OV Path Forward: 10 minutes of your time can impact the next 10 years!
Published on February 21, 2024
By Bayer Vella
Town of Oro Valley Planning Manager
Oro Valley is a special place and residents highly value the Town’s views, natural beauty, public safety, and friendliness. How can the Town maintain these values and continue to improve?
To date, hundreds of residents and community members have already provided more than 2,000 comments to build your next 10-year Town action plan, known as OV’s Path Forward. The process is just getting started and your direct participation is essential to this effort!
To continue the conversation, we are asking everyone to complete the big community survey, available on OVPathForward.com through March 15. In just 10 minutes, you can help establish the community’s vision and values for the next 10 years. You are invited to answer questions like:
- Should Oro Valley be a bedroom suburban community or be more self-sufficient with additional opportunities to shop, work, live and play within Town limits?
- Is it important for Oro Valley to be known as a family-friendly community?
- What are your priorities and expectations related to water, traffic, development, public safety, and more?
For your convenience, a print version of the survey is available in this edition of the NW Explorer and at the Community Recreation Center, Town Hall, and Oro Valley Public Library. The survey is also being conducted via phone by FMR Associates to ensure the results are statistically representative of Oro Valley.
Taking the big community survey is just one of many opportunities people can share their ideas.
Oro Valley’s quality of life is the focus of this action planning effort, which is divided into three steps. This “Let’s talk” first step is focused on listening to your ideas and perspectives. Although often associated with development issues, the plan charts the community’s path on the biggest of community topics including:
- Public safety
- Traffic and mobility
- Land use and development
- Environment and views
- Housing and economic development
- Trails, bike and pedestrian connectivity
- Water use and conservation
- Town finances and services
- Climate and sustainability
Getting involved is easy and convenient. Beyond the 10 minutes it takes to fill in a survey, events at your favorite parks, shops, restaurants, and more, are scheduled throughout May. You can also share your ideas and discuss important topics online through forums, take quick polls, learn what the Town is doing today, and identify future community improvement needs on a map. In fact, this is the first time the Town has launched an interactive map tool that allows people to identify their favorite places to bike or walk and any areas where roadway, bike or trail improvements are needed.
Over the summer, the community’s responses will be used to assemble a vision and list of common values to build an action plan for Oro Valley’s future. At the end of the summer, drafts of each will be taken back to the community for further refinement and to make sure they are true for Oro Valley residents.
The results of this “Let’s talk” first step will create the foundational building block of the 10-year action plan. The “Let’s think” second step will kick off at the end of this year and residents will be invited to participate in more focused conversations aimed at understanding the community’s concerns and drafting actionable goals and policies for water, development, safety, and more.
OV’s Path Forward is the best opportunity for you to spark action in the community.
The plan not only includes the community’s vision, values, and goals, but also measurable actions that will be implemented over the 10-year timeframe.
These actions lead to meaningful results in the community. Many programs with real results stem directly from previous 10-year action plan efforts. This includes the Town’s innovative public art in shopping centers, park improvements, public safety programs, award-winning saguaro conservation, and protection of the views that make Oro Valley unique.
Oro Valley strives to deliver on all the promises made to residents during the 10-year action plan process. To date, 96% of the measurable actions from the Your Voice, Our Future Plan, ratified by the voters in 2016, have been completed or are actively being pursued. Ongoing protection of saguaros, improvements to the Community Recreation Center, and expansion of Naranja Park are just a few visible results stemming from this plan.
Don’t wait, participate today!
For the plan to be true to Oro Valley residents with measurable actions that will be implemented over 10 years, all ages and diverse areas of OV need to get involved. Whether you participate online or in the community, your voice matters.
Your 10 minutes to take the big community survey can impact OV for the next 10 years! Your help is needed to shape Oro Valley’s future. Please go to www.OVPathForward.com to complete the survey and join the online conversations. It will help set OV’s Path Forward as a community!