Demand for sensible, balanced growth has been on the rise as citizens and local officials are recognizing that this approach allows them to determine how, when and where their community will grow. But, while many communities are envisioning balanced growth or creating plans to help achieve this vision, it can be difficult to take the next steps and make the systems and ordinance changes necessary to actually achieve those visions and goals.

There are many situations where existing ordinances are out of sync with a community's vision. Perhaps there are very few resources left over after completing a comprehensive plan. Or maybe a community's planning staff isn't sure how to do it in a way that helps them achieve balanced growth. Outdated zoning and subdivision ordinances often conflict with the community’s goals, making it difficult to achieve desirable development – and in many cases, actually encouraging development that is inconsistent with the community’s goals and vision.

The goals of the Balanced Growth Implementation project, funded by a grant from the McKnight Foundation, are to:

• Identify common problems and barriers to implementing smart or balanced growth.
• Provide 3 – 4 selected communities (cities, townships, and/or counties) with implementation tools/ordinance provisions that are customized for their area.
• Work with selected communities to enact the implementation tools.
• Create a process for monitoring the effectiveness of the tools and determine how they could be used more broadly.
• Develop a plan that would enable other communities to access and effectively implement these tools.

Communities selected for this project can expect a 12 – 18 month process beginning in May 2007 that includes the following steps:

• Review and analysis of current plans and ordinance documents.
• Recommendations for modifications to plans and ordinances to encourage balanced growth.
• Facilitation of community meetings to discuss the project goals, balanced growth principles, plan and ordinance changes.
• Support for elected officials in adoption of ordinance changes.
• Follow-up support for a period of time after ordinance adoption.

We will also be inviting community members to participate in small group discussions about the barriers and obstacles to implementing balanced growth.