To update the community's most important plan, Bowen Island needs a planner. Now it has one. Dr. David Witty is moving from steering committee chair into a new role as planner for the Official Community Plan update.

Sue Ellen Fast, who replaces him as steering committee chair, says, "Bowen's OCP update steering committee and CitySpaces consulting team are delighted to have Witty's tremendous planning experience now fully available to the process."

Hendrik Slegtenhorst, the municipality's CAO, is equally pleased to be able to put Witty's "highly experienced planning skills" to work on the OCP update.

Witty is a professor and former dean of the Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba - the largest design and planning faculty in Canada. He has worked across Western Canada from the Lakehead to Vancouver Island and into the high Arctic advising large cities, rural communities and First Nations in areas of community planning. He is partway through a year's sabbatical from the University of Manitoba.

The OCP is a council-adopted policy framework for guiding and managing growth and change on Bowen.

Earlier this month Witty spoke to Bowen Island municipal council about the challenges relating to the absence of planning staff. While the empty municipal position is likely to be filled early in the new year, work has been piling up and the new person will also need some time to get to know Bowen. Council chose instead to respond quickly, appointing Witty to a planning position to support the OCP update process. He will report to the CAO and expects to work from an office in municipal hall a couple of days each week.

"It simplifies the logistics of filling the gap [of staff vacancies]," Slegenhorst says.

Fast was promoted by council to succeed Witty as chair of the steering committee, having acted as vice-chair on occasion. She is a consultant working in areas of parks planning and environmental education, and is the executive director of Interpretation Canada. Fast has contributed to the Bowen community as a volunteer in many roles, including as current chair of the Greenways advisory committee.

To catch up on the OCP Update process, stop by the OCP table at the Christmas craft sale Sunday December 6, or visit www.OCPupdate.ca.

Meanwhile, Slegtenhorst says the municipality is almost ready to make a formal offer to a potential director of planning. Once that position is filled, the municipality will concentrate on the junior planning position.