All About Mapping
Planning Maps
The foundation for most planning documents is the maps of the geographic area that the plan covers. Maps provide the visual counterpart to the policies to show “where things are supposed to happen”.
The Official Plan maps are called schedules and divide the municipality into a number of different land use designations. The most common designations are:
· Residential
· Commercial
· Industrial
· Institutional
· Environmental Hazard and/or Open Space
· Agricultural and/or Rural
The Northern Bruce Peninsula Official Plan covers only lands within the urban areas of Tobermory, Lion’s Head, and Ferndale. All the land outside of these areas is covered by the County of Bruce Official Plan. Here are the schedules for the local official plan in PDF format.
The majority of our mapping is in a digital format (PDF, AutoCad, ArcMap, etc) and as Planners we mostly look at maps on a computer screen. However we do have paper copies of the official plan and the maps available at the following locations:
MNBP Municipal Offices 56 Lindsay Road 5 Tel: (519) 793 3522
Bruce County Planning - Wiarton Office 578 Brown St. Tel: (519) 534 2092
Bruce County Libraries
Wiarton 578 Brown St. Tel: (519) 534 2602
Lion's Head 90 Main St. Tel: (519) 793 3844
Tobermory 22 Bay St. Tel: (519) 596 2446
The Bruce County Map Factory – Interactive Maps
The Bruce County Map Factory is a fantastic website that’s accessible to the public. The Map Factory is an online interactive mapping tool which runs on ESRI's ArcIMS Internet mapping technology (I know I’m starting to use jargon – bear with me just one more sentence). The tool is known as a Web-based GIS (Geographic Information System), and it contains land-related information for all of Bruce County.
So the important things to take away from the above paragraph are online mapping system called GIS that’s available to the public and it’s all about mapping Bruce County.
The GIS includes various map layers such as aerial photography, roads, property parcels, zoning and Official Plan maps, lot & concession fabric, landmarks, facilities and services, etc. It also contains base map layers such as rivers, lakes, elevation contours, wooded areas, wetlands, and more. All of this information is presented in the form of an interactive map, so you can turn layers on and off to view the information that you want to see.
Examples of what you can do with the Map Factory include:
- Locate your property by Address or Tax Roll Number
- See your property in detail with high-resolution aerial photography
- Measure distances and areas
- Find how any property is zoned or designated
- Use the Streets query to find and map any street in Bruce County
- Find points of interest like the Point Clark Lighthouse or the Bruce County Museum & Cultural Centre
- Run a custom query against any map layer
- "Explore the Bruce" from north to south and east to west using the interactive map tools that allow you to zoom in and out, pan, and identify features
The best way to get familiar with the system is to take a little bit of time and just explore the different layers and drop down menus.
In regard to the official plan review, the official plan mapping is a layer in the system – see Municipality Specific – Northern Bruce Peninsula – Official Plan. Have a look at the local official plan mapping and compare it to the Bruce County Official Plan mapping. The two plans cover the same area at different geographic scales. The MNBP Zoning By-law mapping is also available in the Map Factory (just remember to take the individual layers off again every once in a while otherwise it’ll get very confusing). You can do this using the Layer List, found in the View menu.
