Email icon Back to Search

The City of Kitchener’s Compass Kitchener citizen advisory committee says the City has met or exceeded its expectations as it delivers on strategic projects committed to as part of its 2019-2022 Strategic Plan. Watch this short ‘Year in Review’ video for a summary of the City’s strategic accomplishments. 

Compass Kitchener is a volunteer committee comprised of Kitchener residents that provides independent feedback to City staff and council on how well it delivers on its commitments. Compass Kitchener presented a report to council highlighting six strategic projects that exceeded their expectations, and six that met their expectations. None failed to meet their expectations. 

“Our strategic planning process is unique because it is developed in partnership with Compass Kitchener and our other citizen advisory committees,” said Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic. “The last two years have been very challenging while City Council and staff worked to balance pandemic management while also moving forward key community priorities.  In reviewing Compass Kitchener’s report on how we’ve progressed on the community’s key strategic initiatives, I’m as pleased as they are about how well we’ve managed to deliver on these key commitments including climate action, affordable housing, economic development and our work on equity, anti-racism and Indigenous initiatives.” 

The projects that met expectations were: 

The projects exceeding expectations were: 

“We are very impressed with what the city has accomplished so far with its current Strategic Plan, particularly given the number of staff on temporary leave or diverted to urgent matters responding to the pandemic,” said Compass Kitchener Chair Judith Stephens-Wells. “In our recent evaluation it was really impressive to find that of the 12 completed projects we reviewed, six projects exceeded our expectations, and the other six met all our expectations.” 

Compass Kitchener identified the following areas where additional effort would be useful to advance the implementation of the 2019-2022 Strategic Plan including budget and project management, progress reports and presentations, United Nations sustainable development goals, public engagement, website, affordable housing and the strategic plan dashboard. 

The City of Kitchener 2019-2022 Strategic Plan was developed in cooperation with Compass Kitchener through a yearlong process of public consultation. That consultation resulted in five strategic goals chosen by the community, expressed through 25 actions that will improve the lives of Kitchener residents, all aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 

Part of the strategic plan is a commitment to provide the community with periodic updates on its progress to date – the 2021 end-of-year video outlines the City’s major strategic accomplishments to date, as well as providing a look forward to some of the activities planned for 2022. 

More information about the City of Kitchener’s 2019-2022 Strategic Plan is available at kitchener.ca/ourplan. 

 

For more information, contact: 

Nicole Amaral 
Manager, digital media and creative services 
City of Kitchener 
nicole.amaral@kitchener.ca