Smart Growth Implementation Tools
The Smart Growth Leadership Institute, through a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is developing a set of tools to help communities untangle the thicket of policies and procedures that get in the way of implementing smart growth strategies.
Together, the tools will form the core of the National Smart Growth Implementation Kit, which we are scheduled to release in the 3rd quarter of 2007. The Kit 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.
The tools include the following:
- The Smart Growth Policy Audit Tool helps communities identify relevant sections in their policies that either encourage or discourage smart growth. (Community policies can be outlined in visions statements, general and comprehensive plans, and in transportation, road or water and other policy documents.)
- The Smart Growth Code and Zoning Audit Tool helps communities identify inconsistencies between smart growth principles and their local regulations and codes. (Community regulations can be usually be found in codes and zoning documents, subdivision regulations, stormwater regulations, traffic plan codes, etc.)
- The Smart Growth Project Scorecard helps communities to evaluate proposed development projects (or competing project proposals) against smart growth principles and best practice attributes. (Communities have used the scorecard as a hurdle for greenlighting a proposed project, or as a seal of good housekeeping for model projects, or as a bargaining tool to identify areas for improvement in proposed project plans.)
- The Smart Sites Tool is a matrix that helps communities match potential infill sites and local, state and federal incentives with appropriate, smart growth projects;
- The Smart Growth Design Guidelines help communities develop a template of design criteria for either specific sites slated for redevelopment (like old commercial corridors) or for general community design guidelines (for roads and public areas).
The tools are currently in draft form. You can see how we used the tools by reading our reports from the communities we've worked with. Please email or call us if you would like a copy of the latest draft of each of the tools