Fort McMurray on the route to safe growth

Written by Holly Hashimi
Wednesday, 22 February 2012 10:29

A former police officer who now works with communities to create sustainable, safer environments has left an impact on Fort McMurray.

Greg Saville, who created SafeGrowth and has implemented it in Saskatoon and Grande Prairie, has been to the city twice and both times felt the bad rap from things like MacLeans’ Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities in Canada 2010 are unwarranted, but there are still problems.

Fort McMurray came 28th in the 2009 issue and jumped into fifth spot in 2010 in the magazine’s annual report.

“Fort McMurray has problems that need to be tackled, a lot have been left alone too long,” said Saville. “It has a downtown area with lots of concerns…drug and alcohol problems that need to be addressed.”

However, he added, there is a strong group of individuals looking to improve Fort McMurray.

“There are a lot of people doing tremendously positive things,” he said, adding he was “very impressed” by the quality of people he worked alongside in Fort McMurray.

Tracey Tester, senior planner of community development planning with the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, implemented SafeGrowth—a project which uses strategies of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), social and enforcement strategies to sustain prevention for the long-term.

According to Tester’s Crime Plan, the SafeGrowth program was designed to give community groups and service providers the chance to develop suitable neighbourhood capacity while creating solutions for local public safety concerns.

“The opportunity came up…the province was offering funding for communities to help look at ways to reduce crime,” said Tester. “At the time, the MacLeans article came up that put Fort McMurray within the top 10 of high crime rates across Canada.”

She invited Saville to come to Fort McMurray to help assess a portion of the downtown—the area at the intersection of Franklin Avenue and Main Street.

With a team of seven—a social planner, parks technician, representatives from planning and development, Safe Community Wood Buffalo and the RCMP—the Crime Committee was formed.

SafeGrowth required diagnosing what the area’s problems were and looking at statistics.

First a safety audit was conducted. Armed with lists of questions, they observed how they felt in the area at noon on a Saturday as well as at 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. on a Friday night.

“We went through the questions: How does this feel? Are there many dark places?” said Tester, adding the audit was done in January 2010 and it was -35 C.

After the audit, committee members began interviewing business owners in the area.

“We wanted to ask how they felt, how the staff felt…the interviews were very, very telling,” said Tester. She added one of the most surprising results of the study, in her opinon, was the amount of violent crimes that went unreported.

“At the end of the day, we want to be able to say we were actually able to reduce the calls for service in this neighbourhood,” said Tester.

Some recommendations from the Crime Plan:

•A plan structure with neighbourhood focus. When it comes to capacity building and neighbourhood development, safety planning should be implemented. The group recommended identifying distinct geographical areas in the municipalities as a starting place for implementation. The committee identified neighbourhoods in the lower townsite—Central Business District, Borealis, Franklin Retail Centre, Clearwater, Alberta Drive, Birchgrove, Prairie, Riverside, Snye and MacDonald Island Park.

•Co-ordination of plan. It was recommended the future implementation of the plan be administered by the current Crime Committee, which may change its name in the future. Membership in the committee could contain representatives from the municipality’s planning department, land department, community neighbourhood development, public works, engineering department; the RCMP; Safe Community Wood Buffalo; the board of education.

•Personnel (neighbourhoods). In each neighbourhood, the crime committee will help to solicit community participation into Neighbourhood Safety Teams.

•Policy (municipality). The Crime Committee and Planning Department need to carefully examine municipal policy and advise decision makers on congruency with safety planning. Where discrepancies exists, modifications should be made.

•Technology. The committee discovered there are currently inadequate crime analysis and computer resources dedicated to mapping crime. They identified some technology and resource personnel who can fill gaps. Funding and resources should be made available so this can be implemented.

•Neighbourhood engagement—Wood Buffalo University. The committee developed an idea to solicit participation and deliver training to neighbourhood participants.

•Resources. A full time co-ordinator should be assigned to run the Crime Committee, co-ordinate between various city departments and monitor urban development in the city to ensure compliance with the plan.