A community vision that thousands of St. Albertans helped to shape has been enshrined in policy.
Not only does the community vision and pillars of sustainability document get its own city policy, but its impacts will be felt on other city guiding documents like the city’s strategic framework, council’s vision policy and long term planning documents. That’s to ensure consistency with the community vision.
The vision was adopted by council last year, but more time was needed to incorporate it into policy and see what immediate changes were needed in other documents.
The vision tries to capture what people love about St. Albert and chart a course for the decades to come. It’s accompanied by pillars of sustainability, which consist of social, economic, built environment (meaning infrastructure), natural environment and culture.
Compiling the vision was the work of more than a year, with about 7,000 St. Albert residents offering 15,000 ideas to help guide the community for the next 50 years.
The city’s director of strategic services Leah Kongsrude said the consultations means the vision is “a great representation of the happy majority,” a group that’s not always heard from.
“It really provides very clear direction and guidance to the city manager and hence then staff to adopt the vision and incorporate it into all of our long term planning and decision making, even down to our program and services level,” Kongsrude said.
The directions given by the vision have mostly just confirmed that city staff are on the right track.
“We really found out that what we’ve been doing is fairly closely aligned to what residents want,” Kongsrude said.
Coun. Wes Brodhead served as co-chair of the community sustainability committee, which helped steer the community consultation and creation of the vision.
Brodhead said one of the “true wins” of the vision is that so many people helped contribute to the final product.
“I’m proud of that,” Brodhead said.
People loved St. Albert’s ambience – often described as a “small-town feel,” and confirmed a community-wide appreciation of the city’s green space, parks, trails and other amenities.
“These are the things that make up what we call St. Albert,” Brodhead said.
While the vast community consultations that helped create the documents might be over, the community still has the chance to participate in some activities inspired by the vision.
A coffee table book celebrating the vision and pillars of sustainability will be released in the coming months. Kongsrude said it includes both historical photos of St. Albert but also submissions from the community.
There are plans to create a time capsule as well, and residents will get to help pick what goes inside. The capsule would be sealed in January 2017, a combination of celebrating St. Albert’s Founder’s Day and the 150th birthday of the country.
Don’t expect the capsule to be buried, however. Kongsrude said it will be probably put on display in St. Albert Place. She hopes to get an artist to help design the container.
