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Types of regional growth management programs

• Regional planning councils or districts
• Metropolitan transportation planning organizations
• Federal/state-chartered commissions or authorities charged with protection of environmentally sensitive areas
• Regional public service authorities, such as airport or transit authorities or water districts
• Regional business and civic leadership groups promoting planning
• Ad hoc groups established by interjurisdictional agreements for selected purposes
• Consolidated city/county governments and, in some states, county planning organizations

Responsibilities of regional planning agencies

• Assembling statistical information on regional population and economic development and projecting regional trends
• Providing a forum for sounding and exploring intergovernmental development issues
• Providing clearinghouse functions in planning, coordinating, or managing some federal and state program such as programs for the elderly and job training
• Carrying out research and educational activities on special issues of interest to members
• Preparing regional development plans or strategic plans
• Planning for selected regionwide infrastructure systems
• Monitoring and promoting coordination of local planning activities

Limitations of regional planning organizations

• Most regional planning is advisory in nature, leaving local governments to accept or reject regional policies
• Regional agencies are frequently reluctant to make the hard decisions for managing growth due to their administrative and financial control by member governments
• Jurisdictions of regional agencies seldom coincide with actual metropolitan growth areas
• The planning orientation of many regional organizations is years behind the metropolitan development process

MPOs: Metropolitan Planning Organizations

• Created by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1962 for all communities larger than 50,000 persons
• Responsible for "continuing, comprehensive, and cooperative" transportation planning
• Allocate state and federal transportation funding within the region
• Adopt annual transportation improvement programs

Lessons for Effective Regional Growth Management

• Must have a broad constituency
• Must have clear objectives
• Effective regional planning and implementation must have the power to override local governments; usually from state or federal authority
• Local governments must be held accountable to regional interests; this implies auditing or monitoring and an enforcement process
• Decision-making must be shared so that local governments retain major responsibilities for policy and implementation

What does statewide planning do?

Promotes planning at state, regional, and local levels of government and encourages consistency and coordination.

The statues typically include a combination six types of intergovernmental responsibilities:

1. State plans
2. State agency planning and coordination
3. Requirements for local planning
4. Provisions for regional coordination
5. Processes for achieving consistency between local and agency plans and state goals
6. Appeals or conflict resolution procedures

How effective are state planning/growth management programs?

State programs have:

• Increased attention to state and regional interests while retaining local control
• Increased understanding of the planning process among local officials
• Developed a more structured framework for coordinating the growth management efforts of jurisdictions
• Required agencies to recognize the programs and plans of other agencies and jurisdictions in their plans
• Provided more certainty and predictability to private sector for local planning
• Increased recognition that plans should be linked to implementation programs

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This page maintained by Bob Parker, ©2000
March 25, 2000