Release. The City of Abbotsford has now completed the Stage 2 of community engagement of Abbotsforward, the Official Community Plan (OCP) update project, with over 2,300 residents completing the online survey.
The City would also like to congratulate Jayne McGregor, a yoga instructor at Parallel Yoga, who won
the random draw for an iPad mini which was available to all those who participated in the online survey!
Preliminary feedback results from the online survey show a three-way tie for residents’ top priorities
between: Parks & Environment; Jobs; and Transportation & Infrastructure. In fourth position was
Housing.
City staff will use residents’ comments to develop a set of ‘big ideas’ that connect the background
research observations to the community engagement input. These ‘big ideas’ will be included with the
detailed engagement results in the New Concepts Report that will be presented to City Council in May
2015.
Over a seven-week period, the Abbotsforward team engaged residents through an online survey, road
show events, stakeholder workshops, neighbourhood walks, and citizen circles.
In total, nine road show events connected residents with planners; four stakeholder workshops reached
out to the business, development, real estate and community group networks; three neighbourhood
walks enabled planners to learn directly from residents in their neighbourhoods; and multiple citizen
circles gave passionate residents the opportunity to discuss planning themes with friends, family, and
neighbours.
A speaker event was also held on February 25th that drew a large crowd to the The Reach Gallery
Museum as two planning experts, Brent Toderian and Jeffrey Tumlin, shared their ideas about ‘how to
build a better city’.
City staff are pleased with the broad range of participation represented in over 4,000 distinct
engagements. This included over 2,300 completed online surveys, 1,400 people reached at road show
events, and hundreds of others through neighbourhood walks, citizen circles, and social media. For
more information about the engagement activities, visit www.abbotsforward.ca.