Town council Monday night sat with about 50 Shelburne residents in Grace Tipling Hall prior to the regular council meeting to hear a proposed plan for the future of Shelburne outlined by the Community Revitalization Project team.

The project includes three phases intended to improve various areas in the community including: downtown improvement, community branding and marketing and the new Fiddler's Park.

The suggestions highlighted in the plan are available for the newly elected council to decide how to proceed with the information. A community improvement plan provides a framework and helps establish priorities for the town to move forward with projects in phases.

Shelburne's downtown core has been identified as a key area that needs improving, and the working group came up with a list of suggestions that would encourage development and sustainability in the downtown area.

Improving building facades, more attractive signage, consistent lighting of buildings and signs, lighting and banners,

improvements to the rear of buildings and laneways and better signage indicating parking areas were all included in the draft plan.

Suggestions to prompt building owners to improve their properties included encouraging upgrades by offering grants for facade and sign improvements, low-cost or forgivable loans for building and property improvements and reduction of the development charges for adding residential units.

The recommendations included in the draft plan include details the town

could use to begin the project if the report is implemented by the next council.

In addition to discussions about improvements to the downtown core, over the past several months the consultants worked with community stakeholders and residents to develop a plan for Shelburne to move forward with a new identity, new reasons to visit and putting Shelburne on the map as a destination.

Branding Shelburne means creating a logo that helps to sell the town. A design competition was held at Centre Dufferin District High School and four logos were selected as semi-finalists and included in the draft plan out of about 20 entries.

Another area identified to help market the town and make Shelburne a destination was finding another event - a music festival similar to Fiddlefest - that would help draw a crowd.

Council was surprised by the low numbers the plan reported for the 2006 fiddle festival. The report said attendance at the contest finals was between 650 and 800 people - far below levels of previous years. Walter Benotto questioned their statistics and AJ Cavey wondered why Fiddlefest wasn't more prominently considered, since it is what has put Shelburne on the map.

The new town park site development was consolidated as part of the community revitalization project and includes the plans for the town-owned lands south of the No

Frills supermarket at Highway 89 and County Road 11.

The 46.5 hectares are designated as natural environment and special tourism in the town's Official Plan. Participants in the workshop to decide what the new town park should include wanted the park to be available for passive recreation like walking, biking, crosscountry skiing and jogging through the yearround trails. The trails are intended to link with existing town trails.

The park was also identified as a place to host events such as Fiddlefestrelated activities, a winterfest and others. In order to do so, the park plan includes facilities like a bandshell, washrooms, a serviced campground, a soccer field and a hockey pond.

The 2006 community revitalization project link is on the main page of the Shelburne website at www.townofshelburne.on. ca.