This past fall the district conducted a random sample survey of 414 residents via cold call telephone interviewing. One hundred and five people also responded to the survey online.
Telephone respondents were asked on an unaided basis to name the single most important issue facing the District of Oak Bay.
Twenty-four per cent of them mentioned sewage treatment or sewer services, 15 per cent mentioned over-densification, and 10 per cent the infill strategy.
Over-densification and the infill strategy were identified as separate items. However, they are more than just related; infill development is a kind of densification. Taken together the over-densification and infill strategy responses totaled 25 per cent.
Viewed in this light, a pressing issue, if not the most pressing issue, in Oak Bay according to the cold call respondents is over-densification and the infill strategy.
The online results were even more dramatic, perhaps because those respondents were concerned residents who took the time to seek out and respond to the survey. While only 12 per cent mentioned sewage treatment/sewer services, 26 per cent mentioned the infill strategy and 21 per cent mentioned over- densification. Taken together over-densification and the infill strategy responses totaled a whopping 47 per cent.
The mayor of Oak Bay said in a Nov. 4, 2016 Oak Bay News item that the survey allowed council to listen to what he referred to as the silent majority.
If the results of the survey are an indication of what the silent majority is saying, then it has spoken.
Over-densification and the infill strategy is the most pressing issue in Oak Bay at this time.
Bruce Filan
Oak Bay