A group of local citizens are actively consulting Town of Brome Lake residents on what they are looking for from their municipality as elected officials prepare a new five-year strategic plan. The citizens' group has officially published its own first preliminary report. 

Over the last three months, residents living in the villages and hamlets of Fulford, Bondville, Foster, Iron Hill, Knowlton, East Hill, and West Brome have taken part in a bilingual in-depth consultation process known as Imaginaction II. Imaginaction dates back to 1989 when a group of local citizens formed a “citizen’s procedure to analyze everything about the Town of Brome Lake” as elected officials planned for the future of the municipality, according to Peter White, leader of Imaginaction II. 

White told CIDI that the first Imaginaction report contained a wealth of information. “They produced over six months of work, about 140 people got involved, and they produced a 96-page report, which is available in English and French, and it’s amazing. It was really a complete analysis of everything about the Town of Brome Lake and the recommendations are still valid today,” said White. “It’s really interesting to look back at them, but nothing of that nature has been done for 25 years. When the town announced, recently, that it was going to do a new five-year strategic plan, we said hey, why don’t we go back and do what they did 25 years ago?”

White explained to CIDI that the municipality hired consulting firm  Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton to help it prepare the five-year strategic plan, but the municipal process didn’t involved “a great deal of public consultation “. That is why Imaginaction was revived. The group’s preliminary report is expected to be included with the findings of Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton.

“It’s amazing what we found. There is a huge amount of interest in each of these places as to what is going to happen to the Town of Brome Lake. They want to make sure that we don’t screw it up, that we plan it carefully, and that we keep the wonderful beauty that we have here,” White said. 

After meeting about 140 Town of Brome Lake residents throughout July, Aug, and Sept., White highlighted the group’s findings, which come down to two main themes: Town of Brome Lake residents are looking to be heard and for the municipality’s identity to be preserved. 

“What we have here and what we love is the calm, the beauty, the architecture, and we don’t want it to become a Bromont, we don’t want it to become a Cowansville, or a Waterloo or a Sutton. The Town of Brome Lake, the beautiful village of Knowlton, our outlying communities outside, we want to keep what we have and not ruin it by overdevelopment or unplanned development, and that’s a risk” he said.

Whether their concerns are related to the lack affordable housing, uncontrolled development, more activities available to families, access to educational and daycare services, or preserving the area’s water supply, what Brome Lake residents are looking for is to be made a part of the municipal decision process and for town councillors to keep the municipality’s identity at the core of that decision making. 

“People feel, and I think they’re right, that there has been some uncontrolled ad hoc development in Knowlton, particularity on Knowlton Road but elsewhere too. There is a housing development on Frizzle Road now that is going and some people say ‘why didn’t you have more consultation on this? What’s going back there? We don’t know.’ We feel that it’s very important to always think about not doing anything ‘bad.’ It’s sort of like the hippocratic oath of doctors, don’t do any harm to the patient,” said White. “We’re saying don’t do any harm to Knowlton and anything that we do should be constructive, positive, and it should have public support. So a lot more public consultation.”

Despite the publication of its preliminary report, White emphasized that Imaginaction II is ongoing and the group’s next step is to encourage the six electoral districts to form their own local residents associations.

“We found that in each one of the six districts, there are people who would love to get engaged and they would ask ‘how do you do it?’ Well, we told them how. (…) It’s very simple, it doesn’t have to be incorporated, it doesn’t need a bank account, ... it doesn’t need to spend any money, maybe just sending out notices occasionally,” explained White. "(…) We’re going to try to form a volunteer district resident’s association, with not legal status it will just be an advisory group, but they will be able to speak to the town, and to their councillor, as the unified voice of the residents.”

Town planning is a big subject and it’s something “that we should all think about,” said White. 

For more information on Imaginaction II, all public notices can be found in the weekly newspaper the Brome County News, published every Tuesday, or an email can be sent to imaginaction2023@gmail.com

Listen to the full interview below: