Sparks city officials continue to encourage people to provide feedback in the initial phase of a community outreach effort to help develop the city’s new comprehensive plan.
The city wants people by February to provide responses to three open-ended questions. Those responses will be analyzed for common themes and then be used to create more detailed questions for phase two of the process.
The questions are:
“My biggest concern for Sparks in the year 2030 is….”
“My wish to make Sparks even better by 2030 is…”
“I love Sparks because…”
People can answer the questions online at www.ignitesparksnv.com.
“There should be an urgency to have your voice heard before February, which is when we’ll be making the transition to phase two,” said Karen Craig, a consultant who is assisting the city with the project. “Having really good, broad input will help make phase two so much more valuable.”
Close to 400 Sparks residents and stakeholders already have completed the phase-one survey
As for what the completed surveys have uncovered so far, Craig said the top three phrases that come up when people are asked what they love about Sparks are small town, family friendly and events.
“This community absolutely loves who they are, so the planning challenge is how do you grow and not lose this amazing sense of community pride and this small-town family feel?” Craig said.
When asked about the biggest concern for Sparks in the year 2030, the most frequent answers were growth and traffic, and when asked to share a wish to make Sparks even better by 2030, the three most common responses were community, events and downtown.
“For phase two, we’ll be taking the responses from this vision phase and asking people to clarify exactly what they mean,” Craig said. “That’s why it’s so important for as many people as possible to answer the questions in phase one before February — those responses will inform the deeper dive questions we’ll be asking in phase two.”
The feedback from residents and others is part of a year-long process to update the city’s comprehensive or master plan, which is designed to guide the city’s growth and development through the year 2030.
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