Okotoks Uses Ethelo to Bring New Life to Land-Use Planning

Land-use planning is rarely a topic that excites the public. Yet it’s crucial for local governments to understand residents’ preferences to shape communities in ways that serve everyone for years to come.

The Town of Okotoks, Alberta, found a way to breathe new life into its land-use planning process by using Ethelo. This innovative platform helped the town collect valuable qualitative and quantitative data while giving residents an accessible and engaging way to share their input on the types of homes and businesses they wanted in their community.

The Challenge

The Town of Okotoks’ Land Use Bylaw, which regulates the use and development of all land and buildings in the town, had not been updated since the 1990s. It didn’t account for new types of businesses, such as retail cannabis stores, and other modern development trends. Yet many residents were unaware of its existence or its significance in shaping their neighborhoods.

Okotoks officials needed an innovative way to engage residents on this often-complex subject, ensuring public input would guide the bylaw rewrite. The goal was to make land-use planning accessible, meaningful, and relevant to the community.

Why Ethelo?

Okotoks chose Ethelo because it offered a user-friendly platform for public consultation, capable of gathering meaningful insights while making the process transparent and interactive. The town had previously used Ethelo for consultations on its Environmental Master Plan and Municipal Development Plan, with positive results. Officials appreciated how Ethelo combined data collection and engagement to ensure broad participation.

“We are always looking for new ways to engage our residents,” said Andrea Charlebois, Communications Specialist for Okotoks. “Ethelo gave us a tool to capture residents’ vision for what they want their community to be.”

The Process

The consultation was live on Ethelo from January 20 to February 14, 2019. During this time, residents and business owners were asked to provide feedback on specific aspects of land use in two areas: the Downtown Commercial and South Business Industrial Districts. Key topics included:

1. Proposed Land-Use Changes:

   • Allowing new uses like amusement arcades and retail cannabis stores.

   • Reclassifying some uses from “Permitted” to “Discretionary” (or vice versa) to better reflect community needs.

2. Parking Requirements:

   • Introducing more flexible parking requirements tailored to specific business types.

3. Setbacks:

   • Reducing the minimum setback for business frontage in certain areas, allowing buildings to align closer to sidewalks and create a more pedestrian-friendly environment.

Residents could view real-time support for each option, interact with others in comment sections, and provide additional feedback on land-use issues. This interactive format not only encouraged participation but also ensured residents had the background information needed to make informed decisions.

Background and Approach

The town’s previous success with Ethelo gave officials confidence that the platform could make land-use planning accessible and engaging. It also ensured that public input would be collected efficiently, avoiding the logistical challenges of large in-person events.

Charlebois emphasized the importance of this approach:
“We really heard a wide variety of things from the community about how people want their neighborhoods to work. We were surprised by some of the things people weren’t aware of. When you work in this area, you know these details, but they can be hard for the general public to understand.”

Results and Insights

A total of 286 people participated in the online consultation, with Ethelo’s algorithm analyzing the results to identify areas of consensus. Additionally, 183 residents shared input at in-person events and workshops, ensuring a robust dataset.

Key findings included:

• Preferred Amenities:

  • 71% of participants wanted parks or green spaces within a 10-minute walk of their homes.

  • 51% preferred coffee shops, while 44% prioritized restaurants.

• Business Preferences:

  • Market-style retail businesses garnered the highest support, with 80% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing they were desirable.

Ethelo’s ability to combine qualitative and quantitative data provided Okotoks with a clear and actionable roadmap. Officials could see not just what residents supported, but the reasoning behind their preferences, giving them deeper insight into community priorities.

Charlebois highlighted the platform’s effectiveness:
“Ethelo is a helpful tool as it easily captures both qualitative and quantitative data. We were able to show residents what the future could be and find out what that means to them.”

Lessons Learned

While the consultation was successful, the team identified areas for improvement. For example, they noted that reducing the number of questions and screens could improve the completion rate for future consultations. Despite these minor challenges, the overall process provided clear, valuable insights for the town’s ongoing planning efforts.

Next Steps

The results of the consultation will inform Okotoks’ ongoing research and contribute to drafting a revised Land Use Bylaw. The town plans to share a draft policy direction with the community in fall 2020, incorporating the feedback gathered during this process.

By using Ethelo, Okotoks transformed a traditionally dry topic into an engaging and informative experience for residents. The platform not only facilitated meaningful participation but also provided town officials with the insights needed to create a bylaw that reflects the community’s vision for the future.

To update their Official Community Plan (OCP) the town of Gibsons, BC, worked with Ethelo Decisions through Vince Verlaan, an engagement specialist from the firm MODUS Planning, Design and Engagement. Gibsons used Ethelo in two stages of its planning process. The first stage was to seek public input on proposed changes to the current OCP, and the second to validate final revisions to the OCP arising out of the first stage.

When city staff at London, ON were directed by City Council to build a Climate Emergency Action Plan, they knew that public input would be key to creating something the community could get on board with.

However, convincing folks to engage around an issue as complex and polarizing as the climate emergency is not an easy task. To maximize participation, London and Ethelo came up with a simple strategy: turn the engagement into a game.

“What we found really attractive about Ethelo was the idea of using the platform as a climate plan simulator,” says Jamie Skimming, Manager of Community Energy Initiatives for the City of London. “Recognizing that some people like games and puzzles, we thought this would be a great opportunity to try that.”

Simulating a feasible plan using difficulty levels

The survey presented participants with twenty greenhouse gas reduction actions that the city could take, like energy efficiency upgrades, a green bin program, and new cycling infrastructure. Then, using a sliding scale, participants decided how much they personally thought the City should prioritize each action over the next 10 years.

The challenge was to design a plan that could reduce by at least one million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. So while car fans could gleefully downgrade bike lanes, for example, they would then have to slide other actions up in order to reach the target number – perhaps by increasing the number of electric vehicles or buses in the city.

The idea of simulating a climate action plan is not a new concept. Jamie has tried many different simulators in the past. What is missing from all of them, he says, is transparent information about the level of effort it would actually take to reduce those emissions.

“We didn’t want to tell people that anything was impossible,” he explains. “But we wanted to be open that there are reasons like cost and lack of resources that make it very tough to crank the dial to the maximum level on any given action.”

Each GHG reduction action displayed information about how difficult or easy it could be to implement. Participants then had to make trade-offs on each action to balance the ‘difficulty score’ with how effective it could be. This simple constraint gave participants a more realistic, transparent experience, and provided more valuable data to the city as a result.

When Erika Botond took on the Senior Manager of Communications role at the Town of Whitby in late 2019, she looked at their budget engagement process and immediately thought they could do better. 

“We were relying on people to come to a council meeting, read a 500-page document and understand all the ins and outs,” she explains. “Not a lot of people have the time to do that or are that civically engaged. 

“There would be on average six people at a meeting. Trying to get people engaged in a budget isn’t the sexiest of topics at the best of times.”

Then times changed with the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic, and engaging online with their community became a necessity for the Town. 

“We needed to find an online way to educate people about something that’s pretty complex but impacts everyone every day,” Botond explains. “How could we create a platform where we can share information, post videos and take them through the process of what goes into making a budget.”   

Education and inclusion

The Whitby team was already aware of Ethelo’s Citizen Budget and saw the platform as the perfect solution for levelling up their 2020 budget engagement. 

Botond says Ethelo’s decision algorithm is a great way to educate residents by showing them where their views fit within the broader community and how their choices about services impacted the budget. 

“People may say taxes are high at the beginning of the process,” she says. “But as they go through the Citizen Budget tool, it provides more awareness of the process and impacts of decisions they were making. The result was we saw users come away with a better understanding of where their taxes are going.” 

She adds that Citizen Budget also lets the Town give people a lot of information in an easy-to-digest format that can be accessed anytime.

“It’s on their terms,” she notes. “When they have time to do it, they can go into the platform and understand what they want to get out of it. So it’s a way to reach many people with information at a time that meets their needs. Convenience is really the biggest piece of it.”

Speaking of convenience, Botond adds that the Ethelo team was critical in helping the Whitby team understand all the data they got and report back to leadership about it. 

“The experience reporting back was excellent,” she says. “We had a number of interactions where we got the presentation to our senior leadership team to a really good place. I found the process collaborative and iterative, and the Ethelo team was open to understanding the story we wanted to tell. 

It’s all about building trust

The ultimate impact from Ethelo for the Town of Whitby is the ability to deliver services to residents better because they understand what people want, Botond explains.

“We’re in the business of service delivery, and we want to deliver services that make a difference and impact people’s lives on a day-to-day basis,” she says. “So it’s essential to understand what’s important from the resident’s perspective.” 

“And we can report back to the community that this is what we heard and this is how we’re using the information they took the time to share with us. I think this demonstrates openness and transparency. People want to have a say in the municipal decision-making process, and the Citizen Budget platform enabled that.” 

Botond adds that internal business partners were hesitant to try something new when Communications first decided to try Citizen Budget. But after seeing the results, they’ve realized the value this platform can deliver and how providing an open and transparent process for our residents helps us build trust in the process. 

“Now, they’re converted,” she notes. “I think that’s a testament to our collaboration. And they’re really excited to do it again this year. They’re looking to include the Ethelo data in their target report, so before the budget is even completed, they can share with council what they’ve heard from the community and why they’ve made these decisions.” 

Botond says she’s also excited to use Citizen Budget again this year and plans to run a longer campaign supported by even more promotion. 

Understanding which facilities residents want most

Stratford is a fast-growing community with significant demand for additional infrastructure, programs and services.  The Town developed a 10-year financial forecast based on growth projections and current tax rates. It determined that it would have approximately $2 million per year to fund additional programs and services by the end of the 10-year period. The cost of financing and operating identified new facilities and offering more programs and services exceeded the $2 million available.  

The Town needed to understand which facilities, programs and services were most important to residents to prioritize the spending of the $2 million available and whether or not residents were willing to pay more taxes for additional facilities, programs and services. 

They used Ethelo to include residents in the discussion and understand where people stood on spending for new facilities. The online Ethelo engagement let taxpayers identify which facilities they thought the Town should build, and how much more tax they would have to pay to make their priorities a reality. 

 “This was a great way to engage our citizens in a dialogue about long term spending priorities for the Town, which Council and staff used to inform important decisions about future capital and operating investments,” says Robert Hughes, the Chief Administrative Officer of Stratford

Participants could enter their property values and see how much they were currently paying in taxes. Then they voted on projects they liked until they hit the $2 million mark. If they added any more projects beyond that, they could see their tax bill increase accordingly. So they could make trade-offs between projects they liked and how much more tax they were willing to pay. They could also indicate if they were willing to help with fundraising for the projects to offset any tax increases.

About 975 people participated, or about ten per cent of the Town’s population. The Ethelo data clearly showed that Stratford residents were willing to accept tax increases to fund long-term investments in several key projects.

• Average Property Tax Bill $954
• Average Property Tax Increase $139
• Support Score: 87%

Meaningfully engaging online

When the Salt Spring Island local governments declared a climate emergency in 2019, residents quickly realized they needed to update their 2011 Climate Action Plan (CAP) if they hoped to reach their 2030 greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. 

The CAP Steering Committee used the United Nations recommendation to set a goal of reducing GHG emissions by 50 percent by 2030. They worked with a number of different island organizations including local non-profit Transition Salt Spring, and local government officials, to identify mitigation and adaptation strategies. Then they collaborated with Ethelo and eDemocracy to plan a public engagement to hear community perspectives that would inform the plan. 

When the COVID 19 pandemic hit in early 2020 and the face-to-face component of the community consultation the CAP Steering Committee had planned was no longer possible, and they initially considered postponing their engagement. 

But with the Ethelo platform, they found a way to meaningfully engage a diverse group of residents in the discussions online, educate them about the trade-offs involved and create consensus around the most broadly supported climate solutions. 

Inclusivity and education 

The team helped to create a customized engagement organized into six major sections: Transportation, Homes and Buildings, Food and Agriculture, Forests, Waste Reduction and Tourism/Commercial.

It was important to the committee that residents had the information and insight they needed to contribute meaningfully to the discussion. That was made possible by including a significant amount of educational content in a format that was convenient and easy for participants to digest. 

Along the way, participants could also learn that it was easier to reduce GHGs in some sections than others. So they could understand the difficulty of each option and trade-offs required when making final planning decisions. 

“The online public engagement was very effective. The eDemocracy team made the setup and execution of the process easy and efficient,” says Darryl Martin, Chair of the Climate Action Plan Steering Committee. “We learned a lot about the priorities of our particular community and gained further understanding of our citizenry through the 233 pages of comments the survey garnered.

The platform also directly included participants in the process by letting them create their own plan for the Island. As people voted on different degrees of GHG reductions throughout the process, the platform displayed a real-time total of how much they were reducing and how difficult it was to achieve their plan. Their goal was to eliminate at least 35,000 tons of GHGs and keep the difficulty rating under five. 

With 936 participants, millions of possibilities emerged from those plans—far more than any spreadsheet could handle. But Ethelo’s algorithm let the committee quickly sort through the feedback and learn which options got the most support from the community. 

The team worked closely with the committee throughout the process, helping with everything from setup to moderation, technical support and data reporting. 

In October 2019, the City of Prince George formed a Select Committee on Poverty Reduction, which was tasked with recommending how the City could address poverty based on the provincial government’s Together BC strategy. 

After bringing together diverse stakeholders and perspectives from throughout the community, the committee produced 19 recommendations for reducing poverty in Prince George. The committee then needed to engage the broader community to create awareness of the initiatives and learn which ones were the most urgent and highest priorities for residents. 

Sarah Brown, who works in the City’s Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships Division, was the Staff Liaison for the Select Committee. She notes that the committee set out several lens groups through which to view the work, which included: children and youth, single-parent families, seniors, Indigenous people and people living in specific neighbourhoods that are disproportionately impacted by poverty. They also wanted to work with at least five community agencies. 

“They wanted to look at the difference between people who are experiencing absolute poverty and those who are considered the working poor,” Brown explains. “So that way, the recommendations would be all-encompassing, so when we look at poverty reduction in the community, it wasn’t just honed in on one group, but really looks at the broad spectrum of people who could be impacted by poverty.”

The City of Prince George has used Ethelo’s Citizen Budget platform for the past five years to include residents in its annual budget consultation process. So when the committee was planning its poverty reduction engagement, they thought of Ethelo as the best tool to include a representative sample of citizens in the process. 

“Ethelo turned out to be a really good fit because we wanted broad representation from the community, “ Brown says. “We used the engagement platform as the foundation and then we worked with our community partners so they could use the platform to get people to provide their feedback.”

Empowering residents to participate 

Questions in the City’s Ethelo engagement asked participants to rank each of the 19 recommendations based on two factors, urgency and importance. 

By using their social media and community networks, they included 814 people in the process and reached their goal of including a broad group of community members.

“It wasn’t just agencies who are supporting people who are experiencing poverty that had their say on this topic; it was across the community,” Brown says. “So to get that diversity of perspective was reassuring that voting on the recommendations was robust and sound. And we could have confidence that this is really reflective of our entire community.”

She adds that the Ethelo team was instrumental in helping set up a successful engagement that also helped educate people about the committee’s recommendations. 

“The Ethelo team was really flexible in helping us set up what our platform was going to look like,” Brown notes. “It was really engaging. The imagery was really appropriate, and it connected people to the topic. Each slide started with an appropriate image, and then there was some relevant background information on each topic. We used all of that information to provide a backdrop and context, and then we asked people to answer the question. Ethelo was also able to link to external websites and information, so if people wanted to learn more, then they could. So that was a really good feature.” 

“The education piece provided the preliminary context so people could make a decision on the urgency and importance.”