Programs and Processes
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Programs and Processes
Each state establishes its own growth and land use laws and policies; accordingly implementation programs and processes have developed appropriate to the institutional arrangements and preferences of that state. Again, some processes rely on requirements and regulations (Government), others provide incentives and penalties, and some are voluntary (Governance).
Participation Process Program
Government


Governance		 Required
  • State writes plan, local plans must be consistent
  • State requires localities to plan, reviews, and approves plans
  • Local/county plans required
  • Florida State Comprehensive Plan
  • Oregon Senate Bills 100 and 101
  • Tennessee Public Chapter 1101
    • Encouraged
  • Cross-acceptance of plans
  • State benchmarks developed by government
  • Statewide or local government incentives
  • New Jersey cross-acceptance process
  • Oregon Progress Board (Oregon Benchmarks)
  • Maryland Priority Funding Areas
  • Urban Structure Program
    • Voluntary
  • Local plans coordinate with regional plan
  • State benchmarks developed by non-government agency
  • DRCOG Mile High Compact
  • SANDAG self-certification of plans
  • New Jersey Futures benchmark program

    • Descriptions of examples in bold-text in the chart above:
    Participation in Voluntary Cross-acceptance Process
    STATE OF NEW JERSEY
    New Jersey's State Planning Act employs a voluntary Cross-acceptance process during State Plan preparation and Plan Endorsement to promote state, county, and local consistency with the State Plan. Cross-acceptance involves comparison, negotiation, impact assessment and final review of changes to the State Plan in consultation with municipalities, counties, regional and state agencies and the public prior to adoption of the State Plan.
    Scale:
    State-wide.
    Administered by:
    The cross-acceptance process is administered by the State Planning Commission, with the coop-eration of county and municipal governments, citizens, businesses and organizations.
    Funding:
    The state created and funds the State Planning Commission and its professional staff. It provides $40,000 to each of the 21 counties to help underwrite the cost of plan cross acceptance. It also provides modest grants to eight urban centers to increase public involvement. Since 1999, the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs has provided $3 million per year in "smart growth" planning grants to assist local governments in developing plans consistent with the State Plan.
    When developed:
    The New Jersey Legislature passed the State Planning Act in 1985. The State Planning Act affirmed that the State of New Jersey needed sound and integrated statewide planning in order to "conserve its natural resources, revitalize its urban centers, protect the quality of its environment, and provide needed housing and adequate public services at a reasonable cost while promoting beneficial economic growth, development and renewal." The first cross-acceptance process began in 1989, when the preliminary State Plan was presented to the counties for review and comparison to their plans. The first State Plan was adopted in 1992.
    How it works:
    Changes to the State Plan Policy Map in response to changes in information and circumstances may be initiated at any time. However, changes to other provisions of the State Plan, such as its goals, policies, delineation criteria and monitoring indicators and targets, are only considered through the cross-acceptance process. The State Planning Commission, which includes representatives of state agencies, local government and the public, and its profes-sional staff prepare a Preliminary Plan and Reexamination Report recommending proposed revisions. Each of New Jersey's 21 counties files a formal report in response in consultation with their municipalities (Counties have a limited land use role, as New Jersey is fully incorporated into 566 municipalities that implement their own planning and zoning). Differences are reconciled through formal negotiations which result in an Interim Plan. The Interim Plan is subject to an independent, comprehensive impact assessment study. The Commission may revise the plan prior to public hearings for final review prior to its adoption of the plan. After several years of implementing the Plan, a new round of cross-acceptance may be initiated.
    New Jersey's first State Plan was adopted in 1992. The second State Plan process began in 1997 and ended with adoption of the revised State Plan in March 2001. These plans provide the statewide framework for channeling development and redevelopment into developed metropolitan areas and designated centers in suburban and rural areas, improving the effectiveness of existing and new infrastructure systems, reducing unwanted sprawl, and retaining farmland and environmentally sensitive open space. This guidance is welcomed by many local jurisdictions. Cross-acceptance is vol-untary and while the state has an increasing number of incentives for conformance with the plan, non-conformance with the State Plan can and does occur. However, state agencies and local municipalities that have based their plans on consistency with the State Plan have had their plans upheld in court. The Plan Endorsement process provides a less time constrained opportunity to reconcile plans and change the State Plan Policy Map for specific areas during implementation of the State Plan.
    Application to Utah:
    The cross-acceptance process provides an example of local control and voluntary participation in statewide planning. It is built upon the good faith effort of various jurisdictions comparing and negotiating between themselves and the state. This consensus-based process is time intensive and does not in itself articulate methods of resolving disagreements or enforcement of the plan when it is adopted. New Jersey offers a model of statewide commitment to plan without a legislative mandate or requirements for the State Plan to supersede or approve state agency and local plans and regulations.
    Contacts:
    Herb Simmens, Director, New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, Office of State Planning
    Relevant websites: New Jersey Office of Planning, Explanation from New Jersey Future.
    State Benchmarks
    OREGON PROGRESS BOARD
    The Oregon Progress Board is an independent state agency, responsible for tracking indicators which measure the state's progress implementing its strategic plan. Oregon's first strategic plan, Oregon Shines, created the Oregon Progress Board, charging it with crafting a common vision for the state and developing indicators to measure progress towards those goals. The updated strategic plan, Oregon Shines II, adopted in 1997, continues the Board's responsibility to remind Oregonians of the state's shared vision, monitor progress in achieving measurable goals and bring choices to Oregonians' attention.
    Scale:
    The 90 indicators contain information covering the entire state.
    Administered by:
    The Oregon Progress Board (OPB) is a 10-member panel, including and appointed by the governor, who represent five regions within the state.
    Funding:
    The OPB is a state agency, funded through the state budget.
    When developed:
    In 1991, as Oregon emerged from a period of economic depression, it completed its first state plan "Oregon Shines." Then-governor Neil Goldschmidt established the OPB, with its mission to serve as caretaker of the state's vision.
    How it works:
    The Oregon Progress Board tracks the state's progress on indicators, known as the Oregon Benchmarks, spanning a wide range of topics including:
    • qualitative and prose literacy
    • the cost of doing business
    • percentage of the public who comprehend the state tax system
    • percentage change in carbon dioxide emissions.
    There are currently 90 indicators in use, down from over 200 tracked in the mid 1990s, with 22 designated as "priority benchmarks". The OPB's charge is to use these indicators to carefully track progress towards attaining the targets set for each Benchmark. State agencies set the targets in cooperation with the OPB.
    With a group of indicators, Oregon government is accountable to its citizens for the progress towards the state vision. The indicators, the Oregon Benchmarks, paint a broad picture of the state; the targets help citizens and business anticipate the direction of future government investment. Benchmarks serve the state by changing the focus from particular programs to the results achieved by all programs together, removing blame or credit from one agency or program, and sharing it across the system.
    Application to Utah:
    Residents of the Wasatch Front Area have established a shared regional vision through Envision Utah. Benchmarks like those used by The Oregon Progress Board can help the region know how it's doing realizing that vision. With explicit targets and regular measurement, the public stakeholders can observe change, implementers can adjust their programmatic efforts, and all parties can assume accountability for change.
    Contacts:
    Jeffrey Tryens, Oregon Progress Board Executive Director, tel: 503-986-0039
    Relevant websites: Oregon Progress Boards Home Page.
    Priority Funding Areas
    STATE OF MARYLAND
    Priority Funding Areas(PFAs) establish geographic boundaries within which the State of Maryland will support future development. This process offers financial incentives to local authorities by putting the force of the state budget behind the state's Smart Growth goals. State funding is available to support development inside PFAs, but is not available for potential developments located outside the identified growth areas.
    Scale:
    State wide program, covering designated areas in each of Maryland's 23 counties. To be designated as a PFA, an area must be planned for growth, served by existing or planned water and sewer services and have appropriate zoning.
    Administerd by:
    All state agencies. The program is coordinated through the Smart Growth sub-cabinet, which was established by Executive Order, and which is chaired by the Maryland Department of Planning.
    Funding:
    This program guides funding decisions for state agency investments. The program is staffed as part of the Maryland Department of Planning.
    When developed:
    This program is part of Maryland's 1997 Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation Act.
    How it works:
    PFAs can be established either by the state legislature or by counties, provided that the areas meet the criteria set by the state legislature. In general, any municipality, areas inside the Baltimore and Washington beltways, and areas already designated as enterprise zones, neighborhood revitalization areas, heritage areas and existing industrial land qualify as PFAs. Additional areas may be certified by counties provided that the areas meet the criteria established by the state legislature. Funding of any 'growth related' projects as defined by the law is prohibited outside of PFAs. State agencies which handle projects not defined as 'growth related' must take Smart Growth goals into account when making funding decisions. Each agency is responsible for determining that their projects are consistent with the state's Smart Growth goals.
    Application to Utah:
    This program provides financial incentives to local jurisdictions. In Utah, it could provide state agency funding for local plans and actions which support the Quality Growth Act. The Quality Growth Areas referred to in the Quality Growth Act could be analogous to PFAs.
    Contacts:
    Jim Noonan, Maryland Department of Planning, tel: 410-767-4432
    Web site: Maryland Department of Planning
    Voluntary Coordination of Local Plans
    MILE HIGH COMPACT, DENVER REGION, COLORADO
    The Mile High Compact is a binding interlocal agreement between 31 municipal and county governments in the Denver region. It is a voluntary pact among governments designed to implement Metro Vision 2020, the regional comprehensive plan.
    Scale:
    The Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) is a voluntary association of 49 member local and county governments within a 5,076 square mile metropolitan region, of which 520 square miles are urban, with approximately 2.2 million residents.
    Administered by:
    DRCOG, in association with participating municipal and county governments.
    Funding:
    Part of the planning responsibilities of signators.
    When developed:
    This program was finalized in August 2000, when five county and 25 city member governments joined in a signing ceremony. The region's other cities and counties may sign the Compact at any time.
    How it works:
    Signatory governments agree to explicitly link their comprehensive/master plans to Metro Vision 2020, the region's long range vision which includes, among other items, open space buffers between cities and a multi-modal transportation system. In an agreement that they laud as the first of its kind in the nation, Compact participants have volitionally agreed to:
    • Cooperate
    • Develop an Urban Growth Boundary
    • Comprehensive/Master Plan Principles
    • Elements of a Comprehensive/Master Plan
    Compact members agree to develop plans with public participation which reflect community values, which are dynamic, take a long-range view, coordinate the various elements such as land use and transportation, and which provide for long term infrastructure. Members agree that their plans will include ten elements:
    • Economic viability
    • Environmental resources and hazards
    • Housing
    • Land use and growth coordination
    • Open space
    • Parks and recreation
    • Provision of services and community facilities
    • Transportation and transit
    • Urban design/community image/identity
    • Utilities
    The Mile High Compact is significant for what it has accomplished: the metropolitan region's governments have voluntarily defined a comprehensive planning process to implement a regional vision, a function which is defined by the state in the dozen states with growth management legislation. It is also significant for what it leaves undefined: the Compact reserves to each jurisdiction the right to develop and update plans but does not establish a timeframe. It calls for intergovernmental collaboration on "issues that overlap or affect neighboring jurisdictions or districts" but does not spell out a process for cross acceptance or review. It recognizes that disputes between jurisdictions could arise, but leaves it to individual communities to purse dispute resolution processes. While close to 80% of the region's population resides in Compact signators, several counties with large land areas and about a dozen other jurisdictions are not currently part of the Compact.
    Application to Utah:
    The Mile High Compact offers a model which maximizes local jurisdictions' local control to formulate and begin to carry out implementation of a regional vision. The Compact is also noteworthy for some of the functions-timing, consistency, and resolution of disagreements-which are not explicitly defined and may prove to be obstacles to achieving coordinated, quality growth.
    contacs:
    Bill Vidal, Executive Director, DRCOG, tel: 303-455-1000
    DRCOG News Release
    Relevant websites: Metropolitan Mayors' Announcement