Community Strategic Plan 

Limited financial resources have been and will continue to be a significant issue for all municipalities across Ontario, including Brantford. In addition to limited financial resources, City Council and staff increasingly have to deal with a wide range of other long-term or strategic issues. These issues include dealing with the City’s growth, the renewal of aging infrastructure, revitalization of the City’s downtown, promotion of the City’s commercial and industrial sectors, dealing with downloaded services from senior levels of government, competing interests for improved and new services, and improving the quality of life of the community. The conflict between available resources and increasing demands is causing the City to question where to focus its limited resources. Municipalities that have successfully dealt with this conflict have done so by thinking strategically to define their future directions and priorities.

A key component of a “strategic thinking” organization is a Strategic Plan. In early 2005, City Council and the administrative leadership of the organization decided to embrace the idea of becoming a “strategic thinking” organization. The initial step in this new direction for Brantford was to develop the first Strategic Plan for the City. A “Community Based” Strategic Plan was chosen as the way to establish the direction and priorities for Brantford. A “Community Based” Strategic Plan engages those both inside and outside (residents and businesses) the organization to assist in defining the type of community that Brantford will be in the future and the ways needed to get to that future state.

The process to develop the City’s Community Strategic Plan commenced in May 2005 with interviews with the members of City Council, City Manager and General Managers to obtain initial input from these political and administrative leaders of the organization. These interviews were followed with Staff and Public Workshop Sessions in June 2005 to gain input from across the organization and the community. There were 425 individuals that participated in this staff and public input phase of the process.

Based on this community wide input, a draft Strategic Plan document was prepared for further consideration by City Council, staff and the community. This consultation included a bulk mail-out of the draft Strategic Plan document to the entire community. As a result of the input received the Strategic Plan document, now known as “Shaping Our Future”, was finalized and adopted by City Council in January 2006.

The final version of “Shaping Our Future” can be found below in pdf format. “Shaping Our Future” identifies the Goals, Long-Term Desired Outcomes, and Strategic Actions that this community will focus on over the next five years in order to achieve our Community Vision, which is:

“Brantford - proud, vibrant, progressive……..a “GRAND” community for living, learning, working and playing.”

During the community consultation process, there were many questions raised about how the Strategic Plan would be implemented and a desire by all that there was a commitment that “Shaping Our Future” would come to life through a focused implementation strategy. An electronic version of the Implementation Report is also found below in pdf format. This Report outlines how the City intends to proceed through each of the 44 Strategic Actions over the next five years. It also outlines how the City will make “Shaping our Future” a living document through ongoing commitment, communication and partnership development with the entire community.

For more information on “Shaping Our Future”, please contact Greg Dworak Manager, Corporate Policy and Management Practices by phone at 519-759-4150 Ext. 2340 or by email at shapingourfuture@brantford.ca.