Council Report: DRAFT PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY AND SURVEY

TOWN OF VIEW ROYAL COUNCIL REPORT

TO: Council DATE: June 12, 2024 FROM: Leanne Taylor, RPP, MCIP, Director of Development Services MEETING DATE: June 18, 2024

DRAFT PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY AND SURVEY

RECOMMENDATION:

THAT Council provide feedback at the Regular Council meeting on June 18, 2024, on the Draft Public Engagement Strategy and Survey and that this feedback be incorporated in the document.

PURPOSE:

To present and seek feedback from Council on a draft public engagement strategy and survey at the Regular Council meeting on June 18, 2024 prior to the launch of the survey at the end of June.

TIME CRITICAL:

This report is time critical as staff would like to launch the public engagement survey at the end of June to gather feedback from the community on how they would like to be engaged on the Official Community Plan (OCP), master plans, and other projects.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

To better understand the community’s needs and preferences for communications and public engagement and help inform future public engagement activities, a public engagement strategy and survey has been drafted for Council’s review. The input garnered through the survey would assist in informing future public engagement approaches on the OCP, master plans, and various projects. Staff would like to launch the survey at the end of June.

BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION:

In June/July 2023, two Strategic Planning Council workshops were held on the OCP. At the July workshop, Council passed two key resolutions:

• THAT the Town of View Royal adopt the International Association of Public Participation’s core values as a general framework upon which to build its community engagement strategy.
• THAT an engagement tool be developed to seek feedback on the public’s preferred Official Community Plan engagement strategies.

In 2024 and 2025, the Development Services Department will be leading work on a Community Engagement Strategy (N-036 – refer to Attachment 1) and review of the Official Community Plan (N-025 – refer to Attachment 2), projects envisioned at the July 2023 workshop and subsequently approved in the current Financial Plan (see attached project summaries for both).

Based on Council direction from July 2023 and the Financial Plan supported capital projects, an engagement tool – a survey – has been developed to seek feedback on the public’s preferred engagement strategies before the Town embarks on the OCP review (refer to Attachment 3).

The survey reflects the International Association of Public Participation’s core values. It is anticipated that the survey will be open from June 24, 2024 to August 4, 2024 to give the public ample time to complete the survey. Staff will utilize various channels to raise awareness and promote the survey throughout the six weeks.

The draft survey is provided as an attachment to this report for Council’s review and feedback at the June 18, 2024 Council meeting. As noted above, the intent is to launch later in June.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS:

Tavola Strategy Group has been engaged to assist with drafting, launching, and promoting the public engagement strategy, including the draft survey attached to this report, with an aim of broad awareness and participation. The Community Engagement Strategy and Official Community Plan are being funded by the provincial grant reserve and casino revenue, in accordance with the 2024 – 2028 Financial Plan.

CONCLUSION:

Creating a comprehensive public engagement survey that addresses the project objectives for the Community Engagement Strategy and OCP engagement is a better use of staff time and resources to obtain feedback from the community. The immediate outcome of this work will be to establish an OCP public engagement strategy to commence the OCP review process.

ATTACHMENTS:

Attachment 1: Project Summary N-025 – Community Engagement Strategy Attachment 2: Project Summary N-036 – Official Community Plan Attachment 3: Draft Public Engagement Summary