A team of city consultants is slated to present its final draft of Lawrence’s Cultural Plan — including the results of a survey that, among other things, found artistic activities are more important to Lawrencians’ quality of life than proximity to Kansas City or church life.

The plan to be presented during Tuesday’s City Commission meeting, was funded through a recent grant from the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission, and is the work of city-hired consultants Christine Harris of the Milwaukee-based Christine Harris Connections and Tom Borrup of Creative Community Building in Minneapolis.

Throughout the spring, the consultant team — overseen by a 15-member steering committee with involvement from the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission and other city officials — has hosted several meetings and workshops to gather information from those working in creative fields as well as from the general public.

Their findings helped create a publicly distributed survey that asked participants to evaluate assets and the current quality of cultural life in Lawrence. The questionnaire, which remained active from late May to mid-June, garnered nearly 500 responses — bringing the total number of planning-process participants up to 650.

Participants consistently ranked arts and culture as important components of living in Lawrence, the findings reveal. The survey results also called for more opportunities for artists — funding, studio and housing space, financial investment, education and art incubators.

“The level and spirit of engagement in every aspect of this process was remarkable and rarely seen by the consultants,” read the plan’s 41-page draft.

But Katherine Simmons, who chairs the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission and attended each of the consultants’ public meetings and workshops, said the survey numbers weren’t a big shock to her.

“Considering all the participants who showed up for the public workshops and the level of engagement that we had in all the discussion forums, I wasn’t surprised by the turnout,” she said. “What was surprising were the demographics of responders being younger than they expected.”

The highest percentage of survey respondents, at 22 percent, was between the ages of 25 and 34; that same age group represents just 17.1 percent of Lawrence overall. Respondents aged 55 and up accounted for 37 percent of the survey, compared with 8 percent of the city in general.

Respondents were also more diverse from a racial and gender standpoint — as well as more educated — than the city’s full profile.

When asked what aspects of living in Lawrence are most important to them, the majority of respondents answered: arts, culture and creative activities, followed by downtown Lawrence and the community of people who live here.

The top three arts, culture and heritage programs respondents said they participated in were: art museums/galleries, purchasing original arts or crafts, and art and music festivals.

As for the first place respondents would take a friend or visitor for a cultural experience, the top answer was “overwhelmingly” downtown Lawrence, followed by the Lawrence Arts Center and Massachusetts Street.

As for the results, which will be presented at Tuesday’s commission meeting, Simmons said they simply echoed what many in the arts community can attest to.

The biggest obstacle to engaging in the city’s arts and cultural offerings, respondents said, is “multiple events at the same time.” That’s a positive sign moving forward, Simmons said.

“I think it says what everybody knew,” she said of that particular finding. “Lawrence is a highly artistic and creative community, and they value being a part of that cultural energy that makes up the community.”

The city also recently completed an implementation matrix, which Simmons describes as a “worksheet” for officials to determine the next step of the Cultural Plan.

Commissioners meet at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall to discuss the cultural plan.