We love a Community Improvement Plan that does something a little different.
In June 2026, the Municipality of North Grenville adopted its new Tourism Community Improvement Plan (CIP) — a unique incentive-based planning tool designed specifically to support tourism investment, experiences and destinations across the municipality.
Vitality Planning was thrilled to work with North Grenville to develop the Tourism CIP and to explore a bigger question along the way: How can we take a traditional planning tool and use it creatively to help grow a local tourism economy?
A CIP built around tourism
Community Improvement Plans are often associated with downtown revitalization, façade improvements or brownfield redevelopment. But the Planning Act gives municipalities a flexible tool for encouraging investment — and North Grenville saw an opportunity to use that tool differently.
The Tourism CIP was designed around the community’s particular tourism opportunities, including overnight accommodations, rural and agritourism, active and outdoor recreation, events, cultural and heritage tourism, and accessibility.
It also takes a municipality-wide approach. Rather than limiting incentives to a traditional downtown Community Improvement Project Area, the CIP recognizes that North Grenville’s tourism economy stretches across downtown Kemptville, its waterfronts, rural and agricultural areas, trails and cycling routes, villages and hamlets.
That was important. Tourism doesn’t necessarily follow traditional planning boundaries — and the CIP needed to reflect how visitors actually experience North Grenville.
Listening first, then designing the programs
The programs weren’t developed in isolation.
The project included an online survey, a public open house and interactive mapping exercise, stakeholder sessions with tourism operators and community partners, and a workshop with North Grenville’s Community and Economic Development Advisory Committee.
That engagement helped us understand where investment could make a meaningful difference — and allowed the incentive programs to grow directly from local opportunities.
The resulting CIP establishes a creative toolkit of incentives supporting everything from outdoor art and placemaking to accessibility, active tourism, event infrastructure, heritage conservation, agritourism and rural diversification, and new or enhanced tourism accommodations.
Some of our favourite programs include:
- Active Tourism Grant — supporting trails, cycling, waterfront access and outdoor recreation infrastructure;
- Event Infrastructure Grant — helping build the permanent infrastructure needed to support festivals, events and tourism programming;
- Agritourism and Rural Diversification Grant — supporting farm-based tourism and new rural experiences;
- Tourism Accommodation Incentive Program — encouraging investment in overnight accommodations; and
- Sustainability Top-Up Grant — providing additional support where tourism investments incorporate voluntary sustainability measures, green infrastructure or energy-efficiency improvements.
The Plan also recognizes that municipalities have an important role beyond providing grants. Municipal leadership initiatives address public realm improvements and placemaking, wayfinding and tourism signage, strategic investments and partnerships, and tourism marketing and promotion.
Planning + economic development + tourism
For us, this project is a great example of what Community Improvement Plans can be when we stop thinking of them as a standard set of incentive programs and start treating them as local economic development tools.
North Grenville already had a strong policy and strategic foundation supporting tourism, including directions related to waterfront activation, cycling and trails, cultural experiences, agritourism, accommodations and downtown revitalization. The Tourism CIP provides another tool for turning those directions into investment on the ground.
It is also exactly the kind of work we love at Vitality Planning: bringing together land use planning, economic development, community engagement and implementation to create something practical and specific to the community.
There is no reason every CIP should look the same.
North Grenville’s Tourism CIP shows what can happen when a municipality starts with its own assets, listens to its tourism community, and builds an incentive program around the places and experiences it wants to grow.
We are incredibly proud to have been part of it — and excited to see what North Grenville’s tourism businesses, property owners and community partners do with the new tools now available to them.
Learn more about North Grenville’s Tourism Community Improvement Plan