A Letter to City Council and the Community

Councilor Samson as well as Paula, Gail, Doug, and Cindy,

As the City continues dialogue about the future of the West End Neighborhood in terms of zoning and land use, I wanted to take a moment to address Councilor Samson’s questions as well as some concerns that have been raised about the most recent engagement efforts happening on the City’s community engagement platform, Let’s Talk Loveland.

The main concerns we heard through public comment at the Oct. 3 City Council meeting that I can address were that this new engagement effort and survey questions do not align with previously communicated preferences and concerns with the survey structure including questions about demographics.

I would first like to address some background about the application on behalf of Development Services, this new phase of engagement and the Let’s Talk Loveland engagement platform.

The City’s Development Services Department heard varying perspectives on desired land uses from residents during the initial rezoning efforts earlier this year. The City withdrew this rezoning application on July 18, 2023, and as promised through the withdrawal letter, this new engagement effort is meant to identify alternative options that are receptive to the reasonable concerns of participants in this process while meeting the needs of the City’s Comprehensive Plan and Unified Development Code. Through the City’s development review process, the applicant is required to lead public engagement efforts with support of the Development Services Department. Because the City was the applicant here, the Development Services Department engaged our team in the City’s new Communication and Engagement Department to manage this next phase of engagement using our Let’s Talk Loveland platform.

The City’s Let’s Talk Loveland has become one of our main digital engagement channels for specific projects, such as this engagement effort. It has been extremely effective in helping the City connect with residents, ensuring that each member of our community has the opportunity to contribute to decision-making processes in various stages. It has also been well received as a place where individuals can share their feedback and perspectives directly to the City on a specific project. With any City engagement effort, our priority is to make sure we are hearing from all involved parties, and this platform has allowed us to do that.

The West End Neighborhood project webpage and survey were designed in response to the withdrawal of the City’s rezoning application and the City’s commitment to explore alternatives based on neighborhood feedback. As mentioned in the July 18 memo, reasonable feedback and concerns will be considered in the next recommendation for the process. We want to emphasize that this is not a scientific survey by design. The intent behind the survey is to engage with individual residents and involved stakeholders within the neighborhood to gather feedback and perspectives on land use for an overlay zone seeking opinions on the possibility of an overlay zone. While scientific surveys have their merits and are used for larger Citywide survey efforts in the community, this informal approach allows for open dialogue and inclusivity in gathering community input and feedback.

This page and survey provide a space where all participants can have an equitable say in the next step of the process. The survey questions capture opinions on an overlay zone, with additional clarification provided to ensure that participants can share their thoughts on boundaries and land uses, regardless of their stance on the overlay. The survey has a question that allows participants to indicate support or opposition of the overlay zone, and subsequent questions allow them to voice their opinions on the boundaries or size of the overlay zone should one be pursued. The original map of the rezoning application that was withdrawn was included as a base map, as it is familiar to the neighborhood. Participants can indicate different desired boundaries on the survey if the overlay is to be pursued.

We appreciate the specific feedback on survey layout and questions and want to clarify that demographic questions are included to help us better understand our community. These demographic questions are standard for many of our projects as well as any scientific survey efforts that we partake in. Similar questions are also asked during the account creation process on Let’s Talk Loveland. With the West End Neighborhood survey, staff disabled the requirement to create an account to remove an extra step or barrier that could have affected participation.

Loveland is a growing, evolving community and staff makes every effort to reach decisions that are in the best interest of our community at large. The voices of our community matter, and we appreciate the passion and engagement around this project. The survey results will guide decisions on the next steps, and the input we receive is invaluable in shaping the future of the West End Neighborhood and our City.

If you have further questions or concerns about this project page or survey, please reach out to me, Logan Garcia in our Communication and Engagement Department, or Kerri Burchett. We would also like to encourage residents to reach out to City staff directly with any concerns or questions as that is usually the fastest and most direct way to address these items. On behalf of our Communication & Engagement Department, I also welcome the opportunity for our team to begin better engaging with the West End Neighborhood so we can bring them into additional efforts we are making to improve communication and engagement between the City and our community.

We will also post this information to the West End Neighborhood Let’s Talk Loveland site.

Sincerely,

Nicole Yost
Director of Communication & Engagement
City of Loveland