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SGLI, chooses five more
pilot communities for 2006
The Smart Growth Leadership Institute (SGLI) and the University of Southern California, funded by a grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, have selected five new communities to participate in the third round of its Implementation Assistance Program. They join thirteen other communities (selected in 2004 and 2005) that have already worked with the SGLI, team in implementing smart growth policies.
The five new communities are:
- Rancho Cordova, California
- Traverse City & Grand Traverse County, Michigan
- Columbia, Missouri
- Newton County, Georgia
- The City of Central, Louisiana
The Smart Growth Leadership Institute, a project of Smart Growth America, was created by former Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening to help state and local elected, civic and business leaders design and implement effective smart growth strategies. The Implementation Assistance Program is part of a project called, Making Smart Growth Work: Streamlining Development and Regulatory Reform, a four-year project funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Making Smart Growth Work seeks to identify and eliminate the regulatory barriers that prevent towns and cities from building "walkable", livable, and sustainable, communities. The program provides communities with the expertise they need (in policy, planning, development and design) to gauge whether their current policy and regulatory frameworks, their approval or review processes or design standards encourage and support smart growth.
The program helps to identify problematic policies; reconcile codes and regulations; manage changes in development practice; and, build the community support needed to encourage smart growth and create better communities for the future.
The five communities selected for 2006 will work with the SGLI, team on such issues as revitalizing their older neighborhoods, making development choices predictable, leveling the playing field for smart growth development, protecting valuable farm and ranch land, providing transportation and housing choices, and enhancing the quality of the environment.
Two of the communities, Rancho Cordova and Traverse, will participate in the self-assessment phase of the program. With the help of the SGLI, Team, they will test the Smart Growth Implementation Tools developed by SGLI,. The Tools include a Policy Audit and a Code and Zoning Audit that will help the communities align their policies and codes with the principles of smart growth.
SGLI will work directly with the three other communities: Columbia, Newton and Central, to develop Smart Growth Scorecards that will help the communities to assess the smart growth attributes of any proposed development project. The communities can also use the Scorecard to improve projects, to make development expectations more explicit and to allocate any local smart growth incentives.
SGLI will also provide the communities with a Strategic Growth Assessment that will broadly examine all the opportunities for and obstacles to change in the community. The Assessment will give communities strategic options for how to achieve short and long-term results from their smart growth efforts.
The experiences of these five new communities, along with the first thirteen, will help to shape the National Smart Growth Implementation Kit that SGLI, is developing for the US EPA. The Kit will provide guidance to other communities around the nation as they work to implement smart growth.
The thirteen previous communities included:
SGLI's Team of consultants includes nationally recognized experts in planning and smart growth such as: Gov. Parris Glendening, former governor of Maryland and President of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute; Harriet Tregoning, Maryland's former Secretary of Smart Growth and SGLI,'s Executive Director; Bill Fulton, president of Solimar Research and founder, editor, and publisher of California Planning and Development Report; Will Fleissig, former Director of Denver's Downtown Planning and Development and currently Director for Development of Urban-Villages, LLC; Susan Weaver, member of the Ojai, California, Redevelopment Commission and President of Weaver Research & Consulting Group; Dr. Tridib Banerjee, James Irvine Chair of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Southern California; and Deepak Bahl, Associate Director of the Center for Economic Development, School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the USC.
For more information about the communities or about SGLI,'s technical assistance program, please contact Benjamin dela Pena, SGLI,'s Associate Director for Implementation. Or send email to info@sgli.org.
SGLI PRESS RELEASE: January 1, 2006.
REFER: David Goldberg or Benjamin dela Pena
202-207-3355 x26