Sturgeon County is a great, safe place to live, suggests a new survey, but its roads could use some work.
County council received the results of its 2011 community satisfaction survey Tuesday and asked their staff to come back with options on how to act on its suggestions.
The survey involved telephone interviews with 400 residents back in November, says Tracy With, spokesperson for Banister Research & Consulting that did the survey, and is considered accurate to within about five percentage points.
The survey suggests that about 62 per cent of residents rated life in the county as very good or excellent, and that just seven per cent rated it as fair or poor. About 92 per cent of respondents said they would recommend the county to others as a place to live.
"The county tends to be on the safe side from the perspective of your residents," she continued, as about 83 per cent of residents believed themselves to be safe or very safe in the county. The county's fire service got particularly high marks, with 73 per cent giving it a thumbs up.
Their biggest beef with the county? Roads. Some 38 per cent of residents flagged road maintenance as the worst part of life in the county, with just six per cent saying they were very satisfied with gravel road repairs. However, With noted, few wanted to raise taxes to improve those repairs. "They're not looking to see a tax increase."
That puts the county in a bit of a conundrum, said Coun. Don McGeachy.
"You want better roads, but you also want to keep taxes low."
Roads, planning, transit
Grading and gravelling unpaved roads should be the county's top fiscal priority, the survey found, with about 46 per cent of residents calling for more cash to be put into it. Just 38 per cent would be willing to pay more property taxes to do so, however. Likewise, while about 60 per cent of residents wanted the county to pave more gravel roads, that same proportion did not want to pay more taxes to do so.
The county hopes to use this survey, plus its traffic studies, to figure out which roads they should fix first, McGeachy said.
"We may actually be able to improve service for some people without an impact dollar-wise."
Transit should be the county's lowest priority, the survey found, with just 12 per cent of respondents saying that the county should put more money into it.
About 89 per cent of county residents said that they never used public transit, With said, which is pretty typical for rural communities. Of the 39 respondents who did use transit, just 15 per cent said they accessed it through St. Albert.
St. Albert Mayor Nolan Crouse suggested earlier this month that St. Albert ask the county to chip in for the construction of the city's new south-end park and ride.
McGeachy said he would have no problem contributing to that facility despite the apparently small number of county transit users so long as the county had a say in its location.
"A lot of people don't like to fight their way through St. Albert on St. Albert Trail," he said, and a more convenient location for a park and ride could encourage more people to take the bus.
Just 28 per cent of residents said they were satisfied with the county's land use planning. Reasons were varied, but the survey flagged a lack of planning and an excess of regulations as two of the top causes of disaffection.
McGeachy blamed understaffing and the Capital Region Board for the county's performance in this area. They have a planning department of eight people, he said, and the board has imposed a huge regulatory burden on them.
"They are a huge elephant in the room when it comes to us being able to deliver timely results," he said of the board.
The survey is available on the county's website.
