Policy Index
Comprehensive Approaches
- Provide leadership from the top
- Articulate a vision for how the state should grow
- Establish a set of state development principles
- Establish a set of measurable state development goals
- Develop a communications campaign to achieve the state's growth vision
- Align state programs with state development principles and goals
- Create a growth cabinet
- Integrate the state's growth criteria into discretionary funding decisions
- Create an office to coordinate growth issues
- Adopt a "fix-it-first" policy
- Require state facilities to be located within designated growth areas and downtowns
Agriculture
- Protect farmland by coordinating state spending and permitting decisions
- Establish a program to purchase of agricultural conservation easements
- Provide grants for developing farmland protection plans
- Establish an agricultural district program
- Help localities adopt right-to-farm ordinances
- Help localities adopt zoning codes that support agricultural tourism
- Establish direct marketing and institutional purchasing programs
- Establish an agricultural viability program
Economic Development
- Give existing communities priority for economic development dollars
- Establish a statewide redevelopment readiness certification program
- Consider using Tax Increment Financing or District Improvement Financing districts
- Create or support a State Main Street Program
- Increase options for brownfield financing
- Establish a "smart sites" program
- Help universities and hospitals grow in place
- Increase access of local governments and non-profits to economic development funds
Education
- Reduce or eliminate acreage standards for K-12 schools
- Help communities coordinate school siting and land-use planning
- Revise school construction funding formulas
- Increase the State share of education costs in communities that are increasing density
- Establish a "Safe Routes to School" program
- Start a Walk to School Day
- Encourage the sharing of school facilities for community use
- Develop a land-use and development curriculum for K-12 students
- Encourage universities to develop Smart Growth Centers
Energy
- Help cities and counties understand the link between smart growth and energy efficiency
- Price utility infrastructure to support infill development
- Leverage energy-efficiency funds for better development patterns
- Promote district energy and Combined Cooling, Heating and Power systems
- Promote energy efficiency in multifamily housing
- Expand commuter tax credit programs to support walking and bicycling
- Develop a tax incentive for alternatives to the automobile
Health
- Educate state and local public health officials on the relationship between public health and the built environment
- Build a coalition to foster healthy communities
- Support local health impact assessments
- Promote community walking and bicycling audits
- Establish a "Safe Routes to School" program
- Start a Walk to School Day
Housing
- Encourage cities and counties to permit more multi-family and higher density housing
- Update or establish state sub-code for housing rehabilitation
- Support redevelopment of vacant and abandoned properties
- Provide incentives to encourage people to live near work or transit
- Support Community Development Corporations
- Modify allocation of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits to reinforce location efficiency
- Adopt fair-share requirements for affordable housing
- Establish a dedicated revenue source for affordable housing
- Encourage upper-story development downtown
- Align Community Development Block Grant funds with state land-use policies
Natural Resources & Environment
- Align open space, habitat, and water resource programming under green infrastructure
- Identify natural lands and open space for preservation
- Establish dedicated state funding for land conservation
- Help localities set and achieve land conservation goals
- Increase funding and support for urban forestry and park access
- Integrate smart growth into the state stormwater program
- Change criteria for water and wastewater infrastructure
- Align the state Total Maximum Daily Loads program with local plans for smart growth
- Encourage zoning code and business licensing to protect and preserve sources of drinking water
- Take credit for land use change under the State Implementation Plan
- Utilize flexibility in federal water and coastal funding programs
- Use smart growth and watershed planning as key features in flood prevention and management programs
Planning
- Establish a cabinet-level planning office
- Develop a set of model smart growth codes for communities
- Provide planning grants to local governments
- Partner with communities to conduct build-out analyses of their current development patterns
- Establish a circuit rider program for communities
- Create a technical assistance academy
- Provide training for planning commissioners and local elected officials
- Provide technical and financial support for regional collaboration
Transportation
- Adopt an overall strategic plan
- Adopt a "fix-it-first" approach
- Adopt a context-sensitive approach for all state transportation projects
- Take advantage of flexible federal transportation funding
- Adopt a "Complete Streets" policy
- Encourage connected street networks
- Develop an access management program
- Pursue more flexible application of residential street standards
- Reform level-of-service standards
- Manage for a reduction in vehicle miles of travel
- Encourage transit-oriented development
- Adopt a broad or regional approach to mitigation planning
- Support transportation demand management
- Revise transportation modeling methods
