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> Issues > Urban Growth and
Development > Smart Bylaws Guide >
Part 1 > Indicators > City of Kelowna
Smart Bylaws Guide – Performance Indicators & Quality of Life Monitoring
– City of Kelowna
The City of Kelowna monitors both the state of the environment
and community quality of life on a neighbourhood by neighbourhood
and watershed basis.
Environmental Indicators
Environmental
Indicators: Monitoring Trends in the City of Kelowna - City of
Kelowna State of the Environment Report 2003
In 1998, the City of Kelowna released a State of the
Environment Report for the municipality to define the base
conditions from which environmental progress could be measured, and
to help with planning future directions in environmental policy and
management. Following the report, the City commissioned a public
survey in 1998 to further rank environmental priorities in the
municipality. The top five environmental concerns identified were
air quality, drinking water quality, waste disposal, loss of natural
space and water supply. The City then held a public workshop to
develop a set of environmental indicators to track the health of the
natural environment in the City. The workshop participants
recommended 45 indicators that were delegated to a working group to
consolidate and revise.
The resulting environmental indicators, released in February
1999, are monitored by municipal staff in various departments, as
part of operational or compliance monitoring. A report on the
results of the monitoring, and how the results change over time, is
presented in an annual report.
Indicators are grouped under the topic areas of air quality,
drinking water, ecology & biodiversity, land use, solid waste
management, surface water quality, transportation, and wastewater
management, and include:
- Air Quality Index (fine particulates and
ground level ozone)
- Ventilation Index
- Drinking Water Quality
- Drinking Water Quantity
- Kokanee Count
- Christmas Bird Count
- Agricultural Land
- Public Park and Open Space
- Single-Family
Housing
- Waste Buried
- Waste Recycled
- Hazardous Waste
Collected
- Local Streams
- Local Beaches
- Okanagan Lake
- Vehicle Ownership
- Vehicle Fuel Types
- Vehicle Ages
- Mode of
Travel
- Vehicle Volumes (Single Occupancy Vehicles)
- Total Sewer
Customers (Population Serviced)
- Wastewater Volume Treated
- Treatment Efficiency
Finally, the Environment Division of the City of Kelowna, as part
of its watershed approach, has generated watershed report cards for
Mill Creek,
Brandt's Creek and
Bellevue
Creek. The report cards give
grades based on technical information for parameters such as
drinking and recreational water quality, fisheries, agriculture and
forestry. Most grades, in 1994 and 1997, are not complimentary
(averaging around a C-). As public information, these grades are an
impetus to change watershed management practices. In many cases, the
grades improved between 1994 and 1997.
Community Indicators
Community Indicators Report Number 1: A Benchmark for
Kelowna,
British Columbia
Using 1996 census data, the City produced a neighbourhood-based
indicators report in 1999 reporting on conditions under the topics
of demographics, housing, employment, education, youth
opportunities, community resources, and crime and safety. The
purpose was to set a benchmark for monitoring social and economic
change in neighbourhoods, and map community resources. A
neighbourhood scale was chosen to facilitate a partnership between
the City's Planning Department and the RCMP because the police
require neighbourhood-specific socio-economic data for
crime-prevention programs. The Planning Department will use the
information to evaluate the effect and relevance of policies in the
Official Community Plan. City staff intend to update the report
every five years to monitor change and target neighbourhood
deterioration.
"Our intention is to make Kelowna a better place by improving the
quality of life, and by addressing issues from a prevention, as
opposed to crisis management, perspective."
Community Indicators
Report Number 1, p.6
Community
Indicators Report Number 2: Indicators from the 2001 Census
Change from 1996 to 2001 follows from the first report, with a
report on developments in the status of indicators and responses to
monitoring results.
Community Indicators Report No. 4 is planned to
"explore crime statistics and comparative quality of life indicators for Kelowna relative to other Canadian cities."
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