Calgary, AB,
28
April
2014
|
09:27
America/Denver

Action Plan engagement results presented to City Council

Today, Action Plan engagement results will be presented to Calgary City Council. The City of Calgary Action Plan is a year-long process during which citizens, City Council and City staff establish our direction and find the right balance between investing in quality public service and keeping tax rates affordable.

“The engagement results are an important part of the information Council will consider while developing Council Priorities for spending and service delivery for the next four years,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi.

Thanks to the thousands of Calgarians who participated in the Action Plan engagement from March 3 – 21, 2014, providing their input on what they feel The City should focus on for the next four-year business plan and budget cycle. While the input gathered covers a wide-array of opinions and ideas, several key themes emerged throughout all engagement streams and revealed some consistent priorities across participation.

  • Transit
    • An efficient and reliable public transit network was identified as a top priority consistently across engagement input streams.
  • Affordable Housing
    • This emerged as a priority across input streams, expressed as impacting everything from cost of living, to social isolation, to job talent attraction.
  • Other Transportation
    • While public transit emerged as a priority on its own, it is clear that how Calgarians get around is a top-of-mind priority, specifically in regard to vehicles, pedestrians and bikeways with noticeably different responses based on geographic location.
  • Other Community/ Urban Planning
    • Community safety, local parks and amenities, and urban sprawl were commonly recurring topics.
  • Efficiency/ Effectiveness
    • There was an expressed desire for improved demonstration of spending efficiencies in municipal service delivery, particularly regarding the desire to see better communications about efficiency and effectiveness.
  • Service Levels and Taxes
    • There was an expressed preference to maintain service levels, even if accompanied by tax rate increases. There was also recognition that property taxes could be a burden to those with lower or fixed incomes.

The full engagement results are available on calgary.ca/actionplan and contain the strategy, implementation, engagement reach and participation, and engagement results including (where possible) preferences by geography (Ward-by-Ward comparison).

“It was important to not only engage with citizens to get input, but to educate and provide many opportunities to participate,” said Action Plan Program Manager Sarah Woodgate.

The engagement results are one of many inputs, such as economic indicators, industry trends, and financial models, which Council will consider in finalizing Council’s Priorities on May 5. As well, the results received through the Action Plan 2015-2018 engagement program will be provided to City Departments and Business Units for consideration in developing their four-year business plans and budgets.

Citizens and stakeholders will have further opportunities to provide comments and thoughts on the consolidated draft Action Plan 2015-2018 in mid-November. There will be a final opportunity for citizens and stakeholders to appear and present at Council’s Public Hearing at the beginning of business plan and budget debates which begin late November.