SILER CITY — At least half of Siler City residents are unhappy with the town’s economic development, according to survey results from the N.C. Main Street & Rural Planning Center, a subset of the N.C. Dept. of Commerce.
Survey data was presented last Thursday to the Siler City economic development strategic five-year plan steering committee, an 11-person team of local leaders — including Siler City Commissioner Lewis Fadely, EDC Project Manager Sam Rauf and CAM site owner Tim Booras — whose goal is to evaluate Siler City’s economic needs and develop a short-term plan of corrective action. Town Planner Jack Meadows presides over the committee’s activities.
Preliminary results were shared with the committee in August when virtual meetings first began after COVID-19 forced the group into hiatus for several months. But a clear breakdown of data was never compiled into a formal report, according to Bruce Naegelen, MS&RP economic development planner, who oversees 15 counties in the Piedmont including Chatham.
“I had kind of put it aside, it was kind of below the radar and we haven’t talked about it, haven’t seen it, since,” Naegelen said.
The survey featured a 77-person representative sample of Siler City residents. To Naegelen’s surprise, many respondents indicated strong dissatisfaction with the town’s economic development.
In answer to the prompt, “I’m pleased with the overall direction the town is taking,” 50% of survey-takers either disagreed or strongly disagreed.
Another question asked respondents to rank the top five economic development issues the town should focus on.
“Community appearance everybody said that was the top issue,” Naegelen said.
Nearly everyone, 94%, also agreed that “downtown revitalization” was the town’s second-most pressing economic development issue. “Small business development” was ranked third by 71%, followed by “industrial recruitment” and “broadband/internet.”
As for the top five general issues in Siler City, residents were again surprisingly unanimous.
“Job creation and business was 100%,” Naegelen said. “Everybody agreed with that one.”
Most felt that “appearance-aesthetics” should come next before “adequate housing,” “public safety” and “maintenance of streets,” which Naegelen said are “important for economic development but not the big issues that we need to be worrying about for this project at this point.”
But survey respondents did not as strongly agree on the type of growth that would address the town’s issues.
“Retail business growth was 75%,” Naegelen said. “They want to see that increase greatly.”
The next five growth sectors, however — service business, residential, industrial, agricultural and healthcare — each received about 50% support.
“So I just bring this up to show what some of the responses were,” Naegelen said. “We almost have some strategies that we can refer to and look at here.”
Members of the economic development strategic five-year plan steering committee hope the survey data will inform their decision-making process as they plot out Siler City’s future growth.
“There’s some really helpful stuff,” Naegelen said, “in terms of what we’re working on tonight, trying to get an economic positioning statement.”
On Thursday, the group deliberated over its vision statement to refine and direct its objective. Key words and topics emphasized the town’s diverse population, its rich agricultural and industrial heritage, a distinct and vibrant arts scene and its strategic location between the Triangle and the Triad.
After synthesizing its economic vision statement — hopefully by the group’s next meeting, Naegelen said — the committee will begin development of an implementation plan to include no more than four strategies with successive goals.
For example, “we’ll probably have a strategy for downtown development,” Naegelen said. “So, we’re going to come up with some goals, a big goal — a broad kind of thing — and then we come up with some objectives to achieve the goal, and actions to (refine the strategy).”
If the committee were to select downtown development as one of its strategies, a goal might read, “create a successful and vibrant downtown district,” according to Naegelen’s presentation. An objective could be to “develop a framework for a sustainable, non-profit, tax-exempt downtown development organization based on successful downtown revitalization models.”
An action to achieve that result might include researching “mission/purpose statements and bylaws from no more than 3 successful downtown organizations of similar size towns ... Then develop draft organizational bylaws and mission/purpose statement based on these.”
Once strategies have been selected and actions developed, the committee will present its implementation plan to the Siler City board of commissioners for approval. That meeting is tentatively scheduled for April.
The Siler City economic development strategic five-year plan steering committee will meet again on Thursday, Feb. 4.
Reporter D. Lars Dolder can be reached at dldolder@chathamnr.com and on Twitter @dldolder.