Council to pay $150,000 for future vision of Kelowna

KELOWNA – To be fair, a strategic visioning process called Imagine Kelowna does have the sound of a corporate excercise in futility that produces nothing more than something pretty for the CEO to frame.

Coun. Charlie Hodge had some doubts and let them be known, especially concerning the $150,000 price tag for the year-long process staff say would be the largest, most comprehensive engagement process Kelowna has ever conducted.

“Haven’t we asked most of these questions before,” Hodge asked referring to the bi-annual citizens survey. “I want to make sure we aren’t recreating work that’s already been done in the last few years.”

Last done in 1992, regional planning manager Rafael Villarreal told council the new process will produce a strategic vision, identify community values and principles and help with strategic planning.

“This strategic visiong process, unlike the more prescriptive plan of 1992, is a quest for a concepts of innovation and resiliency to help prepare the city for the future,” he said.

Plans are for a four-section consultation and development process that includes various forms of view-point gathering with the aim of presenting a finished document in October, 2017.

City manager Ron Mattiussi told council the original vision document had helped shape his program as city planning director in the 1990s and Coun. Luke Stack pointed to one of its early provisions, that of the independent town centres and their success.

“What we think is normal now wasn’t normal back then,” Stack said.

Mayor Colin Basran called the updated vision statement “the missing piece” for him in his job selling Kelowna.

“Hopefully, this will get people thinking about our city in a way they haven’t in the past,” he said.

Council voted unanimously to continue with the Imagine Kelowna visioning process.

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