Official Plan

Kapuskasing, known as the Model Town of the North, celebrated the 75^th anniversary of its incorporation as a municipality in 1996.

Much of the stimulus for the planning of the Kapuskasing town site as an independent and diversified model community was derived from personal initiative undertaken by E.C. Drury who served as Premier of the Province of Ontario.

Planning of the original town site occurred between 1920 and 1922 with the objective of planning Ontario's first resource based community. The plan was intended to consolidate development from the former Kapuskasing colony farm together with providing housing and community services for the Spruce Falls Power and Paper Company.

The main business section was developed around the Circle where five streets radiate out in a spoke fashion for the centre hub. This design while picturesque, served a useful purpose in the beginning to centralize all commercial activities in the downtown core. Aside from the community core, the layout of the town site was intended to take advantage of the aesthetics of the Kapuskasing River with an abundance of park land to be conserved around the bend of the river for passive recreational and leisure activities.

The town's motto is "oppidum ex silvis" which means "town out of the forest" and is indicative of the town's close economic dependence to the forest industry to this day. The paper mill was for many years the major supplier of newsprint for the New York Times. The forest industry has survived several economic cycles.

The first Official Plan which directed the future growth of the municipality and surrounding area covers the Township of Teetzel and part of the Townships of O'Brien and Owens. Land use and development controls over this 83.9 km2 (32 square miles) was intended to ensure that growth would be orderly and follow plan procedure. Another feature of Kapuskasing's notoriety is in urban renewal.

Brunetville was a prototype neighbourhood for a federal/provincial urban renewal initiatives in the late 1960's.