The comments made during the public meeting of January 29th have been compiled by Transfert Environnement et Société in the report below.
The Westmount Urban Planning Department (UP) has reviewed this report. It groups, by type of consultation tool, all the comments submitted by the participants. The report also includes the recommendations made by Transfert Environnement et Société. UP noted that several suggestions are already intended in the process and that certain planning proposals will have to be discussed at a later stage. For this reason, not all comments were translated into recommendations.
The consultation report shows that the proposed revision process generally meets citizens’ expectations. UP therefore intends to pursue the deployment of the process while respecting the principles put forward: flexibility, transparency and representativeness.
More specifically, here is in italics how UP intends to respond to each recommendation:
Recommendation 1
Maintain the process’ general guidelines, as proposed at the Public Information Session.
The general guidelines will be maintained.
Recommendation 2
Provide detail as to the upcoming planned process steps (activities, objectives, schedule, topics for discussion, etc.) to allow for more effective and precise feedback.
Only the broad outlines of the process are planned for the next two years. The activities of the next steps will be organized as the process progresses. However, UP understands the relevance of the recommendation and will attempt to plan and publish the content of the next steps as far in advance as possible.
Recommendation 3
Promote greater transparency towards the community by sharing in advance relevant information about meetings and activities via the website and by holding all public activities in English and French.
The Imagine Westmount 2040 website serves as the main channel for document sharing several weeks in advance of events. Bilingualism remains a key principle in all our communications.
Recommendation 4
Provide citizens with clearer invitations and objectives for each public activity.
A communication effort will be made in this regard.
Recommendation 5
Make greater use of local media to convey relevant information to the community, while maintaining the website as the primary tool for public information.
Traditional local media, such as the Westmount Independent, will be used to a greater extent.
Recommendation 6
Intensify efforts to publicize the process’ public activities (physical posters, use of social media, local media, website, etc.).
More advertising will promote public activities, especially in the early stages of the process, within the UP budgets.