The City of Victoria retained the professional facilitation services of CitySpaces Consulting to engage key development process stakeholders: developers and builders, Community Association Land Use Committee (CALUC) chairs , City councillors, and members of the City’s Development Services staff to address a strategic priority of improving customer service with the Development Summit Action Plan.
The Summit, and subsequent Action Plan, were informed from three sources: a pre-summit survey sent to invited participants, several key informant interviews with – the development industry and community association representatives, and the July 2014 Development Summit event.
The objectives of Development Summit Action Plan process were:
To understand any concerns or problems raised regarding services, including their scale and prevalence, and to identify key issues;
To better understand the roles, perspectives and realities of all parties;
To identify changes to improve the development processes;
To consider and agree on broad principles to guide behaviours and approaches moving forward; and
To analyze input and prepare a Development Summit Action Plan for improvements, with timelines, for City Council’s approval.
Overall issues and suggestions for improvement fell into four broad themes, and are reflected in the Development Summit Action Plan matrix: 1) Improving processes, 2) Improving customer service orientation and facilitation roles, 3) Fostering better relationships and understanding, and 4) Improving policies, regulations, and practices. The matrix broadly describes the action items or tasks needed to implement the suggestions, and what group(s) need to take the lead role, be it City staff, developers/builders, or the Community Associations.
Finally, the Development Summit Action Plan recommends that a key way to foster positive relationships among the development industry, CALUCS, and City staff is to encourage ongoing and regular dialogue. A number of the actions mentioned (e.g., proposed coffee meetings, training sessions with Land Use Committees, and liaison with the Urban Development Institute) can work towards that end.
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