[0:01] hello and thank you for joining me for this second Community Workshop as part

[0:06] of the town of Carefree General Plan update I'm Matt klysico with Michael

[0:10] Baker International we are a planning and design firm that was hired by

[0:14] Carefree to assist in facilitating this town-wide planning effort as the slide

[0:19] shows we conducted our second in-person Community workshop for this project on

[0:24] April 26th consequently this virtual presentation is provided to offer

[0:30] Carefree community members who are unable to join us for for this meeting

[0:34] an alternative way to stay involved and share your feedback

[0:42] now the purpose of this particular meeting is twofold first it's primarily

[0:48] to share Community feedback particularly in regard to the community survey that

[0:53] was put out as part of this General Plan update but it's also to gain some final

[0:59] input from residents so that we can establish a foundation for the

[1:04] preparation the actual drafting of the general plan elements or chapters so

[1:10] this is a very important Workshop in terms of getting that input from

[1:15] community members to give us a firm foundation to start putting pen to paper

[1:23] now if you joined us for our first Community Workshop this graphic is going

[1:28] to be very familiar to you if you haven't joined us for any previous

[1:34] General Plan update workshops um you can see that this particular

[1:39] graphic provides an overview of our general plan process I'm not going to go

[1:45] over it in great detail but for those that have not viewed this we basically

[1:51] break out the general plan process into uh four distinct phases we have our

[1:57] recognize enrich and Achieve phases and then engagement is intertwined

[2:03] throughout the general plan process you can see the various steps that are

[2:08] associated with each phase on the slide and the yellow triangle identifies that

[2:15] we're now getting into the early stages of our enriched phase which is where we

[2:20] would start drafting the general plan as I mentioned on the previous slide so

[2:25] some of the key takeaways from our recognized phase which we just completed

[2:30] is our our community Workshop one that was

[2:35] facilitated back in February so we had good turnout for that and gained some

[2:42] um helpful and very informative uh responses from community members at that

[2:47] particular meeting we also conducted some pop-up workshops where we set up a

[2:52] booth outside the post office and spoke with uh residents as they collected

[2:58] their mail we had two of those one at the end of March and the next the other

[3:05] at the beginning of April um and all of that information

[3:11] um was added to our our information that we

[3:17] gained uh through our in-person events whether it be

[3:24] um our Workshop or our online efforts in terms of our community survey so all of

[3:31] it is being collected and you being utilized to inform our writing efforts

[3:38] um the last point that I'll make on this particular slide is uh please keep in

[3:43] mind that this General plan process doesn't just end at the achieve phase

[3:48] while we do take the plan to the Planning Commission for recommendation

[3:52] and then to Planning Commission for or to counsel I should say for approval

[3:59] ultimately the plan is not finalized until it's placed on what we're

[4:05] currently working towards is the November 2024 ballot for final voter

[4:10] ratification so unlike any other planning or community-led effort within

[4:16] the town this General plan is actually finalized by a vote of uh Town residents

[4:24] and so it's very important for us to hear your input and for you to stay

[4:29] engaged with this process because at the end we're going to ask you to hopefully

[4:34] validate the plan at The Ballot Box and we want to make sure that the plan

[4:40] incorporates the components of the community that are our most important

[4:46] um to to residents so here's

[4:54] here's some of the events and efforts that we've conducted it's by no means

[4:58] comprehensive we have several other social media postings and articles and

[5:06] emails and HOA announcements and flyers that have all gone out but these are

[5:11] just some images of our community Workshop number one our pop-up booth at

[5:17] the post office and our project webpage all making sure that we provide those

[5:24] different touch points within the community so that residents can join in

[5:29] the process um based off their uh busy calendars and

[5:35] in a way that is most convenient for them whether that be in person

[5:39] online or by other means

[5:44] now the format of this particular Workshop was broken out over three

[5:49] stations and so um after I go through these stations

[5:53] you're more than welcome to jump right into the virtual workshop and and view

[5:58] those boards and then answer the questions Associated uh with that

[6:02] particular uh station or you're more than welcome to stay with

[6:08] me and I will be after this particular slide walking through some of the

[6:12] results of the survey um but overall the stations uh focus on

[6:18] one the survey results so station one there's not too much feedback it's

[6:22] giving the highlights and detail of the survey responses station two is then the

[6:29] Vision Revision so as part of community Workshop number one we pulled up the

[6:35] vision statement from the uh current General plan and asked residents to

[6:42] comment on that vision statement what would they like to change what would

[6:45] they like to preserve and based on those comments we then drafted a couple

[6:50] different vision statement options and we're asking you the residents to look

[6:57] at those two options and identify what you like or dislike of those options so

[7:03] that we then land on a preferred approach moving forward that vision

[7:08] statement is very important to the overall foundation of the plan because

[7:13] all the goals and policies are going to be prepared to roll up to achieve that

[7:18] vision and so it really does set the tone and foundation for the plan and

[7:24] therefore we hope that you take some time to look that over and give your

[7:28] input the last station three is goal validation and goal validation is really

[7:35] we pulled out the goals in the existing General plan and we're asking you to

[7:41] review those goals and simply let us know whether whether they should be kept

[7:46] removed or revised by you by gaining your feedback we will

[7:52] start to get a better sense for areas of the plan that we should preserve that

[7:56] are doing their job that are supporting the community in the way that they were

[8:02] intended to and so we don't want to change those items that don't need to be

[8:06] changed but if we see feedback from the community that a particular goal might

[8:13] need some more refinement in order to clarify its exact intent or achieve its

[8:20] desired outcome well then your feedback will help us zero in on those areas that

[8:25] need maybe further attention so those are the three primary stations

[8:30] or areas of input that we're looking to have your feedback so again at this

[8:37] point in the presentation you're more than welcome to skip over to the

[8:42] feedback boards themselves or stay with me and the next few slides I'm just

[8:49] going to give a broad overview of the survey results

[8:54] well if you stayed with me thanks for uh joining uh the survey results discussion

[9:02] um overall you can see on the slide that the survey was open for March 17th to

[9:06] April 17th uh we received a total of 362 responses that's a great turnout we

[9:14] always would love to have more responses but for a community the size of Carefree

[9:19] 362 responses are are uh great and they're great in the sense that that

[9:25] number is actually a statistically significant sample size meaning that we

[9:31] have a higher confidence level that even uh if we were to go out and collect more

[9:37] responses from the community that the results would generally be consistent

[9:42] with what we're seeing um uh within the the current outcomes

[9:48] that the survey showed

[9:53] so getting into the questions themselves question one we just asked

[9:58] um are you a full-time part-time uh resident of Carefree do you own property

[10:04] or a business and you can see that the results actually kind of align with the

[10:10] somewhat composition of the community today that yes 75 of responses or

[10:16] full-time residents but we do have a part of the community that are part-time

[10:20] residents and so some of the survey results showed that 11 of those are

[10:27] part-time residents and then we have uh others that are property owners and then

[10:33] a smaller portion that are our business owners now I should mention up front

[10:38] that these are just the broad results of the survey on on particular questions

[10:45] where it does say other or um share more input uh all of those

[10:51] individual responses are in the formal survey report that you can go to the

[10:58] project website and review in more detail so I would encourage you to uh

[11:04] still open that report because while some of the overall responses uh are

[11:09] detailed in there any individual comments which there were many

[11:14] um for any particular question um are all listed so there were uh there

[11:21] was no um

[11:24] abbreviation of the responses uh we wanted to

[11:29] share all of the comments that any of your friends or neighbors provided so

[11:34] that if there were other observations that residents had we wanted to hear

[11:40] those and not just be limited by the options that the particular questions

[11:45] presented now for question two how long have you

[11:49] lived or owned property or a business and carefree we had a good distribution

[11:53] of responses uh which again gives us some higher confidence in terms of

[12:00] hearing um from those residents who may have

[12:04] lived here for a shorter period five years or less so you can see in the

[12:08] green and yellow um compared to those that have lived

[12:12] here maybe six to twenty years kind of in the orange to Brown area and then

[12:17] those that are 20 years or more so in the in the gray 26 percentile uh area so

[12:25] um as we're drafting the plan where we uh see a benefit in hearing from those

[12:33] residents that are here a shorter period that may have different observations

[12:36] from those residents that have been here for longer periods

[12:41] um and they all bring different thoughts and ideas to the table

[12:46] now what is your age range yes we all know that Carefree uh does have a higher

[12:52] median age than other communities will see in Maricopa County or Arizona

[12:57] overall and so this slide confirms that as you can see almost 60 percent of our

[13:03] uh those who responded are age 65 or older and even with that

[13:09] um majority of those who responded were 45 years or older so

[13:16] um not too uh not too surprising that that here at least the results are

[13:22] generally consistent with census data information

[13:26] now uh when we looked at gender we see almost an exact balance of 48 to 50

[13:33] percent so don't know that we can even get much tighter than that and it's good

[13:38] to see that we're um getting representation from all

[13:42] aspects of the community now in addition to some of those other

[13:47] conditions we also wanted to geographically look at where are we

[13:51] hearing from residents so we broke up the town into four different areas

[13:57] um and you can see based on the results that we had good distribution within

[14:01] those areas particularly when we keep in mind uh the density or or number if you

[14:09] will of residents in those particular areas so

[14:12] um areas two three and four we had a good balance of responses and then area

[14:18] one which has a a lower density in terms of the number of residents

[14:24] um uh that was reflected in the number of responses that we uh received from

[14:29] that particular area so good distribution across the town I'm happy

[14:34] to see that we're not heavily skewed in one area of the town over the other

[14:40] um which helps us make sure that when we're crafting goals and policies that

[14:45] so we're not focusing on one particular portion of the community over another

[14:51] so in question six why do you choose to live in Carefree well you can see in

[14:57] those top even four responses uh a lot of them are all predicated on that

[15:03] notion of the natural environment open space semi-rural character

[15:09] um a recreation and Trail opportunities all related to that quality of life in

[15:15] Carefree um of being kind of in the natural

[15:19] environment and um having a little bit more open space

[15:25] um so uh all of those results uh were consistent with uh generally the tone of

[15:32] the general plan today and so that helps us understand that

[15:37] um that some of the key elements that residents hold or cherish are consistent

[15:45] today as they were 10 years ago when the plan was last comprehensively updated

[15:53] seven was a very uh involved question in terms of it gave many different trends

[16:00] that are uh existing in or around Carefree today

[16:06] and and so we wanted to report on all of the results for this particular uh

[16:12] response rather than some title type of weighted average so uh you can go into

[16:19] the survey report that I mentioned before and uh look at these responses in

[16:27] a little more detail um because I know on this particular

[16:30] slide it's a smaller font um but we we did highlight that maybe

[16:37] four key areas that if you're looking specifically at those

[16:42] um responses where residents identified that it was essential or very important

[16:48] Trend that we should be considering uh those top four focused on traffic

[16:53] congestion semi-rural character Town fiscal sustainability and natural open

[16:59] space and and resource preservation so um those areas give us Direction in

[17:07] terms of possibly seeking more feedback from community members and so you'll see

[17:13] in the um input boards as part of this virtual

[17:18] Workshop you have the opportunity to even share a little bit more input of

[17:26] um of responses or further feedback that

[17:31] are uh uh critical to or associated with those top four options so

[17:39] um this particular slide um in this Workshop we're asking for

[17:44] more feedback to help us zero in now on those areas that residents identified as

[17:51] being very uh important or essential to the community over the next 10 or 20

[17:58] years

[18:01] now question eight how would you rate the overall quality of life in the town

[18:05] here it was very encouraging to see that a majority of responses identified uh

[18:13] carefree as quality of life as being good to excellent and so

[18:19] um we uh certainly want to preserve those feelings as we uh draft this

[18:27] General Plan update and actually maybe we can as a result of some of the

[18:33] outcomes of this General plan seek to to even get those responses uh

[18:38] higher in terms of um quality of life so Carefree is doing

[18:44] a good job and and it's going to be this General plan updates uh responsibility

[18:49] to preserve that and and then build on it

[18:55] now as part of question 9 to proactively assist carefree and planning for the

[19:00] future what are some of the main issues the town should focus on in the next 10

[19:04] or 20 years you can see that the top three responses actually were open space

[19:09] preservation water conservation and water treatment

[19:14] followed by Town fiscal Health Town communication and Public Safety so all

[19:20] topics that are very important ones that are top of mind I think across the

[19:25] community right now so no surprise to us in terms of where residents focus

[19:34] is but those are areas that we're going to be looking at in more detail in this

[19:41] update effort not to say that we're not going to look at all those other areas

[19:45] but um this helps tell us again uh like we

[19:51] discussed in previous responses where we should focus our attention compared to

[19:57] where we might want to preserve or make minimal changes so

[20:03] um so this helps guide us in terms of where we might want to be more specific

[20:08] in our our editing and updating efforts now that gives the overview of the

[20:17] survey responses again I encourage you if you have the time to look at the

[20:22] survey report it provides more detail in terms of the individual responses that

[20:30] may have been shared by residents uh on any particular question and it also

[20:35] gives you a chance to look at some of the responses and and formulate some of

[20:40] your own observations that you might bring to Future meetings

[20:45] um as far as sharing your input or comments relative to the process as it

[20:51] moves along now these boards are going to look a little different as you

[20:56] provide your feedback online but I at least will discuss them for the purposes

[21:02] of again station two is looking at Vision Revision so on at this particular

[21:09] station you see we have two Vision options of option A and option b we're

[21:16] asking residents to identify um what version they prefer either the

[21:23] long option A or the more condensed option b and then any provide any

[21:29] comments of final edits that you would like to see to either option that you

[21:35] prefer Station 3 goal validation as I mentioned

[21:40] before this has all of the goals from the current General plan organized by

[21:46] chapter and we're just asking you to help identify what you think should be

[21:50] kept removed or revised your feedback on that just like the survey uh will guide

[21:57] us to um focus on those particular goals that

[22:01] may need more attention compared to ones that are doing their job and providing

[22:06] the outcomes that they're in were crafted to accomplish compared to maybe

[22:12] some goals that need further refinement to either address present issues or

[22:18] um refine outcomes that aren't consistent with where the community

[22:22] wants to go in the next 10 or 20 years

[22:28] now as part of next steps uh action items we're we're working towards uh

[22:34] publishing the existing conditions analysis to the project website so you

[22:38] can uh in addition to looking at the community survey you can go through uh

[22:43] that document and see some of the background information that was prepared

[22:46] for the community we're having a council work session briefing on May 2nd uh that

[22:54] will be followed by a Planning and Zoning commission work session uh in

[22:58] June and then our next Community Workshop will be a June 19th and so we

[23:04] know that some residents might be traveling over the summer months if you

[23:08] can't join that in-person meeting we will again have a virtual option for you

[23:13] to participate in speaking of participating if you want to remind or

[23:20] share with your neighbors about how to stay involved continue to visit the

[23:26] town's website and go to the Link at the top of the page it will bring you to the

[23:30] project website or sign up for updates through the

[23:35] Carefree connection app um those are all great ways to make sure

[23:40] that you're hearing about upcoming meetings or any new project material

[23:46] with that uh thank you for listening to this virtual presentation

[23:51] um if you have any follow-up needs whether it be to ask additional

[23:56] questions or seek specific information uh Stacy bridge denzak is the key

[24:02] contact for the town um her contact information there is on

[24:08] the slide and with that uh thank you and have a wonderful day and please make

[24:15] sure you go through the community Workshop number two feedback

[24:20] materials so that we can document everyone's

[24:24] um comments and use that information to guide our efforts and in actually

[24:31] drafting um text for this General Plan update

[24:35] thank you and have a wonderful day

CFGP Community Workshop #2 VIDEO

Transcript