The COVID-19 pandemic.
The lack of affordable homes.
The trend toward more equity, diversity and inclusion, and reconciliation.
The tight labour market.
And the general cost-of-living increases.
With the amount of societal change over the past four years, the City of Coquitlam is fine-tuning its strategic vision, mission and values as it looks ahead to 2032.
Today, Nov. 21, the city’s Strategic Priorities standing committee had a peek at what’s to come in its revised Strategic Plan for 2024–2027, of which the draft document will land before council in the new year.
Under the renewed framework, city staff are recommending that council craft new language to better reflect the municipality’s realities.
Staff are also suggesting the plan change from five main goals to nine focused priorities — a move designed to capture the recent community engagement and offer effective and clear expectations for council and residents to base decisions on.
Under the current Strategic Plan, the city cites its five goals to provide:
- safe and complete neighbourhoods
- local economy and local jobs
- healthy community and active citizens
- sustainable services, environment and infrastructure
- excellence in city government
However, under the proposed Strategic Plan for 2024–2027, the direction would be built around nine priorities.
Coquitlam is....
- working to keep the city and its residents safe
- taking steps to address the housing crisis
- building important civic amenities and investing in community programming
- building and supporting the local economy
- taking action to address environmental and climate sustainability
- committed to the progression of equity diversity and inclusion and advancing reconciliation
- delivering important infrastructure for a growing population
- focused on fiscal accountability and corporate excellence
- inspiring excellence in our workplace and among our employees
Graham Stuart, Coquitlam’s director of corporate planning, told the standing committee that having priorities — rather than goals — makes the Strategic Plan more specific and action packed in the rapidly changing macro-economic climate.
The renewed direction also allows the community to more easily understand what work is being undertaken, he said.
Committee reaction
While councillors, in general, rejected the word "crisis" for the housing target, Coun. Matt Djonlic said he likes the idea of establishing more concrete priorities than vague goals.
Still, he pressed for different wording to address the lack of affordable housing and cost-of-living.
"This is such a dominant theme in people's lives," he urged.
Coun. Dennis Marsden suggested to slim down the nine proposed priorities by combining a couple of similar themes while Coun. Robert Mazzarolo asked to expand the list from nine to 12 priorities.
"I thought nine was too many," Towner said, "but, at the same time, running a city is a very vast endeavour. If we combine too much, then it waters them down."
Towner said the city can’t reach many of its goals in the current strategic plan because of external factors, like downloading from senior government levels.
