SVA told about sustainable community movement

Posted Feb 2, 2012 By John Curry

EMC News - The Stittsville Village Association (SVA) executive has been urged to get on board the sustainable community movement.

Doing the urging at the SVA's last executive meeting were Don Purchase of Stittsville and Kathryn Guindon of Munster who praised the SVA for meeting two of the five initiatives that are needed to create a sustainable community.

The SVA is helping meet the needs of individuals by promoting the quality of life in Stittsville.

In addition, the SVA is helping to build a community culture by fighting to preserve the community character of Stittsville.

But Mr. Purchase and Ms. Guindon pointed out that there are three other areas where similar SVA involvement is needed if Stittsville is to become a sustainable community.

These are work towards self reliance, harmonize with nature and attain community control.

Sustainable community development, in the view of Mr. Purchase and Ms. Guindon, is a grassroots, community-based approach to development which relies on self-help, community economic development and ecological principles. Development is seen as more than economic growth, it is a process in which a community grows qualitatively, ethically and quantitatively.

"We want communities which can be self-supporting, but also communities worth saving because they mean something to the people who live in them," a document on sustainable communities handed out by Mr. Purchase and Ms. Guindon at the meeting states.

Two organizations, SLOWest in the Westboro/Hintonburg area of Ottawa, and SLOEast in the east of Ottawa, are now working at trying to implement sustainable initiatives in their immediate communities.

These organizations could provide guidance and advice to the SVA if it decided to implement sustainable communities initiatives within Stittsville.

The Stittsville Village Association (SVA) executive made no decision on becoming involved with the sustainable community movement at its last meeting where it heard this presentation.