The Official Community Plan (OCP) Update package is on next week’s agenda. It’s a big deal. And it’s a big agenda item – many hundreds of pages.
When I opened the package, the first place I looked was the Engagement Summary. Take a look if you have time. It’s 105 pages, but there is a short Executive Summary, or read on….
Staff did some impressive work on the engagement, as did the public. Engagement started about a year ago – March 2024. We’ve all had access to the extensive engagement materials for the better part of a year, and the opportunity to provide our comments, in all their variety, via email, phone calls, letters, etc. I’ve receive many comments throughout.
In addition to that, staff also created a number of activities to elicit more comments. Here are some of the engagement activities:
- 3 open houses, attended by over 300 people. I attended a couple of these, and the conversations with participants were lively and informative.
- 15 community pop-up events
- A webpage with the materials, which had 18,700 visitors
- Focus groups and community partner meetings
- 5 online information sessions
- An OCP email inbox, which received over 500 emails
- An OCP newsletter with over 900 subscribers
- An online survey that over 1,400 people completed
- Over 2,500 in-person interactions
- And more.
Engagement was promoted through a wide range of channels, including:
- A city-wide mail out to all residential addresses in Victoria
- An info video promoted on social media and the website
- Posts and paid ads on social media
- An online game that had over 700 participants
- Transit bus and shelter ads
- City newsletters (6 different newsletters, totalling 19 issues)
- Ads in 5 newspapers and magazines
- Posters and handbills
- Radio ads and spotify ads
- Media release and earned media
- And more.
People from all neighbourhoods, age ranges, and income groups – as well as both business owners and residents – participated in the engagement. Of course people decided for themselves whether they wanted to participate. So the numerical tallies of opinions aren’t necessarily representative of what Victoria residents think, but the input is interesting and valuable nonetheless.
The City has of course done statistically valid surveys for a couple of years now to inform the budget process, and we will be taking that information into account, alongside the OCP engagement inputs, and all of the other inputs we have received over the years. Here are residents’ priorities from this year’s budget survey:
Of course, in addition to the formal OCP Update engagement process run by staff, people also were and are free to contact Council members, ask questions, and provide their ideas at any time and in any way that they want.
Long before the formal engagement period (March to September 2024), and since, I’ve been telling people about the OCP Update and encouraging input on social media and in meetings and phone calls with residents, businesses, and community-based organizations. The Downtown Residents Association held an OCP engagement event for their residents in January 2024. It was a great discussion and led to a submission with a lot of great ideas.
I later attended a similar session organized by Fairfield Gonzales Community Association, which was a similarly interesting and rich discussion.
And of course staff have been collecting public input from a variety of engagement processes over many years. As the City’s Engage OCP website points out, staff were “not starting from scratch” on public engagement:
“We have a solid understanding of what Victoria values and needs from years of public feedback, technical analysis, current City policy and through the creation of plans like GoVictoria, the Climate Leadership Plan, Parks and Open Spaces Masterplan and Victoria 3.0.”
The input received through the formal engagement process spanned a wide range of topics – and it revealed, as usual, that there were a lot of differing opinions. The engagement report Executive Summary notes that input was received on, among other things:
- housing initiatives to enable more housing in Victoria;
- actions to address the climate crises;
- proposed plans for transportation, the local economy, blue green networks and parks and recreation;
- the importance of Victoria’s unique character and designing accessible and inclusive buildings and urban spaces; and,
- the need for planning infrastructure to support population growth, simplify zoning and approval processes and protect green spaces and public areas.
The input on housing was especially wide-ranging and in depth. From the Executive Summary:
“Feedback on housing revealed the community’s diverse needs and priorities. Residents expressed opinions on building heights, rental housing options, affordability, accessibility and innovative housing solutions. Discussions also addressed the future development of Victoria’s villages and town centers, focusing on priorities such as density, amenities, boundary adjustments, building heights, neighbourhood character, green space and infrastructure.
All in all, there was a lot of thoughtful input from residents and businesses in Victoria – and I thank you all for that.
I expect more to come in. And of course there will be a public hearing later this year [update: scheduled for Sept 11].
I hope to write some more posts on the OCP Update materials as I go through them. And I continue to encourage input. So please feel free to write to Council with your thoughts on the draft materials. Here are our email addresses: malto@victoria.ca; jcaradonna@victoria.ca; ccoleman@victoria.ca; mdell@victoria.ca; shammond@victoria.ca; mgardiner@victoria.ca; skim@victoria.ca; kloughton@victoria.ca; dave.thompson@victoria.ca
(Images: City of Victoria, and Downtown Residents Association)