By 1808Delaware
More than 2,100 Westerville households weighed in on how they view their city during a 42-day survey conducted in the fall of last year. The results, just released, show a community that continues to feel strongly positive about where it lives. Residents most often describe Westerville as safe, family-friendly, and comfortable, while also pointing to property taxes, traffic, and development as the issues that concern them most.
The survey was designed to evaluate residents’ perceptions of City government, municipal services, community services, the City’s economic status, and other aspects of community life. The 2025 edition retained many of the same questions used in prior years, while adding new items aimed at more recent areas of City interest. A total of 2,158 households took part.
How Residents Describe Westerville and Why They Live There
Residents’ perceptions of Westerville remain very positive overall. When asked to describe the community, respondents most often used the words safe, family-friendly, and comfortable.
When asked why they live in Westerville and how important each reason is, respondents gave overall safety of the community the highest rating by a wide margin. The next most highly rated reasons were the quality of City services, the family-friendly nature of the City, and access to quality City parks and recreation space. When asked what they like least about living in Westerville, property taxes were cited by a wide margin as the top negative. The next most commonly mentioned concern was too much development.
Priorities, Safety, and Service Satisfaction
In terms of resident priorities for City action, public safety and emergency management was selected as the most important issue, followed by fiscal management and responsibility. Within the safety category, maintaining emergency response times was the most frequently mentioned safety priority, consistent with past surveys. The second-most common safety priority was routine patrol of residential areas.
Residents again reported high levels of perceived personal safety overall, including feeling safe in their homes and in their neighborhoods during the day. Perceived safety was somewhat lower in City parks, bikeways, and leisure paths, though residents’ ratings in those locations still equated to “safe.”
The survey also indicates that Westerville’s customer service metrics largely held steady compared with recent survey cycles. Some measures improved while others declined. Notable drops were reported in opinions related to bikeways and leisure paths, sidewalk maintenance, and several utility services.
Growth, Transportation, Media Habits, and Awareness Gaps
Residents continue to report satisfaction overall with land use, the availability and pricing of housing, and the City’s management of economic growth, but the survey notes that satisfaction in these areas has declined somewhat. Two areas flagged for decline were opinions on traffic in Westerville and views about the City using tax incentives to attract new businesses.
On the communications side, City publications were again the most commonly cited source of information. Social media usage continued to increase as a resident information source, and the survey notes a shift away from Twitter/X toward Instagram, along with mentions of newer services such as Bluesky and Threads. The 2025 “Current Events” portion of the survey covered a range of topics, including social media engagement, community events, volunteerism, fiber-to-the-home, COTA Plus transit services, Westerville TV, and the Comprehensive Community Plan.
A series of questions about City special events showed high levels of satisfaction across all events. Volunteerism results were more mixed: many residents reported a history of volunteerism, but relatively few were familiar with volunteer opportunities connected to the City, and even fewer had volunteered with the City or currently volunteer with the City.
Awareness of Westerville TV was low and the number of residents who reported watching it was also low. On fiber-to-the-home, residents were relatively supportive of the concept of a City offering, but a significant percentage reported they did not know whether they supported it or not. COTA Plus showed moderate levels of awareness but very low usage. Finally, items related to the Comprehensive Community Plan produced low levels of awareness and relatively low interest in participating through focus groups or other surveys.
