Growth Management and Land Use Planning in Your Community

Towns Cities and Counties have plans setting forth how an area should grow i.e. shopping centers, new schools, housing projects and commercial, residential, institutional or industrial development. Your Local Area Plan shows how anticipated growth is likely to affect quality of life for current and future residents as well as visitors to the community. 

A Quality of Life Growth Management Plan

What Is It public opinion surveys show that the quality of life factors people view as being most affected by poorly managed growth are: schools, traffic and various environmental resources.  Other quality of life factors potentially affected by growth include: air quality; water resources such as streams, lakes, tidal waters or wells; crime; farmland loss; flooding; historic, archaeological and cultural resources; housing affordability; jobs and a healthy economy; neighborhood street safety; open space loss; park and recreation areas; placing incompatible uses near neighborhoods; police and fire services; property value; safe places to walk and bike; scenic views; shifting cost of growth from taxpayers to developers; shopping opportunities; trees and forests; wildlife.

Quality of Life Plans preserve and enhance anticipated growth if they:

present quantifiable criteria for assessing the effect of growth on each factor affected by development;

based on criteria that show how past growth has affected each quality of life factor;

show how the effect is likely to change with anticipated growth;

propose actions that prevent a decline in quality of life and enhance existing ones, and

provide factual basis for why these actions are likely to produce the benefits claimed in the plan.

Quality of Life Growth Management Example

The following illustrates how the six components of a Quality of Life Growth Management Plan would play out with regard to schools.  The quantifiable value for assessing school impact is percent utilization - enrollment ÷ capacity. The planning area is served by four public schools.  First the plan would show current utilization at the four schools.  Enrollment is based on actual student count; capacity is based on established formulas such as 20 students per classroom times the number of classrooms in the school. 

Next, the plan shows how enrollment would change with the anticipated growth presented elsewhere in the plan.  Many developing areas see an annual population increase of about 1%.  The 2026 enrollment below is based upon this average increase.  Of course enrollment reflects birth rates when tend to follow peaks and valleys.  The following table shows that at the end of the ten-year period -2026 - overcrowding at the three schools will become far worse.

The Actions recommended in the plan for resolving this quality of life issue are: 1 build a new elementary school and 2 expand the middle school.  The table shows this resolves overcrowding.

School	2026 Enrollment	2026 Capacity	Utilization
Smith Elementary	501	535	94%
Lincoln Elementary	484	600	81%
New Elementary	515	600	89%
Washington Middle Addition of 200 seats	1055	1100	96%
Jefferson High	1140	1501	76%

A New Plan for Your Area if your current plan is about to expire or rates poorly based on the Quality of Life Growth Management system, we can assist you in carrying out the outlined steps and/or conduct a community workshop and assist you in formulating a planning strategy for your community.

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