The Town of Qualicum Beach will be conducting a quality of life survey as a precursor to the town’s next Official Community Plan (OCP) review.
Director of Planning and Community Development, Luke Sales, indicated at the regular council meeting on May 24, the town reviews its OCP every six years. The last time this was undertaken was in 2018.
Sales indicated the town is on track to adopt a new OCP in 2024, but before that can happen, a quality of life survey will be held as recommended by council during its recent strategic planning process. The survey, Sales pointed out, will assist both content and format of the proposed OCP review.
“We test out what we think are some of the key issues that residents would like to explore in the OCP review,” said Sales. “We give them a chance to provide feedback.”
The survey has two primary goals. The first is to gauge resident satisfaction with town services that include parks and trails, water provision, communication and road network.
“It’s like a report card on how the town is doing on many town services,” Sales explained.
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The second purpose is to gather feedback and opinions from residents regarding a myriad of issues that include housing, health care and climate change.
“It would be fair to say that those would be some of the key issues at this time that we would like to explore in the survey among those other things,” said Sales.
The information and feedback collected from the survey, Sales said, will provide a clear guideline of what is important to residents and what they would want to discuss when the public engagement process takes place. Following this stage a draft to amend the OCP will be undertaken.
Staff recommended that an Official Community Plan Review Steering Committee be formed and to advertise for volunteers to serve on the committee. As well, it was suggested council direct staff to issue the consultant terms of reference as they plan on hiring a quality consultant to help with the survey process.
Council unanimously endorsed all three staff recommendations.