The Integrated Community Sustainability Plan

Back at the start of this term of council, one of the first things that I asked for was a Sustainability Officer who could start us down the path of getting a sustainability plan. Council disagreed, and suggested instead that we start with a plan and see if we need an officer. It took all term, but about a month ago we finally passed our Integrated Community Sustainability Plan.

There have been some concerns expressed about the costs of the plan, particularly by candidate Tammy Archer, who identifies scrapping the Plan as the first issue in her campaign platform. I think there are some misconceptions about the plan, and I want to be able to address them clearly before we get into any situation in which we need to make decisions about it. In fairness to Ms. Archer, there are a lot of things that aren’t clear in the Plan that was provided to council by the consultants we hired to produce it; further, there are some errors that will be corrected by our staff moving forward. In this post I’ll make clarifications, so that we can address what the ongoing expense estimates noted in the report will actually mean for Brighton moving forward.

For reference, you can find the staff report, which includes the Integrated Community Sustainability Plan and the public engagement report, here.

Plan vs Budget

The first thing to note is that there’s a big difference between passing a Plan of this kind and implementing it. The motion that council passed is included in the first page of the staff report, linked above:

1. That Council receive the report regarding the Integrated Community Sustainability Plan; and
2. That Council adopt the Municipality of Brighton Integrated Community Sustainability Plan, dated August 24, 2026, as the Municipality’s guiding framework for sustainability planning and implementation, together with corrective minor revisions that may be updated by staff to reflect updated accuracies; and
3. That the Integrated Sustainability Plan be modified to include Council’s Sustainability Vision Statement adopted at its session April 13, 2026; and
4. That the Mayor give consideration to the Action Items as referenced in this report in drafting the 2027 budget.

The staff report went on to emphasize the fact that passing this Plan does not guarantee that we’ll actually do any of these things. Our motion only asked that we adopt it as a framework for decision-making, and that the Mayor will “give consideration” to it when preparing the budget. So there’s no worry that this council committed to spending a lot of money; we didn’t commit to spending any money on any of the recommendations in this report. Frankly, that’s one of the key reasons I decided to run for a second term; we’ve come a long way to get to the point of even having a plan, and I think it would be a shame if it sat in a drawer because we refused to implement it. I’ll also note here that while the Plan includes cost estimates, they’re only estimates, and it doesn’t include how they arrived at those estimates; in many cases I can’t imagine something costing what they’ve indicated here, and there’s no breakdown of how that money would be spent, or whether it represents new spending or just quantifies how much of an existing budget would apply to that item.

It’s very important to emphasize the role of this Plan as a “framework for decision-making,” or else as we go through all of the aspects of this plan that we’re already doing or that don’t require us to change you might begin to wonder what the point of it is. As a framework it isn’t about making us do new things, it’s about contextualizing the things that we do (old and new) to the challenges of reducing our waste and adapting to a warming climate. So with that in mind, let’s jump in.

What’s IN the Plan?

The document is quite large, so no shame if you haven’t read it all! The action items are summarized on pages 3-5 of the staff report. It’s organized into six themes, each with specific actions that are prioritized and roughly costed in the Plan itself (I’ll add in the priorities and cost estimates so it’s all in one place):

• Sustainable growth, built environment, and facilities:
  • 1. Encourage green infrastructure in new developments through a community improvement plan and other voluntary incentives (Priority: 1; Capital cost: up to $120k; Operating Cost: $30k/year)
    • Note that this is about establishing standards, not building anything. The capital costs here would be the cost of hiring a consultant to write the standards and associated reports, the same as when we hired planning consultants to write the Secondary Plan. But also note that we will be doing that in 2027 anyway as we update our Official Plan, which we already know will include updated sustainability standards to the extent we are legally allowed (the province has decided that not all sustainability standards are allowed to be requirements for new buildings, a very controversial move). So I’m not sure that this will add significant cost to the OP update we were already planning, and I’m unsure what the $30k/year operating cost would be, aside from the cost of continuing to have planning staff salaries as they enforce those standards as part of the normal planning process.
  • 2. Support affordable housing in new developments through available planning tools and incentives (Priority: 3; Capital cost: $80-180k; Operating cost: $30k/year)
    • This action item is about implementing inclusionary zoning. Again, making changes to the zoning by-law requires an Official Plan amendment that, on its own, is a big deal; but we’re doing that anyway! Like the action item above, this will be included in the work we are already scheduled to be doing in 2027, and should not add significant cost to that work.
  • 3. Strengthen agricultural-land protection and establish a growth management boundary (Priority: 1; Capital cost: $120-300k; Operating cost: $40k/year)
    • Again, this is an Official Plan amendment issue. They mention floodplain mapping, which would be a significant expense if Lower Trent Conservation Authority hadn’t already completed that last year. It also mentions strengthening Greenbelt protections, but we are outside of the Greenbelt, so that’s a non-starter. And it mentions establishing a growth management boundary, but the province determines our urban boundary and we’ve already completed a Secondary Plan to manage growth within that boundary. So this also falls into the category of things we’d do anyway, or have already done.
  • 4. Plan and budget for the transition to a mechanical wastewater treatment plant (Priority: 1; Cost: ~$52M, $35M covered by provincial grant)
    • This is one of the items on which there was a considerable error, in part because this Plan was being written before final costs for the wastewater plant were updated (the Plan has it at $41M, with a much smaller municipal share). But again, we were doing this anyway, so it does not include additional costs that wouldn’t have otherwise been in our budget.
  • 5. Launch an incentive program for water-saving appliances (Priority: 3; Capital cost: $150k; Operating cost: $30k/year)
    • It’s not clear why it would cost $150k to launch this program; our incentive programs are usually much more modest than that, though I appreciate the ambition! The Plan references our Rain Barrel program, which was initiated by a suggestion from a resident and resulted in $50 rebates for rain barrels bought in Brighton. It doesn’t take much in the way of staff time to maintain this program, and it is done using existing staff resources, so I don’t expect any extra operating costs for additional water conservation incentive programs. The real cost here, above our regular staffing costs, is how much money we want to set aside for rebates or other incentives.
  • 6. Launch public awareness campaigns on water conservation (Priority: 3; Capital cost: $30k; Operating cost: $45k/year)
    • Capital costs here would include a new website – but we just updated our website last year, and could easily add a page to it to host this at little or no additional cost. Operating costs would be almost entirely staff time, spread between Brighton and Lower Trent Conservation Authority, both of which have communications staff who already run public awareness campaigns. I would put this cost under the “already doing it” category, and don’t anticipate significant added cost to our budget unless it’s for ad buys.
• Resilient agriculture and food systems:
  • 7. Create an agricultural innovation partnership table (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $25k; Operating cost: $150k/year)
    • This is a really neat idea! So neat that we’re already doing something quite similar. Over the past few years I’ve been sitting on the Northumberland County Food Policy Council as a volunteer, but this year our council agreed to regularly appoint a representative from council or staff to represent Brighton there. The Food Policy Council has operated since 2013, and has had municipal representation before (when I joined the CAO of Trent Hills was appointed to represent them), and has administrative support from the Public Health Unit. We’ve managed to recruit members from OMAFA, recently were joined by the regional OFA representative, and will attempt to recruit members from every Northumberland municipality. Right now the Food Policy Council is participating in an initiative called Northumberland Can Feed Northumberland, funded by Community Power Northumberland and organized by the Centre for Healthy Communities at Loyalist College, which is currently seeking input from farmers, processors, distributors, vendors, and institutions in order to map our food systems in Northumberland to determine which policy changes or programs might be needed to make agriculture and food systems more accessible to the next generation, profitable for participants, and sustainable both environmentally and ecologically. I think these efforts, which are being done on a volunteer basis and with funding from a community nonprofit, could achieve everything this action item intends, for no cost to the municipality other than the time for a representative at meetings. Since council members get paid $75/meeting, and the Food Policy Council meets every 2-3 months, the operating cost for this initiative would be roughly $500/year.
  • 8. Pilot a sustainable farming transition grant (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $15k; Operating cost: $145k/year)
    • This is a worthy initiative aimed at supporting farmers as they transition to more environmentally sustainable practices. It would be a new program, with most costs depending on uptake from local farmers, with the costs going directly to them. It’s important to note that this initiative maps fairly closely to some of the vision for the federal government’s new National Food Security Strategy, and that by having a local program that aligns we might serve largely to direct federal funding to local farmers rather than raising these funds directly from property taxes. So it’s hard to say how much this would cost.
• Energy conservation and greenhouse gas reduction:
  • 9. Adopt sustainable design standards for new municipal buildings (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $155k; Operating cost: $55k/year)
    • Like the Planning matters above, the capital costs here are about determining sustainability standards for new municipal buildings. Since we have a few of those buildings on the docket (fire halls, potential recreation centre), we should be thinking about this now. There are a ton of things that we can do to make buildings more environmentally sustainable, and not all of them are terribly expensive; and those that are expensive often have grants available to support them. Having determined a standard in advance can help us plan toward getting the best bang for buck on sustainability features. In the absence of having our own standard, though, we can aim for existing third-party standards such as LEED certified design. The certification process itself comes with a cost, but getting LEED certification can often unlock federal grants to support the project. So it’s a case of spend a little more to get a lot more–and it’s difficult to determine in advance just what costs or grants will be.
  • 10. Retrofit municipal buildings for energy efficiency (Priority: 1; Capital cost: $3.5-6M; Operating cost: $300k/yr)
    • This is by far the biggest numbers in the Plan, both in terms of the up-front and ongoing costs and the return on investment. Municipal infrastructure uses a ton of energy, so retrofitting our facilities toward greater efficiency is extremely helpful for both lowering our energy bills forevermore and for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. It’s important to note (as the Plan does) that we’re already doing this; we have an Energy Conservation and Demand Management Plan that started in 2024, and this Plan suggests extending that plan beyond 2029. In either case, staff’s approach to these kinds of changes usually involve identifying assets that need replacement anyway and then choosing a more energy-efficient alternative when they do so–so like most things on this plan, this is not necessarily new spending, just being careful about future spending to aim it toward more sustainable technologies and designs. The Plan literally mentions changing light bulbs to LEDs, something we’ve already been working on as they need replacement (in our street lights as well as in our buildings).
  • 11. Integrate energy considerations into all municipal planning (Priority: 1; Capital cost: $90k; Operational cost: $45k/year)
    • This is primarily a matter of staff training. We already have an Energy Conservation plan (see above) and a provincial requirement to report on energy usage; this item suggests that instead of having one person on staff being the sole energy expert and having to track energy usage across departments, that instead all staff be trained to be energy conscious and fold energy reporting requirements in across the board. Think of it as being analogous to the human rights training that all staff get: rather than having one HR person who understands human rights and is responsible for finding any instance of harassment or the like, all staff are trained in their rights and responsibilities so that abuses are prevented and easily spotted if they occur. Similarly, having one energy expert running around looking for energy waste creates a negative dynamic on staff and is not particularly efficient. If energy efficiency is all of our responsibility, and all of us are trained in it, then we can all contribute to it as we engage in our regular duties.
  • 12. Transition the municipal fleet to electric vehicles (Priority: 1; Capital cost: $250k; Operating cost: $30k/year)
    • I’m smiling as I write this, because this item makes me think of Councillor Byron Faretis. This was our largest disagreement, with me arguing for transitioning our fleet to electric vehicles and him arguing against it at every opportunity. I miss him, in spite of our disagreements, and I can almost hear him now.
      
      We did start transitioning our fleet to EVs–again, on a replacement basis. We didn’t go out and sell off all of our vehicles to replace them with EVs, but our fleet now has a few and plans for more. The operating expense for an EV is much lower than for an internal combustion engine, and that differential gets bigger the more you use a vehicle (and our fleet is out and about every day) and the higher gas costs go (and they seem to go up every day!). The capital costs reflected here reflect a higher purchase price for EVs, but they truly are much more economical over the life of the vehicle.
• Natural environment and climate resilience:
  • 13. Develop an urban forest strategy (Priority: 1; Capital cost: $200k; Operating cost: $95k/year)
    • Trees are lovely to look at and smell, they provide shade and a sense of well-being, they reduce the summer heat in urban areas, and they literally suck CO2 out of the air. And Brighton is already planting trees: the 2026 Mayor’s Budget included an initiative to increase our urban canopy, we have an existing program to get trees to residents for planting, and we require developers to plant a certain number of trees in new neighbourhoods. We also have community and institutional partners who plant trees: I know that the Rotary Club plants trees every year, the County has a tree replacement program, and Lower Trent Conservation Authority looks to partner with us in applying for major tree-planting grants (again, there’s federal money for these things). What we don’t have is an overall strategy for this, so our current tree planting efforts are largely an ad-hoc, where-shall-we-plant-trees-this-year approach.
      
      It’s a fairly common problem for people to have to figure out if the tree in their front yard is their tree or a town tree, particularly when it’s time for an older tree to be taken down. An urban forest strategy would not only determine which trees are which, but would have a strategy for replacing trees when we lose them (or, I would hope, in advance of losing them). My own street has lost a lot of trees in the past few years, and it changed the look and feel of the street significantly, and will take a long time to restore the shady, idyllic feel we used to have. A coherent urban forest strategy will cost us a bit for the plan, but will buy us years of more shade and beauty.
  • 14. Protect and restore local wetlands (Priority: 1; Capital cost: $175k; Operating cost: $60k/year)
    • I’m very unsure where the costs on this one will come from. The Plan mentions (very correctly) that our provincially significant wetland is our most valuable natural asset: it’s one of the last and best wetlands on our side of the lake. But it’s almost entirely owned by the Nature Conservancy of Canada (who are actively restoring it), and strongly regulated by provincial standards enforced by Lower Trent Conservation Authority. While we support and collaborate with both groups, and while I am personally connected to both groups (serving on the board of Lower Trent and helping NCC acquire more land to protect), I don’t know how the municipality could possibly spend $60k/year supporting them. I’m sure that either group would do backflips if we dedicated that much funding to wetland restoration, even aside from the suggested capital cost here. But even if there were significant costs, it would be worthwhile: shoreline wetlands can absorb a surprising amount of water, preventing flooding when lake levels rise. During the flooding of 2017 and 2019, Brighton’s response was well into six-figure territory (not even counting insurable losses); investing similar amounts in preventing the next flood would be very wise.
  • 15. Increase awareness and preparedness for climate events (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $45k; Operational cost: $30k/year)
    • Speaking of preventing the next flood, disaster preparedness is a key municipal responsibility. We have an Emergency Management Plan already, and this item is just about updating it to include more climate risks. Once again, as an administrative action I’m not sure where the ongoing operational costs would come in. I do want to point out that while the Plan says that the warming/cooling centre requires payment, I can’t see where they learned that and I’m quite sure that it isn’t true: our warming/cooling centre is the King Edward Park Arena, which does not require payment to access.
  • 16. Install interpretive signage in parks and trails (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $60k; Operating cost: $5k/year)
    • Our parks and trails are our main places to connect with nature in Brighton, and this low-cost measure creates opportunities for us to understand and appreciate our natural environment better. The capital cost would be the initial sign design and purchase, with the operating cost reflecting repair and maintenance over time.
  • 17. Promote lawn alternatives and support private land naturalization (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $35k; Operating cost: $45k/year)
    • This term of council, staff updated the Clean Yards By-Law to allow for more naturalized yards, largely because they recognized the benefits of doing so: a naturalized yard uses less water (because they use native species) and fossil fuels (because you don’t need to mow them), and provide habitat for insects, birds, and small mammals. The Integrated Community Sustainability Plan wants to not only get out of the way of naturalizing yards, but wants to promote it. That’s great! But it also falls under things that are already happening through Lower Trent Conservation Authority, which has an annual native plant sale and “tiny forest kits” that the municipality has been planting around town in recent years. Promotion could be supported by municipal communications staff, but I’m unsure how that could add $45k/year to our budget.
• Mobility and transportation:
  • 18. Install EV charging stations at municipal facilities and community buildings (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $120k; Operating cost: $40k/year)
    • We already have EV charging stations at one of the municipal buildings, to charge the few EVs already in the fleet. Earlier in the term when we were upgrading the municipal parking lot between Memorial Park and Sobeys, we wired it for future EV charging stations and then applied for a grant to install the charging stations themselves. We didn’t get the grant, and so didn’t proceed with the charging stations at that time; when a new grant becomes available we will apply again. This is the approach we generally take to such changes, and shows the value of those grants, without which most municipalities probably wouldn’t adopt a lot of these changes.
  • 19. Create pedestrian-friendly streets and pathways (Priority: 1; Capital cost: $300k; Operating cost: $75k/year)
    • The point of this item is to ensure that we build our streets with pedestrians and cyclists in mind, rather than treating sidewalks, paths, and bike lanes as extras and nice-to-haves. Thankfully, our Transportation Master Plan, completed this term, already takes this approach into account, which makes the cost estimates here another example of quantifying what we’re already doing and contextualizing it to sustainability. These are not additional costs.
      
      One example that I’m excited to see is the completion of Prince Edward Street, which will have sidewalks and bike lanes on both sides, as well as new crosswalks. I walk up Prince Edward toward the downtown most days, and look forward to a more pedestrian-friendly path to town.
  • 20. Develop safe cycling infrastructure (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $475k; Operating cost: $75k/year)
    • As with the previous item, our Transportation Master Plan is already identifying and prioritizing where to include bike lanes and multi-use paths throughout Brighton. These changes generally happen as we upgrade or replace roads that need it, rather than as a distinct and new project. While it will add costs to our infrastructure budget, it’s adding valuable assets at the same time.
      
      To put this in perspective: I often hear from folks that they feel sad that they don’t see kids out riding bikes anymore…but my kids tell me that they don’t feel safe riding on our roads due to the volume and aggressiveness of traffic. Without safe cycling infrastructure, that just won’t be part of their childhoods.
  • 21. Promote walking, cycling, and carpooling through awareness campaigns (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $10k; Operating cost: $30k/year)
    • As with previous items that are public awareness campaigns, the operating cost here reflects the cost of our existing staff – which is to say that it’s not a new or added expense. This item is a good idea for our staff to develop into their work plans, but the real value of having this in the plan is to ballpark quantify the impacts on our environment of getting folks to use active transportation and carpooling.
  • 22. Establish a demand-responsive transit program for seniors and mobility-limited residents (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $40-80k; Operating cost: $70-120k/year)
    • It appears that our consultants were not aware of our existing partership with and service from Quinte Transit, which already provides this service at little cost to the municipality or its users (a trip to Trenton is only $5!). No new spending is required here. The real trick for improving our access to transit is to densify our community (which is to say, to funnel growth demand into a smaller space so that there are enough people there to justify regular transit services). Our Land Banking initiative should help tremendously with this.
• Community Engagement and Empowerment
  • 23. Publish an annual sustainability report card (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $10k; Operating cost: $20k)
    • There is an adage that says “we value what we measure.” Any successful initiative will have metrics of success or failure so that we can be as efficient and effective as possible, always improving and adjusting. Tracking that progress in a public-facing way is a critical part of transparency and accountability. This is a cheap measure that’s worth every penny.
  • 24. Develop eco-tourism and cultural tourism experiences and launch a green business recognition program (Priority: 2; Capital cost: $80k; Operating cost: $55k/year)
    • This would amount to an injection of funds into our Economic Development department to develop our tourism sector with a focus on connecting tourists to our natural environment in Brighton. We’re already trying to do so: Presqu’ile attracts up to half a million visitors each year, and we’ve long sought to get more of those visitors to spend time (and money) downtown too. One of the things in our 2023-26 Strategic Plan was to attract a full-service hotel, and that’s currently under construction! It will enable all sorts of other tourism opportunities. I was recently speaking with Karine and Wayne at the Barns of Brighton, and they’re thrilled to have accommodations nearby to help facilitate great events at their event space. We also attract a lot of birders to our wetlands and conservation areas. Developing other tourism strategies to ensure that our community benefits economically from all of these visitors is essential, and our great EcDev staff are already hard at work. The benefit of this suggestion in the Sustainability Plan is to emphasize and integrate environmental sustainability throughout those EcDev priorities and plans, so that our economic benefit isn’t coming at the expense of our environment.
  • 25. Establish a reuse and repair hub (Priority: 3; Capital cost: $120k; Operating cost: $175k/year)
    • This is the one part of this Plan that would require significant capital cost–probably much more significant than is mentioned here because we currently lack any municipal building suitable for a reuse and repair hub. That said, it’s noted as the lowest priority level, and yet is still worthwhile if we find a place to have it. Maybe there will be a good place for it at the Land Bank development, as a community resource to help people live more affordably by being able to repair items rather than having to replace them.

Summary and Conclusion

So of the 25 action items over 6 themes, there’s only one item that comes with significant new costs (item 25); everything else is about emphasizing sustainability through existing programs and projects, using existing staff and resources. While emphasizing sustainability through those projects and services might come with some additional cost, the estimates appear to be based on the total cost of doing the thing from scratch, as if we otherwise would not be building that road or writing that community newsletter. But we are, so I don’t expect significant cost increases in order to achieve most of these things.

That’s my opinion, based on everything that I learned through this project and many other years of environmental policy research and engagement. If staff find that there are additional costs that I haven’t been able to spot, they’ll have to bring those to council for approval, and council as a whole will need to determine whether to proceed. Which is how we do anything else anyway.

The thing that I’ve emphasized from day one on this Plan is that there’s a lot of federal funding that is only unlocked for “green” projects. Since we need the road, or the housing, or the fleet anyway, making it “green” only adds a small cost (or sometimes saves costs long-term, such as greening our fleet with EVs!), but doing so makes us more eligible for grants. If we get them, those grants pay for much more than the extra cost of greening the project. While it’s hard to quantify the possible gains without first having a grant-eligible project, we can look around at the many other things the Green Municipal Fund has paid for across the country. If we are ambitious and proactive, we can come ahead financially even as we greatly improve our community.

Financial sustainability is important, but it’s not just about not spending money. It’s about getting the best value possible for our money, and counting the cost of holding back as well as the cost of moving forward. We have the opportunity to move forward, and get financial support that gives us incredible value for money. Let’s not hold back and miss this opportunity.