Kelowna's mayor says it's not all "rainbows and unicorns," but 15 of the 25 indicators used to judge whether the city's Official Community Plan goals are being met are moving in the right direction. And another four are trending the same as last year but three have slipped.
The OCP is the city's main planning document and sets how city hall wants to see Kelowna grow.
"It's not all rainbows and unicorns. We know we have our issues," said Mayor Colin Basran Monday, after city planner Graham Marsh presented the fifth annual Kelowna OCP indicator's report to council.
The report showed only three of the 25 indicators the city uses to judge OCP progress -- vacancy rate, supply of vacant land for single family housing and the increase of pedestrian and cycling infrastructure relative to new roads -- trending in the wrong direction, while four others, including the crime rate, are similar to last year, and three more did not have enough data to compare to last year.
Some of the indicators moving in the right direction include the number of businesses in Kelowna growing their employee base, the proportion of multi-family housing (60 per cent), parks within a five- to seven-minute walk of residents (89.8 per cent) and the number of community gardens (now 12).
"It's good to check in to see how we're doing," said Coun. Luke Stack, adding he was generally pleased with what he heard.
The city has been looking at the indicators since the current OCP was adopted in 2011.