Southgate Community Improvement Plan

A Community Improvement Plan (CIP) is a tool where municipal planners and economic developers can work to develop policies and provide incentives targeting specific types of growth and investment.  The Township of Southgate has identified a need for a Community Improvement Plan program to help promote development in Southgate.

The Community Improvement Plan Program has been drafted under Section 28 of the Ontario Planning Act, 1990, as amended, which gives the Township of Southgate the legislative authority to define Community Improvement Project Areas and prepare a Community Improvement Plan for those areas. The CIP has been designed to work in conjunction with the Grey of Grey’s Community Improvement Plan (PDR-CW-30-19) and S.28 of the Planning Act and O. Reg. 550/06 Prescribed Matters – Upper Tier Community Improvement Plans.

A Community Improvement Plan for Southgate has been prepared to serve as a long-term strategy to:

• Revitalize the downtown areas;
• Assist in the improvement and renovation of downtown buildings;
• Revitalize the buildings that require structural improvements;
• Fill the empty retail / commercial storefronts;
• Upgrade the streetscape;
• Encourage the development of new buildings in the downtowns;

Along with facilitating the revitalization and improvement of Southgate, the CIP program will provide incentives to promote and support the following types of development and revitalization projects that were identified in the County of Grey Community Improvement Plan:

• Support for downtown revitalization of store fronts, publicly used frontages and streetscapes;
• Promotion of the redevelopment and/or conversion of brownfield, vacant and grey field properties;
• Increased value-added agricultural uses, agri-tourism and facility improvement projects;
• Increase affordable and attainable housing, including secondary suites, multi-unit housing, purpose built rental housing, rooming house developments and apartment dormitory style developments; and
• Support the adaptive re-use of commercial, industrial and institutional buildings

Southgate Community Improvement Plan