Surrey has been very quietly working on a Sustainability Charter, an overarching planning document for all development in the city to meet economic, environmental, and social sustainability [aka: Surrey's version of EcoDensity].

While it had been planned to be released during the Mayor’s State of the City address on March 13th, it has apparently been pushed back a month or two due to it’s lack of “comprehension”.

She held a meeting of stakeholders last month, where the document, while welcomed, received some criticism for lacking hard targets. Some who attended also said it lacked thorough public consultation.

In fact, the city’s own Environmental Advisory Committee (EAC) hadn’t been invited to that meeting, prompting concerns from that group about its role in this city.

Coun. Bob Bose, the council representative on the EAC, said he was pleased the mayor chose to extend the process.

“To be fair to the mayor, I think we need to convene a special meeting with the EAC to get on with it,” Bose said.

He said city staff are also supportive of the more “deliberate” approach to the release of the document.

Watts said she’s had reservations about releasing the document as it stands. While “it’s a good document in over-arching goals… it doesn’t go as deeply as I would like to see at this point in time,” Watts said.

She hopes to be able to make the charter public in late April or early May.

“You know when you’ve got something as important as this, it’s very important that’s when it’s released, it’s very comprehensive,” Watts said.

In the coming weeks, the city will hold several public workshops on the charter.

[via The Surrey Leader]