Our Avonmore community has endured several years of construction along 83rd Street to acquire the City Valley Line for the Light Rail Transit. This street is a central access to our neighbourhood, and the delays are frustrating, but an LRT station stop at 73 Ave benefits the neighbourhood. With the New City Plan, District Plans, and forthcoming Zoning Bylaw Renewal, we can expect subsequent developments and changes to our community. 

As a proactive approach, we formed a committee to work on a Vision Plan: a record of what we hope and expect our community to be. A document describing residents’ collective values and desires for our Avonmore. This Vision Plan is intended to inform developers, newcomers to the community and our neighbours of our expectations and principals. It demonstrates our willingness to facilitate communication in the early stages of development approval with developers interested in our area as well as the City administration and Council.

Development and Information Gathering Activities 

Developing and engaging with the community during the COVID-19 pandemic was very challenging to say the least. However, the team got creative and devised a workable approach in two phases:

Phase 1

This phase was intended to prompt residents to share their values and concerns in a safe, unbiased, and anonymous method. The team established four key questions to launch our Vision Engagement: 

• What makes Avonmore Community great? What do you love about our neighbourhood?
• What is Avonmore missing? What convenient amenities or urban features would make Avonmore that much better?
• What types of housing do you think would be best for more people to live in Avonmore? 
• What concerns do you have about new developments in Avonmore? 

These questions were posted and advertised on social media with an online survey link from our Avonmore Vision Facebook page and website. These questions were also physically posted on a large double-sided “Idea Board” that was moved days between several locations throughout the neighborhood. The boards were monitored, comments were recorded and markers replenished regularly.  Every 5-8 days the board was moved to a new location and cleared to make room for new comments.  They were very well used and saw a fairly consistent response rate.

In addition to providing feedback, many residents said they enjoyed the Idea Boards and said it made them feel more connected to the community, at a time when most were overly isolated. The online survey also achieved a good response rate with the benefit that allowed respondents to provide more detailed responses.

Phase 2

Once the responses from the first phase were collected, the second phase of engagement was intended to confirm these results and provide deeper insights and discussion. This included further online surveys along with in-person workshops, which included guest speakers and in depth conversations with participants along with specific feedback. 

Workshop Displays and Activities

Each workshop used the same 6 displays with information, questions and activities.  Participants were asked to share feedback using colored dots and sticky notes as well as share their thoughts with the Project Team:

Compiling and Interpreting Community Feedback

The community feedback from Phase 1 and Phase 2 as well as the insights from the workshop conversations was carefully considered and reviewed, culminating in this document. This feedback is supplemented with research and information from other sources to identify recurring themes and commonalities but also divergent views. 

In order to include such diverse input into a single vision, it had to have several components working in unison. We started by identifying a guiding principle, which is made up of three community values, each with individual Goals. Finally, a number of specific actions were identified to accomplish Goals and support our values, while following the principle of respect.

Primary Guiding Principle

We concluded respect is our optimal guiding goal and principle, for the best interest of our Avonmore Community. We began and journeyed with this guiding principle, which has three major components:

Respect for our Community

Respect for our community includes our current neighbours, future residents and the Community League: 

Our highest respect is for the residents of Avonmore who make up our community. We immediately recognized that we could not develop a Vision Plan for our Avonmore Community without extensive community engagement: we needed to hear from as many Avonmore neighbours as were willing to put their voices and ideas forward.

We also worked to respect each individual, valuing their opinions, ideas, experiences and perspectives. In order to do so, we were transparent regarding the goals and limitations of this project, freely shared useful information, and held candid conversations with residents.

Respect for our Neighborhood

Respect for our neighborhood, including our shared amenities, community character and infrastructure:

A driving force behind the project was to protect the parks, amenities, and character that makes our Avonmore special. Realizing that some changes are essential, our vision identifies what must be protected, what has room to change without losing value, and what we want to see replaced or improved. Our project shared information about our neighborhood’s history and character while celebrating community parks & facilities.

Respect for our Partners

Respect for our partners, includes developers, civic leaders, City Administration and other residents of Edmonton:  

Avonmore is not a self-contained island. We have many external partners including the City, business owners and developers. We recognize that Avonmore is part of Edmonton: the city maintains our infrastructure, provides services and supports many of our community programs. Also, Avonmore’s renewal and development is ultimately governed by city policies and civic leaders. We firmly believe if we develop respectful and transparent relationships with our civic leaders, we can optimize the benefits for the city, its administration, business investors, and for our community of Avonmore. And we can do this with less time, fewer disputes, and better communications.

The most important part of the vision project was discovering what residents value, which was the focus of the Phase 1; open questions prompted residents to share what they loved about Avonmore, what Avonmore is missing, what they want to see in the future, and concerns they had about the future. Responses ranged from very detailed descriptions to single word answers and showed a wide range of opinions and priorities. After much reflection and discussion, recurring themes emerged from the diverse and divergent comments.  These themes were mapped to 17 Goals, with clear connections and overlaps that allowed them to be combined into three broad Values. 

Our Community League will work with residents, city administration, and service providers to support a variety of programs such as educational courses, sporting events, and community functions for our residents. The League has been doing this for years through seasonal events (gingerbread houses and pancake breakfasts), hosting the play school and other children’s programing, supporting clubs (like the garden club and yoga) and even parades during the COVID lockdown. As a community we will support our Community League to continue these and help them to try new activities by volunteering and participating.  

Our community is the most important part of what makes living in Avonmore so great, but many residents don’t feel included. We want to make our community even better by making sure we include everyone, regardless of age, income, ethnicity, or lifestyle. We will reach out to those who might feel left out, welcome newcomers to the neighborhood—both homeowners and renters—and work to be as inclusive as possible. Those renting property in the area should especially be welcomed, often feeling separated from the community as temporary residents; they should be reminded that they are just as much a part of our Avonmore community.

We already have a regular community newsletter and several social media communities and host a number of events that are open to everyone. Conversations with residents indicated that some residents feel left out, particularly renters and residents of the larger apartment buildings.  In addition, new residents unfamiliar with Edmonton are unaware of the Community League and often miss out on events. As a community, we will work to make connections with our neighbors. In addition, our Community League will attempt to reach out to renters and residents in apartment complexes and organize a committee to welcome new residents to the neighborhood and inform them of the Community League and its programming. The League will also support programs and individual actions that better connect residents to one another and to the League.  

We recognize that our actions have impacts well beyond our neighborhood and will work for those impacts to be positive. We will be mindful of how our choices and lifestyles impact the world and work to reduce our environmental impact by: 

• Preserving existing natural areas and wildlife

• Properly disposing of pet waste, garbage, chemicals, and toxic materials
• Favoring sustainable or environmentally friendly products, including garden and yard care methods
• Recycling and composting as much as possible
• Reducing energy usage of buildings and vehicles

We are just one neighborhood, and only a small part of Edmonton.  In order to accomplish our goals, we need to partner with a wide range of individuals, organizations and businesses from outside of Avonmore. The Avonmore Community League will identify and reach out to partners in an attempt to build relationships to make both Avonmore and Edmonotn a better place to live.  Such partners will include:

• Other Community Leagues and the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues (EFCL).  These organizations will help us to work better with our neighboring communities, understand the role our community has in larger programs and to have a more significant impact by speaking with a unified voice.  
• City of Edmonton Administration:  Partnerships with the City are essential to shaping our future and providing services to our community.  While technically a single organization, the City has many different components which include:
• Long term planning and policy
• Regulating development and business licensing
• Maintenance of public facilities, including parks
• Providing services and events for residents
• Funding and supporting community leagues
• Enforcing bylaws such as parking, property upkeep, noise, pollution, and renting
• Many other activities that we take for granted 
• Municipal Service Providers:  Municipal services such as police, education, transit, and utilities are important partners as well.  By working with them we can have a better understanding of current trends and be better able to promote the needs of our community
• Developers and Developer Groups:  Construction on personal properties is done by developers and builders.  By partnering with these groups we can better understand their perspective, get involved earlier and influence outcomes.
• Businesses in and near our community:  Many of our residents use, own or work for businesses in and near Avonmore.  By partnering with these organizations we can often benefit one another by providing discounts or promotions to residents that also serve to promote their business. 

Other community organizations:  There are countless other organizations that provide services, support events, promote activities and/or advocate for the interests of our community.  We will partner with such groups that align with our values as much as practical.

The most important part of the vision project was discovering what residents value, which was the focus of the Phase 1; open questions prompted residents to share what they loved about Avonmore, what Avonmore is missing, what they want to see in the future, and concerns they had about the future. Responses ranged from very detailed descriptions to single word answers and showed a wide range of opinions and priorities. After much reflection and discussion, recurring themes emerged from the diverse and divergent comments.  These themes were mapped to 17 Goals, with clear connections and overlaps that allowed them to be combined into three broad Values.