Tool aims to support data-driven municipal and community decision making
The Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) has a new public portal to support data-driven decision-making and transparent reporting on municipal goals and objectives.
The Community Monitoring Dashboard launched publicly at the Tuesday, January 10 Committee of the Whole meeting will be used to track municipal progress on the Official Community Plan and Annual Corporate Plan.
“This is a self-serve, transparent means of demonstrating our progress on our goals,” said Mayor Jack Crompton. “It is a great tool to help community members familiarize themselves with the community’s demographics and economic underpinnings, and I’m excited to see how it will be applied, both internally and by our residents and businesses.”
The portal curates interactive and accessible dashboards of data into three categories. Community performance indicators are tracked under Community Monitoring, Corporate Plan performance is fleshed out in the Corporate Indicators section, and Whistler Facts and Figures provides a basic overview of the resort’s population and core municipal metrics, including housing, economic performance, climate action and land use.
Inside the dashboards, users will find information collated from top data sources like Tourism Whistler’s visitation tracking, Statistics Canada Census information, RMOW operational data and information from local utility providers.
“The idea is to pull together information to empower strong decisions, today and for councils moving forward,” said Crompton.
Among the more critical data sources used is the annual Community Life Survey (CLS), compiled by the municipality. Within Tuesday’s presentation, RMOW staff gave the first look at the 2022 CLS survey results indicating:
- Permanent residents and second homeowners continued to have high levels of overall community satisfaction (84 per cent and 91 per cent respectively), though they showed notable decreases in satisfaction with access to health and medical services, local transit and parking options.
- Whistler remains competitive to benchmark communities with strengths in recreation; arts, culture and heritage opportunities; career and employment opportunities; and active transportation.
- When excluding cost, permanent residents show modest levels of satisfaction (79 per cent) with their living arrangements—though this was a 13 per cent decline in satisfaction since 2017. Of note, the survey also found 45 per cent of permanent residents were spending more than 30 per cent of their income on housing, representing an estimated 5 per cent increase over the same timeframe.
Finally, more than three quarters of all residents indicated they were satisfied with municipal services across the community, with over 80 percent of both resident groups saying they receive good value for their tax dollars.
Residents can read the full Community Life Survey report and register to receive the 2023 Community Life Survey.
