The city wants to make sure there is shovel-ready land for development and a variety of housing options for residents, according to recent discussions around the council's strategic plan.
St. Albert council's committee of the whole approved a list of ideal results for its strategic plan on Tuesday, following an hour-long in-camera discussion.
The strategic plan, which council finalized in the summer of 2022, features five priorities council agreed on to help guide its decision-making. Those priorities are economic prosperity, downtown vibrancy, community well-being, adapting to a changing environment, and financial sustainability.
On Tuesday, the committee of the whole approved a handful of “performance result statements” for each of council's main priorities. Each result statement is a short sentence that describes an ideal outcome. Together, they are meant to help council achieve or work toward its priorities.
City leadership developed three performance result statements for council's economic prosperity priority: “accessible shovel-ready land is available for development”; “housing options enable more people living in St. Albert neighbourhoods”; and “St. Albert is the preferred community of choice for investment," read a report included in the Tuesday meeting agenda, written by Darija Slokar, the manager of strategic services, and Victoria Petrach, the city's senior strategic business advisor.
For the downtown vibrancy priority, the approved result statements are: “businesses thrive downtown”; “people have a variety of reasons to come downtown”; and “downtown amenities support downtown living.”
Under the community well-being priority, the approved result statements include: “ the city supports development of mixed housing”; “the city has meaningful working relationships with Indigenous partners”; “the city provides community spaces to respond to community needs”; and “residents have access to coordinated network of social and recreation services.”
For adapting to a changing environment, the approved result statements are: “the city strives to conserve and protect natural resources”; “resilient built infrastructure is in place for future generations”; and “the city adapts to changes in climate.”
Lastly, under the financial sustainability priority, just two result statements were put forward: “the city is resilient to changes in revenue sources,” and “residents trust city's financial decision-making.”
When the committee came out of camera, the result statements were approved unanimously.
Coun. Mike Killick said the committee's in-camera discussion was a helpful part of the process.
“I think ... we've had an opportunity to voice all of our opinions and hear feedback, (and) this was helpful in moving the strategic plan forward,” Killick said.
“Some (council) members are more excited than others, but I think it's very important that we have the alignment and have the opportunity to candidly discuss these things, because ... this is a long-term view.”
Coun. Ken MacKay said he was pleased with the result statements, adding that since they are all high-level statements, any city goal that is not directly addressed through one of the statements could likely be covered anyways.
“We're looking at outcome more than we are on individual results,” MacKay said. “I think they're high enough that you could probably fit a number of different things in one category.”
Coun. Natalie Joly, in a text message, said the committee's discussion and the development of the result statements is “an opportunity to focus on our roles as governors.”
Slokar and Petrach's report says now the performance result statements for each priority have been approved, city staff and council will participate in workshops to determine how each result statement will be measured.
During the Oct. 10 committee meeting, city staff said individual councillors will work with administration on developing measurements for each result statement for each priority.
Through workshops in the coming months, Coun. Wes Brodhead will work on measurements for the economic prosperity result statements, Killick will work on measurement's for the downtown vibrancy result statements, MacKay will be assigned to the community well-being measurements, Joly will work on adapting to a changing environment measurements, and Coun. Shelley Biermanski and Coun. Sheena Hughes will work together on creating measurements for the financial sustainability result statements.
“I'm always supportive of plans that focus on outcomes and am supportive of creating measures to benchmark outcomes that support St. Albert in being a welcoming, resilient, and sustainable community,” Joly said.
Once each councillor develops their assigned measurements, council will then need to approve them, the committee of the whole heard on Tuesday.
