Dan Huang with Urban Systems updated Parksville council on the official community plan (OCP) process at their Monday night meeting.
“Satisfaction levels are higher than most cities, so you’re extra special,” he quipped about the results of a recent OCP telephone survey.
“Virtually all (98%) citizens rate the overall quality of life in the City of Parksville as ‘very good’ (56%) or ‘good’ (41%),” states the report from Ipsos-Reid which conducted the survey of 300 residents (accurate +/- 5.7% 19 times out of 20).
Huang and mayor Chris Burger agreed the results of the 12-minute survey were pretty much what was expected and are, as Huang said, “an additional tool to gather community feedback.”
There have been many surveys, public meetings and attempts to solicit community input during extended 2.5 year process.
Burger said he really appreciated the information to guide council’s decision making.
Later in the meeting council received a letter from the Parksville Residents Association (PRA) asking that all formal submissions to the process be published online.
Director of community planning Blaine Russell said all the correspondence is being collected and summaries are being released, but there could be privacy issues with publishing all the submissions.
During question period PRA member Al Pastars reiterated that their letter was only asking for the city to publish ‘formal submissions,’ which he said people obviously knew could be made public.
Russell said it would be too complicated to determine which submissions were intended to be public and Burger thanked Pastars for the comment.
Laying out the remainder of the OCP process Huang said they are compiling all of the information gathered for the first draft which they will present to the community in a series of open houses in September and October.
The draft will be adjusted with that community feedback and sent for statutory review by various senior branches of government before returning to Parksville city council for the bylaw adoption process, hopefully around the end of the year.
