On June 18, the city council adopted the Southlake 2035 Health and Wellness Master Plan. This initiative focuses on bettering Southlake's health and wellness through collaborations across city departments and input from the community. Ken Baker, the Southlake senior director of planning and development services, is one of the many people who worked with city council to get this plan developed and adopted.
IF YOU LOOK AT ANY THRIVING COMMUNITY… health and wellness is a key component, and Southlake has a very long tradition with comprehensive planning. When you look at successful cities in the country, health and wellness is a very important component of that success.
WE WERE ASKED BY OUR MAYOR AND COUNCIL… to come up with a plan that addressed health and wellness. There were a number of components going on in the city before [that] various departments were doing or had efforts that were health and wellness-related, such as parks. There was actually a lot going on in the city, and so what we wanted to do was to consolidate all those efforts and identify them to see if there were any opportunities for efficiencies on those services to be provided. [We] also wanted to see what the needs were for the community going forward.
IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLAN… all the city departments were involved, and that was one of the exciting components of that. A lot of times when we develop our master plans, we’ll work with parks or public works, but in this effort, we were involved with all the major city departments. [They] participated in the development because it was broad enough.
WE LOOKED AT REALLY FOUR MAIN… focus areas. They are built and natural environment, mental and physical health, age-friendly community and community resiliency. The built and natural environment focuses on anything from infrastructure to open space. Mental and physical health is another element — in the context of overall health and wellness, some of those topics include emotional health, public health and physical activity. Age-friendly community — we’re trying to build an environment that works for young kids and works for older individuals. That focuses on everything from age-friendly amenities, safety [and] social connection. And then community resiliency focuses on not only how we respond to potential disasters but also other things such as enforcement of building code [and] mosquito vector control.
IN TERMS OF HOW WE IMPLEMENT OUR COMPREHENSIVE PLANS… we take the recommendations in each department. We’ll look at those recommendations and include those in their work plan. One thing we strive for in the city is that you see a lot of times, these cities develop these nice master plans, and they really don’t get implemented. But in Southlake, we truly use these comprehensive plans as a way to evaluate resource allocation...and we also create a semiannual report that shows how the plan is being implemented.
WE SEE [THIS PLAN] AS A PARTNERSHIP… so it’s not just limited to city departments. It can include the school; it can include other agencies. We already have a good relationship with the county health department.
THE CITY OF SOUTHLAKE IS ACTUALLY… probably one of the very first cities, I would say, in the state that has done a true health and wellness plan. There may be one or two other ones out there, but I’m not familiar with many other cities in the region or the state that are doing that. So it’s something fairly new, a new comprehensive plan element. We didn’t really model it after anybody else.
I THINK THE FEEDBACK FROM THE COMMUNITY HAS BEEN… positive. [We] had input from our youth, from our seniors, from our school district, and then we had a good representation from the community thanks to the board that helped develop it. It's really representative of the broad range of citizens. I think what this document does is provide the foundation to ensure that we are always addressing health and wellness through our strategic planning.
THERE’S ALWAYS BEEN A NUMBER OF GREAT EFFORTS… going on in the city, and we’ve had a number of volunteers and staff and programs in place that have always provided either services or information. What this plan does is take those efforts to make sure that people know about them, that they’re in place but also try to look in the future to make sure we’re addressing the needs. And we’re looking out 10 to 20 years at how our community is going to be evolving.