Sustainable Okotoks

The Story Of Sustainable Okotoks...

When your left foot hits the stirrup
And your right foot leaves the ground
There's a whole lot that can happen
While your butt is saddle bound!

It's a leap of faith 'yer takin'
As you reach toward that crest
That this horse you're takin' hold of
Will respond with all his best.

You see yourself reflected
In the window of his soul
But your toe has found position
In foundation with a hole.

So you take that leap of faith again
Where hope and hard work meet
With a sense that all the world is right
In the rhythm of his feet.

Okotoks - for 6 years a sustainable horse that bettors would have placed long odds on . What we take, we give back. What we put in, we take back out. From here, makin' waste an ingredient for life's recipe again.

Nature's cycle.
Respected in just one example of the Town of Okotoks' sustainable commitment - the composting of our sewage treatment process.

So, a bit of a story about community involvement and planning for the future...how we got to our rip snortin' giant composting toilet& .

When the Town of Okotoks, nestled in the foothills, south of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, chose - together - a more sustainable path in 1998, it set in motion a community cycle of involvement, initiative, and innovation. Since then it's been a sprint across sustainable greener pastures in an alphabet of initiatives.

Sustainable Okotoks is built of people, by people, and for people - who expressed desires simply...
a small town atmosphere - a safe place,
with a pristine river valley,
quality education,
with good reliable water,
a place of modest size.
My ma once sat on the phone for 45 minutes while I waited patiently for supper to come to the table. She hung up. I said "who was that on the phone?" She said "Wrong number."
That's the tangibility of that intangible thing we call the small town.
Feelin' connected. Feelin' alive. Bein' happy.

In 1998, Okotoks sat at one of those busy intersections - like a well-organized mid-life crisis.
To the right was the road well traveled - the inevitable growth path of almost all communities.
To the left - Robert Frost's "road less traveled" - a more sustainable journey.
The window of opportunity to choose a direction was small -
carryin' capacity of the Sheep River,
regional utility options,
rapid population growth,
local and regional planning documents urgently needin' the sweat of pen and ink.

That was the talkin' - lots of it.
A community group hug if you will.
Layin' out the options.
Layin' out the future of turns to the right or left.
Putting concepts together...givin' 'em wings.

A Community Survey
A sustainable Council vision.
Shapin' of options with best practices research.
Strategy formation usin' open houses, meetings with interest groups, newspaper articles, a high school survey, and a Municipal Development Plan survey.
The ginger steps around the cow patties to have a heart to heart dialogue with a development community one might think would be inclined to be opposed.
We played all the public participation cards - meaningfully.
All aimed at seekin' a moral authority for community direction from residents.

In the end - and a testament to building the community grasses from the roots of acceptance and ownership - full public hearing support for Sustainable Okotoks as represented in a hallmark planning document: the Municipal Development Plan of 1998.
In adoptin' the Plan, Okotoks became one of the first municipalities in Canada and the world to recognize environmental limits to growth.
Makin' things more about quality than quantity.

It has its own language - four foundations to serve as guideposts:

• Environmental Stewardship
• Economic Opportunity
• Social Conscience
• Fiscal Responsibility

We would build the sustainable house on a firm foundation:

• Growth to, but not beyond carrying capacity of the Sheep River - 25 000 to 30 000 residents
• An urban boundary at carrying capacity
• No developer oversizin' of infrastructure to service beyond carryin' capacity.
• Density targets for new development
• Three key planning documents penned in sustainable language
• Urban design to reduce car use and improve social connectivity
• Diverse action - from recycling to heritage preservation

People are as interested in how we achieved unity of direction as they are in the trails we've ridden.
They come from places where the pockets of competing influence clothe communities in the status quo.
They understand the un-met challenge for the sustainability movement spanning the last three decades is a fundamental one - how do you move the 'masses' to action?

Truth of the matter is - if you do it right, the words are easy. It's the consensus and the doin' that's hard.

We talked a lot about leavin' a legacy - for our future generations.
Born of selfish motivation with bottom line stickin' to the knittin' of the pragmatic.
Create employment, education, housing, recreation options amidst a clean environment and fiscal finesse.
Buildin' action on the foundation of words.
Progress from sweat equity -
remindin' me of a Chinese proverb that says
"Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I understand."
Drawin' the big picture - and allowin' people to fill in the colours of the rainbow.
Before we knew it, the big picture was a canvas painted by imagination.

Sure, there was some altruism - doin' our part to make this big blue orb we all live on a better place.
Thinkin' globally, acting locally so the sayin' goes.

There's an African sayin' that water doesn't fall on only one leaf. The water we sip today...once slurped by the dinosaurs.
The water cycle at work.

Water reminds us there's no boundaries from space...between places and people.
Our differences lie in cultural context .
The way we do things, the way we think about the future.
But be always mindful of our global connectivity.
When we don't see the connections between things - the threads in the fabric, it is a failure of imagination that fails our humanity.

A Community Survey in 2003 says 82% support cappin' population at the river's limits, up from 75% in 1998.
Today - Sustainable Okotoks is not a project nor owned by a group or government office. It's a daily reality - "the business of sustainability."
Framing decision-making. Guiding a community wanting to be more than Anywhere, Alberta.

A recent article in an Alberta-based magazine writes...

In the mid-90s, Okotoks Town Council undertook a "community visionin' exercise" - one of those non-bindin', quasi-democratic initiatives that usually leads to the draftin' of a high-minded mission statement and little else. And so another extraordinary thing happened: not only did Council formulate a mission statement and a civic vision through its consultations, it actually took this stuff to heart...

My little talk from the "throne" is unconventional -
but it's a reminder that creatin' change does not wear the right clothes nor seek "business as usual" - it comes from a place of risk, a daring to challenge the status quo,
a fearlessness of jumping off a cliff into the unknown
to discover a new reality, with honesty, curiosity, and inclusiveness the only guide for the way forward.
Well - wearin' Kevlar underwear don't hurt either.

A community is only as big as the dream it dares to live.
Success is not in the end but in the journey.
We don't have all the answers - just some guideposts to follow as we learn lessons from doin'.

A bit of cowboy advice I've learned on horseback and saddle...for those pursuin' the sustainable path:

• Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.
• Avoid the special interests. Pursue the common interest.
• Every path has a few puddles. Don't be afraid to walk through 'em
• Always drink upstream from the herd - except in Okotoks where our innovations allow you to drink downstream from our herd.
• If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.
• Build consensus to achieve momentum."