirty people attended a virtual public meeting about the draft Climate Plan, and an all-committee meeting was held with representatives of the City’s Advisory Committees.

Highlights of What We Heard Include:

• Economic analysis to make sure the proposed path is good economic policy is good.

• The plan should lead to de-incentivization of sprawl and more mixed use, and intensification.

• Energy efficiency is very important to help manage increasing energy costs and helps address other affordability issues including food security and overall wellbeing.

• The plan should value the existing built environments and encourage adaptive reuse of existing buildings and encourage maintenance over demolition and rebuild.

• Focus on public transit improvements, active transportation, electrification of vehicles and collaboration to improve access to electric vehicle charging.

• Need a solution for Electric Vehicle charging for those who don’t have off-street parking.

• Calls to produce more food locally in an environmentally responsible way, including community gardens and composting.

The complete ‘What We Heard’ document is available on this page.

The Resilient St. John’s Community Climate Plan is expected to be released in early 2022 and will identify a 30-year strategy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with a 5-year action plan. It will also provide strategies to further prepare the City to address the challenges and opportunities presented by the impacts from climate change.

The City of St. John’s is committed to a city that is sustainable today and for future generations; economically, environmentally and financially.