The Elevate Elmhurst Parks planning process emphasized community engagement as the cornerstone to creating a plan that will serve the community’s expressed interests and needs. A public awareness campaign encouraged residents to visit the project website to learn more about the planning initiative and to share their feedback through online engagement tools such as an ideas wall, an interactive map, and short surveys. A series of in-person awareness and feedback opportunities were held throughout the community. This first phase of community engagement fed into the creation of a communitywide, statistically valid survey.
The statistically valid survey served as the second community engagement phase. Randomly selected households were invited to answer a series of questions regarding their park and recreation interests/needs and their impression of District services. The same survey was made publicly available after the random sample was collected. The results generated insight and information regarding how the District should prioritize and invest in future services and meet community needs.
At Open Houses and on the interactive project website, a third phase of community engagement involved asking the community a series of questions designed to gather deeper insight into topics requiring further clarification based on engagement phases 1 and 2 data. Results yielded deeper insight into investment prioritization and enhanced understanding of specific park, facility, and recreation interests.
