Lakeshore Council has approved a Shoreline Management Plan for the municipality.
The plan approved Tuesday identifies shoreline hazards and recommended flood risk mitigation strategies.
The plan is designed to guide the town in efforts to reduce erosion and protect residents and their properties from shoreline flooding. It will also inform additional actions, including changes to Lakeshore's Official Plan and Zoning By-law.
Truper McBride, Chief Administrative Officer, says one thing they are concerned about is safe ingress and egress from shoreline communities, particularly in the eastern sections of the municipality.
"When the lake does come in and storm events, there may be situations in the future with continued erosion where there is concern that there is not safe access to those areas to get people in and out," he says.
McBride says the existing shoreline is already heavily developed, which the plan takes into account.
"So a lot of it is looking how if we built right now and what do we need to do when areas come under pressure for redevelopment? What do we need to be looking at to make sure we're protecting our communities and creating resiliency?," he says.
McBride says removing development from the flood plain is a strong theme in the Shoreline Management Plan.
"When we're looking at where development is going to go in the future, these are things we're going to be looking at quite strongly and we'll have more focused engagement with the public and developers as we advance Official Plan amendments to really begin putting these recommendations in action," he says.
McBride expects over the next year elements of the plan will be rolled out along with community consultation as various measures are moved forward.
Following adoption, an accessible version of the Shoreline Management Plan will be made available to the public at Lakeshore.ca/Reports.