Almost all Banff residents rate their quality of life as good or very good, although a significant number of people believe their quality of life has worsened over the past four years.
Almost all Banff residents rate their quality of life as good or very good, although a significant number of people believe their quality of life has worsened over the past four years.
That's according to a telephone survey conducted by Ipsos for the Town of Banff, in which 97 per cent of residents say they are proud to live in Banff and 95 per cent rate their overall quality of life as good or very good.
The survey showed 61 per cent of residents believed housing in Banff – the top issue for residents – was unaffordable, while 67 per cent rated their current housing situation as acceptable.
Officials say a lack of affordable housing was the most often mentioned reason by those who thought their quality of life in Banff had worsened since the municipality's last satisfaction survey in 2013.
Jamie Duncan, vice-president of Ipsos, said there are more residents in Banff who rate their quality of life as good than would typically be seen in similar surveys across the country.
“Views about quality of life and living in Banff continue to be strong, although we do see some softening of some of those numbers against 2013 measurements,” he said.
“We actually had a significant increase in the percentage of people living in Banff who say their quality of life has worsened. It's actually almost tripled from where you were in 2013,” he added, noting it went from 12 to 30 per cent.
In a random telephone survey, Ipsos called residents via land and cell lines between March 21 and April 4 this year and, once they completed 350 calls, had the correct sample size to analyze the data.
The 350 sample size gives a plus or minus five percentage points, which means 19 times out of 20 the answer would have been the same if Ipsos had called every single resident.
Town of Banff officials say council and staff use the information from resident satisfaction surveys to help set priorities, review service levels and establish budgets.
“This is something certainly from my terms on council that we look at very seriously,” said Mayor Karen Sorensen.
“It has helped this council and previous councils set direction for our strategic priorities planning and for our priorities moving forward. I'm certainly happy we continue to do this.”
According to the survey, the top issues for Banff residents this year are affordable housing and homelessness, followed by parking and infrastructure and traffic improvement.
“The top issues in 2013 were taxation, municipal government spending, items related to parks and culture, transportation and growth development,” said Duncan.
Ipsos asked a series of questions about the mood of the community – 97 per cent said they were proud to live in Banff, 89 per cent stated Banff is a great place to make a life and 97 per cent said they were proud to live in their neighbourhood.
Duncan said 70 per cent of residents said they believed Banff is moving in the right direction to ensure a high quality of life for future generations; however, that's down eight percentage points from the 2013 survey.
“When we look at the individuals who are low raters, the people who disagree with that statement, a higher proportion are people who mentioned issues with parking and traffic,” he said.
Residents were asked to rate the importance and level of satisfaction with the Town's programs and services, from quality of drinking water and garbage pickup, to recreation and cultural services and services for seniors.
Duncan said notable changes this year compared to 2013 were increases in the perceived importance of parking, bylaw enforcement and the importance of services for new immigrants and foreign workers.
“The takeaway here is that almost everything you do is important to almost everybody who lives here,” said Duncan.
Residents in Banff are highly satisfied with the services they get, with no services getting a lower rating than 88 per cent.
However, compared to 2013, there is a greater proportion of people who say they are not satisfied with services, including for recycling and food services, land use and planning, maintenance, sidewalk cleaning, parking and traffic management.
In terms of value for tax dollars, 86 per cent of residents said they were getting good or very good value for their municipal tax dollars.
“The value for property tax dollars is on par with what we saw in 2013, and in fact, it is slightly higher than what we see in other municipalities,” said Duncan.
There has been a general hold on the overall level of satisfaction of customer service provided by the municipality, including whether it's easy to reach staff, staff are courteous and helpful, respond in a timely manner and help resolve an issue.
Duncan said 87 per cent of residents are satisfied, although the proportion of people who are very satisfied went down to 66 per cent this year compared to 74 per cent in 2013.
He said there are a few areas where there has been a drop in satisfaction rating, including staff helpfulness, staff knowledge and staff's ability to resolve an issue.
“The numbers continue to be quite strong,” said Duncan. “From an internal perspective, there are some minor changes with a couple of those that we have flagged for administration.”
For the most part, general attitudes of people around the Town's public engagement remained static from 2013, with 77 per cent feeling they have enough opportunities to provide input into decision-making, 70 per cent saying the Town does a good job of engaging residents and 69 per cent saying the Town uses information from residents in decision-making.
Duncan said, however, that there was a change in attitude toward the Town's decision-making being reflective of the voice of the majority, falling from 67 per cent in 2013 to 61 per cent in 2017.
“We don't explore in any detail about what the reason may be in this survey,” he said.
“While the survey doesn't answer why, I might hypothesize that council might know some of the reasons why people might disagree with that statement.”
