ST. ALBERT MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN ENGAGEMENT

Necessary to the success of the project was a robust and meaningful engagement approach. The process included numerous and varied opportunities for engagement.

Client: City of St. Albert

ISL Role: Sub Consultant

Location: St. Albert , AB

Project Type: Community Engagement

About This Project

The City of St. Albert was looking to embark on an exciting new initiative that will shape how the city grows and develops to a population of 100,000. The Municipal Development Plan (MDP) was built to reflect the values and aspirations of the community and the vision that was established through previous comprehensive engagement. The new MDP needed to align with and support the implementation of the recently approved Edmonton Metropolitan Region Growth Plan, Council’s strategic priorities, and other strategic documents. Necessary to the success of the MDP was a robust and meaningful engagement approach at key milestones. The engagement process included numerous and varied opportunities for engagement, along every step of the way, to gather feedback to inform the development of the MDP vision, goals, urban structure maps and policy directions.

The City wanted to ensure the engagement approach had a strong emphasis on inclusive and diverse outreach to accurately reflect the demographics of the community. To address this, our engagement strategy identified opportunities to gather diverse input such as one-on-one or small group meetings with key stakeholders, public engagement events and targeted pop-up events at key locations where people already were.

The targeted pop-up events allowed ISL to engage with hard to reach stakeholders such as youth, seniors and individuals who don’t typically attend public sessions. An online engagement tool was provided at each phase of the project to reach those who were unable to attend in-person events.

Due to the high-level nature of an MDP, it can be challenging for stakeholders and the members of the public to understand how policies will truly inform growth and development. We worked with the team to develop easy to understand information and images at each phase to demonstrate key information about the project, the purpose of engagement, what we were asking for feedback on, how feedback would be used and next steps. Engagement activities were designed not only to gather key feedback from stakeholders and the public but also to provide the project team with clear insight about the feedback provided about the goals, polices and urban structure maps that would direct how St. Albert could grow and develop in future.