A draft proposal of a revitalized uptown will be coming forward in November following a workshop at the Olds Royal Canadian Legion on Thursday.
The meeting was a chance for interested people to share their ideas on what they would like to see in the uptown over the coming years. It was a followup to a similar session held in April.
“Before Christmas, we should be out with a draft product for the public to review. And then after Christmas we'll be putting the final touches on a final plan before coming to council (for approval),” said Craig Teal, one of the planners who helped facilitate the session.
The 30 to 40 people who attended the session were asked a series of questions about the uptown and were asked to provide their input on what they cherish about the current uptown, what they want to improve upon and what they would like to see in the future.
Following discussion of those points the assembled group was broken up into smaller groups and asked to mark changes or improvements they would like to see on maps of the town.
Some of the ideas that came out of the process included building an indoor/covered market in the uptown core, centralizing social services in the uptown core, moving the town office back to the uptown and providing some type of public transportation to make it easier for people without vehicles to move around town.
One of the points that was raised during the discussion was transforming the uptown into a niche area that could generate traffic from out of town. Teal said while that might be a good idea, he would favour a core that would draw residents of Olds to spend time there, as that would probably be a more viable way to add vibrancy to the uptown.
Teal said the process generated good discussion and a lot of ideas.
“(There were) lots of ideas about various parts of downtown and what should happen where, be it what kind of use should be there or how the road system should be changed. Certainly lots of ideas and suggestions around things like making it pedestrian friendly, making it more attractive, (providing) more activities in the area, but also making sure we preserve things that are important to us as a community,” he said.
A steering committee that was struck earlier this year will now take all the ideas that were generated from the session and write a draft proposal for further public review in November.
