Monday, December 17, 2007
City of Auburn officials weigh in on survey
After answering questions and checking their yes’s and no’s, citizens who participated in Auburn’s 2007 survey were given an opportunity to answer this question: If you could change one thing about the City of Auburn, what would you change?
April 18, 2007
Officials with the City of Auburn are still analyzing the good, the bad and the ugly.
After answering questions and checking their yes’s and no’s, citizens who participated in Auburn’s 2007 survey were given an opportunity to answer this question: If you could change one thing about the City of Auburn, what would you change?
Approximately 625 of the 749 who filled out the survey commented on the city and what they would change.
More than a third of the comments related to development, construction, commercial and residential growth, zoning or protecting the “village” character of Auburn.
“I think this question evokes a spontaneous, almost visceral reaction,“ said Sheila Eckman, Ward 2. “These responses - shown at the end of the survey document - are almost entirely about growth, in one way or another. To me, this is the most significant part of the survey and I would encourage everybody to read it online.“
Gene Dulaney, Ward 7, described the comments about growth as a Catch 22.
“The things that we value the most are the things that attract people here and create our concerns,“ Dulaney said. “The question is obvious, it’s just the answer is tough to come up with. How do you balance those things and how do you prepare for growth?“
“I agree that we have to be concerned about the growth and deal with it proactively, but I think from a zoning ordinance standpoint there’s been a lot of work there and that we have a lot of quality developments out there,“ he said. “Plans are good, but implementing those plans are just something we have to live with every day.“
“The thing that I guess it struck me was that you look at the high marks we get for quality of life and quality of services and for our school system and parks and rec and it was interesting to me that all those things we view as successful are the things that attract people to our community.“
“We know people are concerned with the impacts of growth, so we have the planning department working with a number of other departments and the school system on growth modeling,“ said Charlie Duggan, city manager. “We should have that project completed and moving into land-use planning early next year.“
The growth model should be complete by December, but Duggan said that’s when things will really pick up.
“Then we have to actually use it to get us good scenarios. It’s not a Christmas present where they’ll say ‘here’ and we’re done,“ Duggan said. “It’s the start of the project which will be incredibly important for helping us make growth decisions in the future.“
The model should give the city staff, council and planning commission a platform to ask questions about growth and development in Auburn.
“The key is that there weren’t a whole lot of surprises on the citizen survey,“ he said. “These are things the city usually has to work on; infrastructure, providing adequate public safety and growth.“
Duggan said the city reviews previous citizen surveys to see what items the public continues to focus on, so that the council and city staff can turn their attention towards those assets.
Some of the other concerns included in the survey comments were speeding, traffic calming devices in neighborhoods, traffic congestion throughout the community and road improvement possibilities.
“We have been reviewing a draft of a traffic and road improvement study and hopefully within the next few months have that finalized to present to the council,“ Duggan said.