The City of Cold Lake is looking for feedback on what residents want to see in the city’s future.
Cold Lake is conducting an Economic Development Strategy and Action Plan survey, and they’re asking residents to take part in the 10-minute questionnaire.
“So far, the response has been great,” explained strategic initiative manager Andrew Serba.
He expects there to be over 200 respondents by the Sept. 9 deadline.
The city is encouraging everyone to participate in order to gather diverse feedback.
Serba said, “The more the merrier. Whenever it comes to survey results, the more data and answers you have to work with, the more accurate everything is and the more confident we can be in the results that we obtain.”
The strategy and action plan will guide economic development in Cold Lake over the next five years. Senior economic development consultant with McSweeney and Associates, Shawna Lawson, explained the survey is just one of the steps in the consultation process.
“It’s a broader outreach tool to get input from the general population,” she explained, adding the over 189 responses so far have beat their previous record of 101.
Lawson was pleasantly surprised by the amount of feedback from the public.
“It’s a lot of positivity. (Respondents) love their community, all the amenities, and the quality of life. That really comes through quite strongly. Things they’d like to see is a lot more shopping options.”
Lawson added, the responses to the survey indicate people want to see continual growth.
“It indicates that residents are really interested in economic development, and want to have a say.”
Some questions focus on key assets that Cold Lake has to offer, current challenges faced by business owners, and what opportunities participants would like to see in the future.
Lawson said, “If you went away from Cold Lake and came back 10 years later and it was really vibrant, what would that look like?”
Serba said the Economic Development Advisory Committee (EDAC) requested an update be done to the previous action plan, and asked for support from council through the Community and Regional Economic Support (CARES) grant.
“They’ve been looking into projects that will help diversify the local economy,” detailed Serba.
The entire project value is $50,000, which will be split between the City of Cold Lake and the province evenly.
“As we move into September, we expect more town halls and some ability for the consultants to meet face-to-face with some stakeholders in the area,” Serba expressed.
Lawson said focus groups will be set up by mid-September, and the data from the survey will be combined with everything Lawson’s firm finds to create the five-year plan later on this year.
Anyone interested in additional information or participating in the survey can visit coldlake.com.
