Thank you to everyone who took a few minutes to provide feedback about Issaquah Highlands in our 2024 Community Survey! These results help us determine organizational goals and priorities at Highlands Council, Issaquah Highlands Community Association (IHCA) and Highlands Fiber Network (HFN).
We collected responses from 414 people throughout the month of April 2024. New this year, we added four additional language options (Russian, Korean, Spanish and Mandarin) to increase inclusivity and survey participation.
According to survey results, neighborhood crime and safety continues to be the top concern for residents at 72%, which is even with data from last year’s survey. Other areas of concern include traffic and pedestrian safety (40%), land development (30%) and social connectedness (25%).
Connections remains the preferred way for residents to receive community news (59%), followed by the official Issaquah Highlands Facebook page (52%) and Weekly E-News (46%). The results indicate that residents would utilize WhatsApp as an option to stay informed about community happenings, so we’ve created a channel you can access here.
It’s encouraging that 75% of survey takers feel like they belong in Issaquah Highlands, and 63% of residents agree that many opportunities exist for them to connect with neighbors in our community. About 74% of respondents believe Issaquah Highlands is a community where people care about one another.
Results show that a majority of respondents want to attend neighborhood socials (59%), followed by family-friendly music events (48%) and cultural celebrations (47%). Notably, among residents who feel there are insufficient opportunities to connect with neighbors, 77% want to see more neighborhood socials.
Interestingly, almost half of survey takers indicate a decreased likelihood of participating in events if they don’t know anyone else going. Additionally, among the residents who don’t feel like there are many opportunities to connect with neighbors, 54% don’t attend events because they don’t know anyone else going. This is a challenge that Highlands Council is hoping to tackle this year.
Dating back to 2020, residents who are connected to our community’s fiber internet service have indicated that they highly value its reliability (48%) and fast speeds (45%), and HFN has plans to roll out new service offerings this year designed to dramatically improve reliability and offer even faster speed.
Survey takers are most interested in >1 Gigabit service (54%), followed by public Wi-Fi in parks (34%), HFN-provided router/firewall (28%) and HFN-provided Wi-Fi options (26%). HFN plans to announce new >1 Gigabit services, along with options to get an HFN-provided router/firewall and Wi-Fi device sometime this summer.
Respondents are satisfied with the overall IHCA administration (73%) as well as the response time (71%) and courtesy (71%) of staff. Read about some of our community association’s accomplishments from the last year and future initiatives in the IHCA 2024 Annual Report here.
Residents are pleased with IHCA landscaping and maintenance crews. About 90% of survey takers said they are satisfied with landscape services, and 94% are happy with the community’s open spaces, parks and trails. The goat program is also well-received (76%) by residents, which is exciting because the goats return to Issaquah Highlands in July.
Additionally, the survey indicates that respondents are content with the work of the maintenance team, showing high approval ratings for common areas and play structures (both at 80%), as well as the Sport Court on Park Drive and basketball courts (71%).
We appreciate your feedback and look forward to serving this growing community for many years to come! Find more survey results here.
We are grateful for all the input received and look forward to the next year ahead. Your ongoing support is deeply appreciated, and we are excited about the opportunity to improve our programming, communications and services moving forward.
