RougeNet Home page	Documents on this site (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)	planArundel Part One - Introduction This page
planArundel Part Two - Projects	planArundel Part Three - Tools	planArundel Part Four - Conference
planArundel Part Five - Links for Arundel	planArundel Part Six - Focus Group Materials	planArundel Full Size Zoning Map
planArundel Photo Album	Contents for this page

The Arundel Strategic Plan is being developed and implemented under the guidelines for the Agricultural Rural Minority Language Community Planning Initiative (ARMLCPI), an Initiative of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the Department of Canadian Heritage (DCH) to support agricultural rural minority language communities across the country in the production of community development plans.

The Arundel Strategic Plan offers a series of guidelines and suggestions for the Municipal Council to consider when making decisions about the future development of our community. The Council welcomes input from the Focus Groups, the Community Conference and the various committees called for in the Strategic Plan. It will be very useful for the Council to be able to call upon the findings outlined in this community-based strategic plan to help with its deliberations.

Contents and Links to planArundel documents Part 1INTRODUCTION Acknowledgements Background Information – About Arundel Zoning Map The Process Used to Develop the Plan The Focus Groups and Focus Group Leaders The Community Conference  Summary of Results Part 2    Strategic Plan - Proposed Projects Part 3    Tools: Surveys, Graphs,and Traffic Survey Part 4    Conference –Transcripts: Speeches, Questions & Answers Part 5    Internet Links for Arundel Part 6    Focus Group Materials for the Strategic Part 7            Photo Album

Acknowledgements

• The members of Council of the Municipality of the Township of Arundel;
• Secondly, two members of the Council who have helped tremendously by monitoring and reviewing each part of the process, David Flanagan, the mayor, and councillor Ron Cooke whose active and direct participation assured the maximum participation of citizens in a well-prepared, rational series of activities to discover some of the answers to the questions which we set as the objectives of the project;
• The contributions of the focus group members and leaders cannot be too greatly valued;
• The work of the group leaders in setting up meetings and in managing the meetings took much time and energy. Then, following the meeting there was the job of reporting. (The work of these focus groups provides us with our data and the core of the material to which we directed our attention at the community conference.)
• Kelly Soule, our excellent resource person who planned, compiled and worked tirelessly to put together the results and accompanying documents.

Thanks to all of you for your extraordinary efforts.

Johanna Earle

Background Information – About Arundel

The Municipality of Arundel is bordered to the north by the City of Mont-Tremblant, to the south by the Township Harrington, to the east by Barkmere and the Township of Montcalm, and to the west by Huberdeau.

Located in the southern part of the MRC des Laurentides, Arundel shares many of the same concerns as the MRC d’Argenteuil, with its agricultural activities, rural character, and its underdeveloped tourist and recreational potential.

The Township of Arundel was officially settled in 1856 by settlers from Scotland and England and was named by Sidney Bellingham, MLA, who was closely related to the Duke of Norfolk and in his honour, named the town after Arundel, Sussex, England. 

We are in the provincial electoral district of Argenteuil and the federal district of Labelle.

The community has a municipal council, a chapter of the Women’s Institute, a branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, a Masonic Lodge, a United Church, an Anglican Church, and a cross-country ski association. All of which are vibrant and very active.

There is a post office, a French Immersion school, and a municipal building housing a library, the municipal offices, and eight seniors’ apartments.

In winter municipality operates an outdoor, lighted hockey rink on a surface that serves as a tennis and basketball court in the spring. We have a soccer and baseball field and a children’s playground. 

We are part of the Aerobic Corridor biking and hiking trailwhich goes from Morin Heights to Saint Rémi-d’Amherst. This, in the winter, is used as a segment of a major snowmobile trail.

There is an 18 hole scenic golf course, a par three golf course, camp grounds, a canoe and kayak school on the rapids of the Rouge River, a year round recreational fishing and lodging centre with a mini zoo as well as the Arundel Natural Science Centre which is an all season residential, recreation and teaching centre promoting the sustainable use of our environment.

Land Use Zones: We have 14 agricultural zones, 8 forestry zones, 2 agro-forestry zones and a conservation zone out of a total of 49 zones. 

There are cattle farms but no longer any dairy farms. Many fields are being rented by farmers for haying or cattle grazing. One of our cattle raising farms was sold and is now an elk farm.

There are two organic farms (community supported agriculture) that produce fresh vegetables, meat, poultry and eggs mainly for the Montreal market.

The largest employer is the Serres Arundel that employs about 40 persons each spring and summer.

There are also many other small businesses: a convenience store, garages and mechanics, a road and excavation contractor, and building contractors, among others.

The biggest impact on our community is from Mont-Trembant to the north with the biggest building and tourist boom in the province, perhaps, the country. Employees are buying houses here and business owners from Mont-Tremblant are buying farms in Arundel and turning them into horse ranches instead of raising cattle as previous owners had done. The young people or children of the farmers cannot afford the farms and would be severely challenged to make a living from farming. 

We needed a community plan to know in which direction to move, what kind of businesses to attract, and what our niche is to complement the Mont-Tremblant giant to the north and to create employment for our young people. 

We also needed to be able to keep our Anglophone seniors in our community instead of their having to move to Ontario or out of the area when they can no longer care for their large homes or farms.

Who are we?

A municipal council: David Flanagan, mayor; Councillors: Jim Bindon, Gary Cantin, Ron Cooke, Johanna Earle, Norman Graham, and Dale Rathwell; Secretary-Treasurer Bernice Goulet; Building Inspector Bob Elmslie; Roads Department Manager Gerald Miller and his assistant, Neil Swail, who is also our Volunteer Fire Chief.

Experience of relevance for the proposed project

On our council are people with backgrounds such as teaching, director of schools, insurance business, personnel management, finance, communications and printing, farming, garage mechanics, and performance engineering.

We have many accomplishments to our credit such as: organizing a committee to have the local railway station moved and changed into our municipal post office and a committee to keep the local school by changing its vocation to French immersion, the creation of a historical society and the creation of a tourist map with the involvement of most of the businesses as well as installing reflective numbers at every driveway for the security of all our citizens.

We anticipate that the following benefits will accrue from theplan

• New businesses and more housing will enhance our community by creating employment so our young people will return when they finish university;
• A restaurant and or hotel/motel will attract more tourists to our area;
• Our seniors (many of whom are farmers) could remain here during their retirement years as they certainly wish to do and this would help us create a whole-life community as well as employment.

• Help determine our potential and niche for economic development;

• Help find solutions to keep our farms for raising cattle or produce;

• Provide means to protect the Anglo-Saxon architectural styles of our town center and of our farms;

• Create possibilities for developing agro-tourism, farm restaurants, farm holidays …;

• Encourage implementation of forestry operations in ways that minimize their impact on other forest uses.

• Indexing the community characteristics, population and employment statistics, potential for development in various economic sectors, historical factors, cultural activities keeping the distinctive aspects and issues that are characteristic of the community and the region as a whole;

• After gathering this data, the resource person needed to consult with all the various components of our diverse community;

• Analyze the feasibility of identified projects, the physical, and administrative and zoning requirements with proposed sites indicated in a complete plan after which there was a consultation with the community.

Our economy has been based on agriculture and much needs to be done to keep the farms by finding solutions to increase the viability and diversification of this sector. Our farmers and farm groups need to work on this project to find solutions. 

Implementation

The Council of Arundel was able to find members from various sectors of the community to form implementation committees that would report to the Council. The Council assumes responsibility for the appropriateness and implementation of all projects and ensures that partnerships have been found to bring these projects to fruition.

Communications with other communities

The Process Used to Develop the Plan 

2.Where do we want to be?

3.How do we get there? 

By a process of research and by reference to the standard means of evaluation, and a survey of how to create what is known as a “strategic plan,” using many suggestions and references provided by Paulette Spence of Agri-Food Canada, we built the steps of planArundel.

We decided to use focus groups, guided by discovery and exploratory tools to reveal the interests and values of the group, and a problem declaration tool to get the group to commit to some problem(s) and desirable solution(s.) 

The discovery and exploratory tools were survey forms: Assessment and Inventory, where the participant rated various issues for importance, and Plus&Minus, where the participant wrote his or her choice for some criteria. In Assessment and Inventory the items were given and the participant rated the given items; in Plus&Minus, the participant wrote in his or her choices.

The problem declaration tool was a SWOT Analysis[1] form for the group to use to arrive at the definition of a problem or problems under a given theme with the guidance of a discussion leader. Once the problem was stated, then a solution or response was to be suggested, if possible. 

The results of the focus group deliberations provided the themes and ideas for discussion at the community conference. At the community conference, the speakers addressed issues raised by the deliberations of the focus groups and the processes required for success in building the strategic plan and in the implementation of the plan. 

Following the community conference the collected surveys were analysed to produce the various documents: the strategic plan and the data documents to show the results of the inventories and evaluations.

One group seems to have come to the focus group meeting with their need and solution established by prior discussion and used the group meeting to consolidate and write up their proposal. All but one group carried out some sort of focus group activity; one group without a large number of participants available, for many reasons, joined another group.

In two groups the solution was seen to demand a series of follow-up meetings and actions by this group.

In the case of Transportation, the need for a focus group was minimal since the Municipality had a process in place and the Ministry of Transport of Quebec has a long-range plan. An on-site traffic survey was carried out and documented.

A focus group was composed of people who shared an interest, occupation, or objective. The combined responses of all focus groups provide us with a set of data, which represents the opinions, and values of the whole community.

We made up a set of categories and refined the original list accoring to the local conditions and requests. Then, the project was announced to the members of the community and the members of the community were invited to lead a focus group discussion, to join a focus group related to a given topic, or to suggest a topic for a group. 

Joan Evans and the United Church Ladies provided the refreshments.

The conference was held in the science building at the Arundel Natural Science Centre as provided by the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board and as arranged by Pat Thomas and Mark McMahon.

 

1. Business  Increase permanent population Increase part time residences in the region Attract professionals to the region Promote establishment of family style diner Need for resort hotel or motel Create service sector jobs Promote smal1-scale farm production Develop tourism Develop light resource industries Promote more local retail outlets Allocate land for homes 2. Public Security Eliminate dangerous road conditions Upgrade roads to support increased traffic 3. Communications Transportation  Need for communication about municipal & community affairs Promote high-speed internet access Promote cell phone functionality 4. Environment Municipal beautification needed Zoning to maintain property values Enforce environmental protection laws Prohibit mega farms esp. hog farms Protect heritage homes Clean up junk yards Sidewalks for village streets Preserve natural & regional qualities

5. Family Affairs Retain youth in the region Create youth employment Drug & gambling abuse prevention Services for senior citizens Increase home care services Need to build senior’s apartments Need for long-term care facility Have a “Welcome Wagon” for new residents Need community (Social/Youth centre Access to school facilities (AES & ANSC) Need for exercise programs 6. Culture, Sports, Leisure & Recreation  Increase historical development projects  Increase cultural & arts opportunities Expand recreational facilities Build sports, leisure, cultural facilities Summer swimming area needed Provide more child & toddler recreation           Go to the Contents of this page