Residents weigh in on Wheatley development issues

The Wheatley Village Resource Centre was alive with ideas on Saturday, May 25 as Chatham-Kent Economic Development Services held a community consultation session with regard to Wheatley’s revitalization.

About 25-30 residents attended and were split into groups for discussion and exercises to help Wheatley’s Economic Development Officer Kyra Knapp and the Wheatley Task Force in their quest to rebuild the town after the explosion.

Task Force Chair Howard Gabert talked about the ongoing work to get some plans in place and how the input from the meeting participants would be used to help that work along.

He then introduced Kyra Knapp, who put the participants through exercises designed to bring ideas to the forefront, which will then be used with the Wheatley Trade Report Survey to help shape the plans for Wheatley’s uptown.

“The results will feed into a community action plan,” said Knapp. “We’re not just building back what we had before the explosion, but building back better.”

Chatham-Kent’s Director of Planning Services, Ryan Jacques, was also on hand and participated in one of the citizen groups.

Demolition of the remaining affected buildings was expected to start this week, with mostly inside work being done before residents notice any outside demolition.

Knapp said another round of community consultation is scheduled for August of this year, with the Community Action Plan due out in early 2025.