Ste. Anne de Bellevue moves towards sustainability

By Kevin Woodhouse, October 17th, 2012

After adopting its sustainable development plan last Monday night, the city Ste. Anne de Bellevue held a press conference on Friday morning officially launching the comprehensive report that hopes to take the city in a new direction with plans to get there by taking steps towards the next year years.
On hand for the release at Harpell Hall was General Director Martin Bonhomme, Mayor Francis Deroo, councillor and environment committee chair Ryan Young as well as Sarah Mailhot, coordinator for sustainable development of the city, special guests and reporters. 
Deroo thanked the citizens, employees as well as other community partners such as MacDonald and John Abbott College, the Veterans Hospital and business and commercial establishments who took part in bringing the plan to fruition with their "valuable input on the plan. And now that the plan is done, now it must be put into place."
Young mentioned the financial contribution from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the federal government's green funding initiatives before noting the reason why the plan was created.
"We knew that the town had no economic or environmental plan, just plans for annual budgets or special projects," Young told the assembled. Knowing the grants were available for such a program, Young said that the plan was "away to set a sustainable course for the city and to guide its well being for the next 15 years.
"The plan is not just a protection for the environment but is like a three legged stool that also includes economy and society," said Young.
The plan involves 10 facets that include water, culture and identity, education and innovation as well as economic vitality with a variety of steps required in order to achieve the prescribed goals set out for the next eight years.  For example, under the food and agriculture portfolio, some suggestions are to create more community garden space and to work with area food distributors to augment the amount of local produce being sold.
Another initiative is the creation of sustainability fund that "citizens and community organizations can apply to in order to receive funding for projects that advance the goals of the plan," said Young.
"We still have a lot of work to do but this is a good starting point," said Mailhot who has been in the coordinator's role for only the last two weeks.
And because the city wants to reduce waste and needless costs, the moving towards sustainability document will be available on the city's website found at www.sadb.qc.ca as a way to conserve paper. n