Inner Greenbelt Survey Results

The Board of Directors is pleased to share with you the results of the recent Inner Greenbelt Survey, and future plans as decided by the Board at its meeting on September 11, 2020.

Our thanks to Rob Neville, Unit #37, for his initiation, hard work, planning, and oversight of this project, including the description flyer, survey design, and survey results compilation. He also created a set of logos, from which the survey respondents chose the one you see above, which represents the Board’s vision of a Safe and Connected Community. The logo now appears on our website: https://www.2800waymaker.com/

In his final survey analysis, Rob provided the following Executive Summary:

“Great engagement from a very happy community. A recent and dramatic demographic shift towards younger families with children. Strong support for the Greenbelt Project, with primary concerns being noise, cost, logistical details and preservation of our natural beauty. Folks favorite alternative ideas were a pool or dog park. Interest groups are in very high demand, with wide support for happy hours and holiday gatherings. Logo #3 was the clear winner.

My recommendation: The Greenbelt Project is a logical step for our community given the change in demographic, safety concerns and this strong community support. However, our greenbelt is a jewel and this project cannot be done halfheartedly, on a shoestring budget, with a poor outcome like the well project. Therefore, we should commit to a higher spend, engage a landscape architect and design this correctly, in stages, using the best materials, providing an access point via the mailboxes from the outset. Greenbelt hours should be limited to reduce noise. We should consider adding a small fenced area for dogs at a later stage.”

The Board was pleased that the survey response rate was 55.7%, with an added 5 email responses to Rob. This is an excellent response rate for a one-time survey with a rather quick deadline. We are also heartened that 92% of respondents indicated that they are “happy or very happy” to be living in the Rim! This is our first large step in producing a Safe and Connected Community. (For those of you interested in detailed results of the survey, please click here for a compilation of Survey Responses.)

The survey has guided the Board in moving ahead with a plan to have a landscape architect look at all opportunities for improving the inner loop greenbelt, ranging from reducing the erosion and making it more beautiful and attractive, to adding family relaxation areas such as the hike/bike trail and benches, based upon neighbor input from the survey.

We hope and expect that there will be more neighbor discussion of the inner greenbelt project at our upcoming Annual Neighborhood Meeting in January, 2021.

The Board noticed that survey results represented a range of suggestions from “dreams” of owners that may not be cost-feasible, to changes that are reasonable and could be implemented on a stepwise basis over time. We appreciate those who took the time to share these other ideas to improve our community, and we will address some of those suggestions at a later date.

The survey showed a tremendous amount of support for interest groups, particularly socializing opportunities such as Happy Hours, holiday parties, potlucks, etc. In response, the Board would love to create a social committee, and Melissa Chan, a Board member, is willing to organize it. If you are interested in being a part of our neighborhood social committee, please contact Melissa at chan.melissas@gmail.com. There was also interest in Bridge, scrabble, cards and book clubs. In order to help facilitate the organization of such interest groups, and to help build our vision of a Safe and Connected Community, we created a private group on the social app Nextdoor, called Davenport Rim Community. We would love as many neighbors as possible to join and share a little about themselves. This is a great place for you to post your interests and see if anyone would like to walk, play Bridge, or start a book club! Please click on the link to join https://nextdoor.com/g/8nz40hzop/

For those of you who took the time to respond, we sincerely thank you for your time and thoughtful completion of the survey. For those of you who did not reply, feel free to make comments to either Rob Neville or the Board after you read the survey results.