Golden's new draft Official Community Plan (OCP)(opens in new tab) is out, and it's the product of years of input from residents, businesses, and community groups across town. If you attended an open house, filled out a survey, or dropped by a pop-up booth over the past couple of years, this plan carries your fingerprints.

We've spent some time reading through it, and we're excited to share that it echoes so much of what we've heard from the community through the Canyon to Confluence Initiative. Here's what caught our eye.

A shared commitment to river access

Under Parks, Trails and Open Space, the OCP sets an explicit objective to maintain and improve recreational activities and public access to the Columbia and Kicking Horse Rivers — and calls out support for improved public access to the Kicking Horse near Centennial Park specifically. That's the exact work C2Ci and our partners have been doing alongside the community for the past two years.

Protecting the rivers as we open them up

The plan doesn't treat access and ecology as competing goals. Its Environment policies call for working with local, regional, and provincial partners to protect and steward the Columbia River and its wetlands, and for designing parks in ways that support healthy ecological processes. That balance — welcoming people to the river without loving it to death — has been a guiding principle for us from day one.

Room for the river downtown

The OCP's Mixed Use policies commit to continuing to improve Golden's interface with the Kicking Horse River, including the River Walk and Spirit Square, and to encouraging stronger connections and views to the river. It's a vision of a downtown that faces its rivers instead of turning its back on them.

Economic threads

The plan also renews support for Golden Economic Development Society, the Chamber of Commerce, and Tourism Golden as lead partners in community economic development, and continues to advocate for a return to commercial river rafting in the lower Kicking Horse Canyon — both signals that a thriving river corridor is seen as an asset to Golden's whole economy, not just its parks.

What this means for C2Ci

None of this happened by accident. It reflects years of Golden residents showing up, filling out surveys, and telling the Town what kind of place they want to live in. Seeing those values written into the Town's long-term planning document is a strong sign that C2Ci's work — improving access, protecting habitat, and reconnecting our community to its rivers — isn't just a nice idea on the side. It's part of where Golden is headed.

We'll continue to track the OCP as it moves toward adoption and look for opportunities to keep the river corridor front and centre. In the meantime, thank you to everyone who has contributed to shaping this vision — whether through C2Ci, the OCP process, or both.

Want to dig into the plan yourself? You can find the draft OCP on the Town of Golden's website(opens in new tab).