In-person public engagement on the draft of Langford’s first strategic plan has concluded, and the view around the council table is it was a success.
The city held three engagement sessions between Oct. 4 and 10 and is accepting online feedback until Oct. 15 to get the public’s thoughts on the wide-ranging and high-level document aimed at guiding the city’s priorities in categories ranging from climate change adaptation to public transit, development to parks management.
The engagement initiative – which will result in the refinement of the draft plan by staff before it returns to council for approval at a later date – kicked off with a dot-mocracy format on Oct. 4 which was met with a significant response on social media, both in support and opposition.
“It’s been going really well. People are sharing their excitement with being able to participate in the process and feel engaged with the city. Throughout the last election people were calling for more ways to feel engaged and be heard, and from what I’ve seen so far people are just excited to see the city making this effort,” said Coun. Colby Harder.
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Harder said the dot-mocracy tool in particular seemed to be well received, and credits a consultant hired by the city for recommending it. The tool sees residents place different-coloured stickers on a poster board as a way of indicating which ideas they like best, with the colours being assigned based on what neighbourhood they live in – allowing city staff to get a feel for regional differences in opinions.
Despite the praise council had for the tool, some social media comments raised concerns the process was flawed as people could save up their stickers and place them all on one topic to skew the results.
Harder said multiple staff and councillors were in the room during the dot-mocracy session and saw no evidence participants were doing that, however, and it was just one format being used to solicit input on the draft plan.
“When we did the dot-mocracy, you could really see on the boards where people’s concerns were and what regions they were from in the city,” said Coun. Mark Morley. “When you come to (the other in-person engagement sessions hosted by the city) where it’s just people talking, you can be surprised by what people say. Once you get through the first couple of layers of the conversation, people really start talking about what they are concerned about.”
With the in-person engagement concluded and less than a week left for online engagement, the councillors involved in the engagement sessions said their take on the feedback is there are no major missteps in the draft plan, but there is certainly some refinement that will take place before council considers approving the final version.
“A lot of people are concerned with the stuff they see every day. The traffic increase, infrastructure not keeping up with development,” said Coun. Mary Wagner. “So far I have not heard anything too drastic, but I am looking forward to seeing what staff come back with once they have compiled the data from the online survey.”
“This is a bare-bones starting point and it is going to be a living document once finished,” added Morely. “It’s the first one Langford has ever had, and the public is very engaged with it and they have a say in where we are going to move forward as a city.”
Online feedback can be provided any time before Oct. 15 at letschatlangford.ca.
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