District of the Municipality of St. Mary's, Nova Scotia

St Mary’s Planning

The Municipality of St. Mary’s is currently working on a Municipal Planning Strategy with By-laws to address issues related to development and land use in the Municipality. The process began in the summer of 2002 with a planning student who divided the municipality into watershed districts. Traditionally land use planning has been done on a political basis, using political boundaries as planning boundaries. However, since the 1970’s, some planners have begun using watershed boundaries instead as they relate more closely with land uses.

The process began with the creation of a planning committee that included local residents, Council members, and interested individuals. The next step was to have interviews and surveys distributed to residents and business owners in the first watershed district, St. Mary’s River South.

With this information, the planner was able to identify issues and concerns local residents had as well as opportunities associated with land uses. From these, policies were written in the form of a plan to guide future development. By-laws were then included as a way to enforce and regulate development, as directed through the planning strategy.

Municipal Planning Strategy Overview

Policies are statements of goals that guide environmental, social, and land use development as well as address opportunities and constraints concerning the effects of development on land. Policy documents specify programs and actions necessary for implementing the Municipal Planning Strategy. They are consistent with the intent of the statements of provincial and municipal interests. The information collected and presented in the final document is derived from goals and objectives defined by the existing community members through documentation and correspondence with community organizations and individual residents. The Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s contains nine watersheds, five of which are entirely within this Municipality, while the remaining four watersheds extend into the Municipalities of Guysborough, Pictou, or Halifax Regional. The entire St. Mary’s River Watershed extends into all three of the district Counties. The nine watersheds have been amalgamated according to size and location into six watershed districts.

Following watershed boundaries ensures that all land-owners within the same watershed are protected by the same Land-use policies and By-laws. This ensures that future watershed studies, such as that of the Sherbrooke Source Water Area, are not sub-divided by political boundaries where land uses may be controlled by different municipal planning strategies. Independent planning strategies and appropriate by-laws for each of the six watershed districts will be included as separate parts to create the Municipal Planning Strategy. Included in each part will be a description of the plan area, description of existing land uses, and a detailed explanation of issues and opportunities as defined by community members through surveys, interviews and open houses. Following these are policies stating goals and objectives for land uses in the district, and by-laws that realize and enforce the policies.

Technically, a watershed is the area drained by, or contributing to a stream, lake or other body of water. It is the area that topographically appears to contribute all the water that passes through a given cross section of a stream. Topography is the change in height of land relative to sea level.

Or…

Another way to visualize a watershed is to think of it as a soup or cereal bowl. If you placed a small amount of water in the bowl, it would settle at the bottom of the bowl. The water at the bottom of the bowl represents a lake, and the bowl represents the lake’s watershed. If you pour water onto any part of the bowl it will eventually land at the bottom of the bowl, or in the lake. However, if you pour water outside of the bowl (i.e. on the other side of the bowl’s lip) it will flow somewhere else. Therefore the bowl’s lip can be thought of as the watershed boundary. A watershed can have more than one lake where the lakes have streams and tributaries that connect and drain ultimately to the final lake at the bottom of the watershed, or bowl.