As of Wednesday evening, the exhaustive public outreach for the City of North Vancouver's official community plan redesign has entered its final chapter.
Over the last three years, it has consumed untold thousands of hours from city staff and citizen volunteers who have helped shape it.
According to the feedback presented by staff, the city is largely on the right track, with the exception of a late-incoming donnybrook pitting residents north and south of East Third Street against each other - a domino effect from Port Metro Vancouver's explosive industrial growth on the waterfront.
Council owes it to residents on both sides to find a workable solution.
An OCP is meant to be a reflection of the needs and wants of the people who form it today but it's also meant to be forward looking and based on best practices of urban planning. Those two interests often collide.
Change is rarely welcomed, especially when it comes to a neighbourhood we dearly love.
The document we see at the CityShaping public hearing in September should be a balance of all things. It won't be to the satisfaction of everyone, nor should it. That is the messy nature of democracy and pluralism.
The trick is finding the right balance, remembering that this document isn't just for the present, but the next 20 or 30 years. It's quite possible we'll be attending OCP meetings in heaven when the changes foreseen in this one begin to happen.
But you can't call it a plan if your vision only looks to the past.
