How Decisions are Made and Feedback Used

How Decisions are Made

The District Planning project is not creating new ideas or visions, rather it is building on the previously Council-approved strategic directions contained in The City Plan.

Decisions are made on the District Planning project using feedback received during public engagement, along with a policy review of the City’s existing geographic plans and policies (such as The City Plan, Transit-Oriented Development Guidelines, Residential Infill Guidelines and other plans in effect). District plan mapping data is sourced from existing data sources such as data from Open Data, maps.edmonton.ca, EPCOR, the province, The City Plan’s technical analyses and maps, and other City project’s (such as Bike Plan, Mass Transit: Network Implementation for 1.25 Million People and Growth Management Framework).

Public Engagement in this part of the project is at the ADVISE level of the City’s Public Engagement Spectrum. This means that input gathered helps City Administration know more about your thoughts and concerns on the draft district plans and list of geographic plans proposed to keep, change or retire.

How Your Feedback is Used

In Phase 1, one sample District Policy and three district plan prototypes were shared with The City Plan’s core stakeholders – a group of 100 individuals representing more than 90 organizations that represent lots of different communities, like residents, community leagues, business owners, advocacy groups and industry, from across Edmonton. Feedback was gathered on the initial structure, content and level of detail proposed in the prototypes. The project also hosted eight virtual public information sessions to introduce the District Planning project, how it contributes to The City Plan’s implementation and gather questions and initial impressions from residents, community leagues and industry members.

• To learn more about what we heard at these Information Sessions, read the Information Session Recap.

In Phase 2, feedback was used to refine the draft District Policy, 15 district plans, list of geographic plans proposed to keep, change or retire, and identify initial ideas for potential future work priorities from Edmontonians. Engagement feedback was used to fix errors and/or omissions, clarify language and terms, improve alignment with The City Plan, make revisions to policy and/or plan content and consider ways to improve the overall usability of both the District Policy and district plans.

The project has also used feedback that was out of the project’s scope to identify areas for potential future work to follow after district plan adoption (pending City Council approval). Feedback was determined to be “out of project scope” and “possible future work” if it involved additional community engagement or technical analysis that could not be completed as part of the District Planning project. This type of feedback was used to draft a preliminary list of potential future work priorities.

• To learn more about what we heard in phase 2, read the Phase 2 What We Heard report.

In Phase 3 (current), feedback will be used to make minor changes to the draft plans, further inform proposed plan repeals and amendments, and develop a proposed list of future work priorities that will be presented to City Council with the proposed bylaws in 2024.

After Phase 3 engagement has concluded, feedback will be summarized into a What We Heard report to be shared publicly and with City Council to support their decision making.