Are you trying to make Smart Growth work in your community? Could you use some help?
The Smart Growth Leadership Institute, funded by a grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, is looking for communities that have made a commitment to smart growth but are struggling with implementation, building support, identifying the most problematic policies, and other issues that typically accompany a major change in development practice. We will provide selected communities with significant technical assistance from a uniquely talented and experienced team of policy, planning, development and design professionals, including former Gov. Parris Glendening.
The Smart Growth Leadership Institute is a newly established non-profit organization dedicated to cultivating a new generation of skilled smart growth leaders capable of making smart growth a reality. We know there is no lack of rhetoric about the significance of smart growth and the potential of different land-use and development patterns to achieve important policy goals. But we also know that there is a disconnect between good ideas and actual smart growth policy implementation. When developers, local governments, and others attempt to take action based on smart growth principles, they often run into a frustrating thicket of outdated codes, misinformation, and defensive residents.
Our goal is to help communities implement smart growth by overcoming obstacles by providing guidance in areas such as:
· Assessing your codes and zoning ordinances to identify inconsistencies between "Smart Growth" policies and implementing codes that may still contain obsolete standards.
· Examining your approval process to identify points in the process where redundant reviews can be eliminated, where timeframes can be shortened or where activities might be permitted to proceed concurrently.
· Identifying "smart sites," or potential locations for Smart Growth projects.
· Creating design standards and review protocol that will help achieve Smart Growth objectives and deal with prospective neighborhood opposition.
Selected communities will also help to shape a national Smart Growth Implementation Kit that will allow other communities around the nation to gauge whether their current policy and regulatory frameworks, their approval or review processes or design standards encourage and support smart growth.
We will select communities based on the criteria listed below. You can provide us with an initial expression of your interest by filling out the "brief summary" section, which contains four questions (these questions are listed below). Please contact Jessica Cogan at jcogan@smartgrowthamerica.org if you have any questions.
Communities will be selected based on how well they meet the following criteria:
· Smart growth principles and approaches in adopted city or county policies, comprehensive planning documents, budget decisions and/or supporting ordinances and regulations.
· The level of community commitment, as shown by support from elected officials and community leaders, a record of action on Smart Growth issues, and matching local or non-governmental grant funds.
· Applicability of technical assistance needs to other communities around the country.
· Likely impact on improving environmental problems that are created or made worse because Smart Growth policies are not in place.
Brief Summary Information
Begin by briefly responding to these questions and send to Jessica Cogan, Smart Growth Leadership Institute, at jcogan@smartgrowthamerica.org by September 26, 2003. Please keep your response to these questions to no more than one page. After we review the initial submittals, we may invite you to respond to a more comprehensive description of your community, your needs and the key issues you are facing. Please contact Jessica Cogan at jcogan@smartgrowthamerica.org if you have any questions.
· Name of community and contact name, address, phone number and email.
· Describe the type of smart growth issues you face.
· Discuss the smart growth implementation project you are interested in pursuing and what end result you are trying to achieve.
· Describe the local interest in your commitment to smart growth.
We will provide selected communities with significant technical assistance from a uniquely talented and experienced team of policy, planning, development and design professionals, including former Gov. Parris Glendening; Harriet Tregoning, Director of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute; Christopher Williamson, Adjunct/Research Associate Professor of Geography and Planning, University of Southern California; William Fulton, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southern California; William Fleissig, University of Colorado; Tridib Banerjee, James Irvine Chair of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Southern California; Jessica Cogan, Deputy Director, Smart Growth Leadership Institute; and John Bailey, Smart Growth America.