The town of Hinton has announced it will embark on developing the community’s first sustainability plan.

After some false starts over the last 18 months while planning to start the project, town manager Bernie Kreiner said council recently decided to go ahead with it. In its regular meeting on Feb. 17, council voted to approve a $36,000 budget to develop the sustainability plan.

The town will be asking its residents what sort of future they see for the community in 30 years. 

By undertaking this project, Hinton fulfills a requirement by the federal government to have a sustainability plan that sets social, economic, environmental, cultural and governance goals for the next 20 to 30 years. 

Compared to the way in which Jasper is undertaking its community sustainability plan, Kreiner said Hinton would take a more traditional, less engaging approach.

“I think Jasper is doing a superb job,” he said. Though some Jasper consultative events have had difficulty drawing participants, Kreiner said Hinton decided to use a less-engaging approach after looking at the past experiences of a number of communities that have prepared sustainability plans.

Kreiner said he expected that some public consultation will take place before the end of June, and that the plan should be complete within one year.

The next events for the Jasper Community Sustainability Plan are a set of strategies workshops which take place on March 25 and 26.