Uxbridge, a municipality of about 21,000 in Durham Area, began its Downtown Revitalization undertaking in 2020 with help from the Rural Financial Improvement program. Their successes lay in constructing a stable basis from the beginning by bringing many numerous teams to the steering committee.
They undertook a complete group engagement course of, which included surveys with 1,977 residents, guests and enterprise homeowners. Visioning classes and design workshops enabled Uxbridge to assemble extra enter on the group’s needs and desires for revitalizing their downtown. Utilizing this enter a strategic plan was developed that was primarily based on 4 pillars
- Devoted management
- Revitalization of Decrease Brock
- Secure, Walkable Downtown
- Downtown as a Vacation spot
Council accredited the Strategic Plan and Motion Plan in 2022 and now the group is enterprise actions to help the revitalization.
A number of the actions that the group has undertaken embody:
- Establishing a downtown revitalization advisory committee as a standing committee of council
- Reviewing and revising the Uxbridge Downtown Group Enchancment Program
- Lowering long-haul truck site visitors by downtown with site visitors calming measures
- Allocating a yearly funds from a tax levy to help downtown revitalization
Between 2022 and 2023, the group of Uxbridge skilled a 63 per cent enhance of individuals employed of their downtown. Moreover, $1.5 million value of bodily enhancements had been made to downtown buildings in 2023. These investments had been enabled by the profitable preliminary section of Uxbridge’s Downtown Revitalization initiative that’s being carried out to foster a vibrant and thriving downtown.
“With help from the RED program, Uxbridge is actively making a vibrant and thriving downtown. The current Council choice to use for the expropriation of three properties on the primary intersection is a big step in redeveloping Decrease Brock. This transfer aligns with the Township’s Downtown Group Enchancment Plan, Official Plan, and the 2020 Downtown Uxbridge Imaginative and prescient.” Mayor Dave Barton
By means of an inclusive and collaborative revitalization course of the group managed to strengthen native companies and client markets, enhance safety of native investments and create new employment alternatives.
Uxbridge’s success is a testomony to the facility of an interdisciplinary, collaborative, and deliberate course of to have interaction in community-led revitalization, as will be seen in this video.
Working in collaboration with communities and their companions, the ministry recommends a four-point method to Downtown Revitalization planning that features:
- harnessing management & administration
- investing in bodily enchancment
- financial growth
- advertising & promotion
If you’re all for studying extra about how one can have interaction in Downtown Revitalization in your group go to their web site.
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