Residents would highly recommend Longmont as a good place to live with coveted trails, recreation and a library, a community survey of over 1,000 residents said.
Longmont has a “small town feeling, a family atmosphere and a friendliness,” Esther Campbell, project manager for the ETC Institute, which conducted the survey, told the city council Tuesday night. Campbell admitted to the council that she took part of Tuesday off to enjoy the city’s trails and parks.
“I seriously don’t want to go home tomorrow,” Campbell said.
The survey did uncover some trouble spots including the lack of quality affordable housing for the homeless, and dissatisfaction with the enforcement of local traffic laws. Many residents who were surveyed also thought the city was growing too fast and lacked sustainable, green jobs, Campbell said.
Councilor Marcia Martin said many of the concerns raised among residents are the same problems the council is taking on. “The city is already prioritizing these as a need,” she said.
In all, residents said they are satisfied with the overall quality of city services provided by Longmont with 86% satisfied, compared to the National Average of 51%.
A majority of residents also gave Longmont high ratings in the overall quality of life in the city. At least 87% indicated that Longmont was an “excellent” and “good” place to live, and 83% as a good place to raise children, according to the survey.
A total of 1,031 residents returned the surveys that resulted in a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points at the 95% level of confidence, according to a city staff report to the city council.
The survey did reveal that four police services decreased in satisfaction from 2018.
The decreases were in the overall quality of police services (-25%), enforcement of local traffic laws (-23%), efforts by Animal Control to meet public needs (-19%) and efforts by police to prevent crime (-16%), according to the survey.
At the same time, residents’ feelings of safety have increased, according to the survey. Since 2018, residents feel more safe in Downtown Longmont at night (+5%), overall in Longmont at night (+4%), in their neighborhood at night (+2%), and in their community parks, open spaces and trails (1%), the survey states.
