OUR ESTEVAN SURVEY COMMUNITY IDENTITY AND VISION
Thank you to the residents of Estevan who participated in the first part of our on-line outreach for input into the Our Estevan Initiative. To date, we have 187 participants in the first part of our survey, Community Identity and Vision. The winner from this survey is Katie Rendall. She won a $50.00 gift certificate to The Flats Eatery and Drink
Our focus now is on our City Centre survey, if you have not already done so, please continue to complete any of the surveys that are of interest to you.
Regarding Community Identity and Vision, the following are a few of the planning directions that can be taken from the input received.
- Going forward, the top three goals of Our Estevan should be
- A developed trail network,
- A more pedestrian friendly neighbourhood, and
- Downtown revitalization.
The subject of trails, pedestrian issues and downtown renewal are explored in more depth in other sections of the Our Estevan initiative.
- Residents of Estevan have a strong neighbourhood identity. Going forward, it may be better to use a neighbourhood approach to issues such as in-fill development as opposed to the overall uniform approach that is currently being used. Planning directions on this question will be clearer once some of the other survey topics have been examined.
- Half of the respondents do not appear to be overly concerned about land use changes that could impact a neighbourhood in a negative way. Planning directions from this response will be more clear once other components of the Our Estevan survey have been completed and analyzed.
- Our Estevan respondents have told us that our proximity to the border, the people and the opportunities for growth that exist in Estevan are the top three things that they like about living in this community. For planning directions, this answer tells us that our future planning has to have a growth focus.
- Our Estevan respondents have also told us that the lack of certain retail outlets and challenges in the community with respect to medical staffing is by far the number one concern with living in Estevan. Respondents also want a greater emphasis on local shopping, don’t care for the boom-bust economic cycle in the City and would like a lower municipal tax rate.
- Quality of life in Estevan is pretty good. 79% of Our Estevan respondents have a positive view of living in Estevan.
- Respondents were asked to rank City services in order of quality. 77% of respondents have a positive view of the quality of municipal services provided.
- When asked which are the most important City Services, Our Estevan respondents indicated that our infrastructure was most important (roads, utilities, facilities and parks). When ranking City goals in order of importance: slowing the rate of municipal tax increases, infrastructure improvement and keeping our existing municipal facilities at peak efficiency were virtually tied. One possible conclusion from this is that residents of the City of Estevan don’t want to sacrifice our infrastructure for tax savings. Another is that our priorities for City Services should be to maintain what we have in these core service areas.
- Finally, when asked Our Estevan respondents indicated with a 74% approval rating to the City of Estevan using a survey approach as one way to gather citizen input on important municipal questions. As it relates to land use planning, citizen involvement in decision making will be an important component of our next Official Community Plan.
Additional ideas and policy directions as they relate to land use planning will be prepared as part of an overall analysis of the Our Estevan survey program and other outreach that the City has underway. Our next summary will be on City Centre issues near the end of June.