Implementation Program Assistance-Background

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.

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and others attempt to take action based on smart growth principles, they often run into a frustrating thicket of outdated codes, misinformation, and defensive residents.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.

Please contact if you have any questions.

TEAM BIOGRAPHIES

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? 2003 Smart Growth Leadership Institute, a program of Smart Growth America.
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