The first KAMPLAN Indicators Report was presented to Kamloops city council this week showing that the city is performing positively.

Council adopted the KAMPLAN Implementation strategy in the fall of 2018 which includes a list of 23 indicators to help monitor and evaluate the progress being made towards achieving the goals of the Official Community Plan.

The official plan provides direction to guide decisions on planning and land use management within the jurisdiction of the City of Kamloops. As a long-term strategic planning document, it establishes a growth plan to support a projected population of 120,000 people by 2039.

Mayor Ken Christian says he was happy with what was presented so far. “Kind of mirrored what we heard from the Citizen Satisfaction Survey that we’re doing okay in this town. The livability is going up. There are still concerns about crime and safety and affordability, but we are moving in the right direction on all of those fronts.”

Christian says it is still a bit early to put much stock in the data. “I think what we need to do is commit to this over a longer period of time. If I learned anything in my 18 years as a school trustee, you don’t take a snap shot of student results, you look at the growth in student performance and the same is true for the city of Kamloops. We need to look at transit ridership over a longer period of time, we need to look at crime stats over a longer period of time so we can make the changes that might be necessary or continue to improve those statistics as we move along.”

Some of the emerging trends include growth in the downtown, a boom in the number of multi-family units being built and sidewalks and cycling routes are being added at a higher rate than ever. The two areas that weren’t performing as strong was household energy use and traffic safety.