Metro East Sun

During the March 14 Collinsville City Council meeting, council discussed the results of a neighborhood improvement survey. 

Senior planner Caitlin Rice and associate planner Logan Pelo presented the findings to the council. The survey was sent out and available from August of 2022 through the end of the year. The goal of the survey was to get feedback from residents on their level of satisfaction with city services, what aspects of the neighborhood they enjoy and any concerns they have with their neighborhood or the city as a whole.

The city collected just under 450 responses and the top priorities of residents were to feel safe and comfortable in their neighborhoods. Safety was the number one priority and resident comfort is derived from parks, sidewalks, community events, and the like. Residents report being fairly happy with fire and police protection, municipal water services, the parks departments and parks maintenance, with all of these scoring 85% or higher on the satisfaction scale. 

Residents were less happy with code enforcement, streets and sidewalks, both of them around 70%, and then planning and zoning, and trash collection were both at 81% satisfaction. Three of the top five areas of interest surrounded these with residents wanting better sidewalks, or installation of new sidewalks in areas that didn't have them, yard waste pickup and bulk trash pickup options.

"We found that these top three concerns (are) side road/sidewalks, walkability/bikeability, and speeding were pretty much consistently the top three across all the neighborhoods that we surveyed," Pelo said. "I should clarify that we did an analysis where we we kind of broke each neighborhood out so we have the location for each of the survey respondents. We were able to take their location and overlay that on our neighborhood map and actually figure out where the concerns were coming from. And those top three were pretty consistent, and in that same order across all neighborhoods in the city." 

"Once you get past that four and five, it starts to get pretty unique. And while we want to address concerns citywide and those top three all seem to be about transportation in some way, the way that we move and get around the city," Pelo said. "The really interesting thing with the neighborhood improvement program is going to be having that unique neighborhood look. So once we get past these three top priorities at the citywide level with each neighborhood, the plan is to get into the nitty gritty of what's unique about that neighborhood, what their concern profile is per say, and be able to address it on a unique case-by-case basis through our neighborhood meetings."

Council members said they will start meeting with all department heads and developing a task force to tackle big issues first. The council also wants to include a representative from each neighborhood so that they can have input on the process and be able to communicate plans to their neighbors. These meetings will start in late summer of 2023, and will help the city create plans that will address issues citizens want to see solved, as well as foster better relationships between residents and their local government.