"Click here to watch Charlotte Bi-state regional Visioning Project"
(QuickTime required to view - click here to download free player)
Sustainable Growth
The Core Value for Sustainable Growth is:
Sustainable, well-managed growth that maintains quality of life, protects open space and environmental quality, and maximizes the efficiency of infrastructure investments.
ACTION AGENDA
Priority Policy 1: Engage in cross-discipline and cross-jurisdictional planning, including land use, transportation, utility infrastructure and the environment.
Action Agenda: Develop a composite regional future land use map that incorporates transportation and utility infrastructure as a basis for increased collaboration on land use planning especially at jurisdictional borders. Plan and implement additional multi-jurisdictional corridor studies to ensure compatible transportation/land use development. Ensure that all appointed and elected officials are knowledgeable about HOW PLANNING DECISIONS SHAPE COMMUNITIES. Begin "neighbor-to-neighbor" notification of major development projects that have nulti-jurisdictional impact.
Priority Policy 2: Maintain/restore the vitality and health of existing cities, towns and villages-focusing on how to develop and redevelop within existing municipal limits rather than solely through greenfields development.
Action Agenda: Adopt a regional agreement stressing widespread support for this type of development/redevelopment. Assemble and provide toolboxes, education and technical assistance to support in-town development and redevelopment. Push for greater funding and funding flexibility in programs that support town center revitalization and foster brownfields redevelopment and adaptive resuse.
The Vision: The region includes a compatible mix of rural, suburban and urban development. Our cities and towns are vibrant, vital, attractive palces to live. Our residents see metro and mid-sized cities and smaller towns and villages, each with its own identifiable personality, but each with a clear, recognizable "edge" that distinguishes it from the surrounding geography. Each of these population centers would include an "alive" downtown and a mix of housing choices appropriate to the character of the community.
Suburban development supports mixed-use patterns, provides accesible open space, provide for an efficient, connective transportation sytem and includes "town centers" where appropriate. At the same time, rural areas would be clearly rural, or would transition into villages, with important environmental features preserved. Infrastructure and other public investments are wisely made for orderly expansion and maximum cost-effectiveness.
Policies:
Support the vitality of existing cities and towns, retaining and growing healthy town and neighborhood centers that provide jobs, civic life and economic opportunity.
Promote compact, mixed-use and walkable development, and that allows for reduced single-occupant vehicle utilization without detriment to public convenience or economy.
For more exurban development, support the creation of new town centers or development designed with an efficient infrastructure network to support current and future needs within the area and possible infill.
Direct growth to areas already served by water and sewer or to which water and sewer are to be provided in the near future.
Encourage development where transportation facilities exist or are planned, mandating development patterns that clearly provide for a fully-functional hierarchical transportation network.
Support coordinated planning across technical and policy disciplines of land use, transportation, utilities (including service expansions), school and other public facility locations, etc., to ensure that projects support the communities’ visions and values.
Support the preservation of environmentally-sensitive or ecologically-valuable open space, such as riparian buffers, especially-valued viewsheds and support land conservation, and fairly compensate property owners for land left undeveloped.
Support both tree planting and preservation in the development process.
A Sampling of Practices:
Limit water/sewer extensions
Provide incentives for infill development
Promote brownfields redevelopment and reuse of older buildings
Zone for mixed commercial/residential areas
Encourage (in urban areas) density supportive of walking, biking or transit (rail and bus)
Encourage (in suburban areas) design supportive of walking, biking or bus usage
Limit block lengths and require connectivity except where it is not topographically feasible
Require clustered commercial development
Adopt a tree ordinance that includes preservation and supports canopy restoration
Create a countywide and/or municipal; planning roundtable to ensure that development is coordinated with public works, transportation, facilities, etc.
Promote voluntary land conservation through conservation easements and farmland districts
Provide adequate funding for transit
Work to maintain the viability of rural lifestyles
Require meaningful open space set-asides in new development (clustering) or allow fees-in-lieu for the purchase of off-site open space
Create a connected network of pocket parks
Adopt appropriate stream buffers and use their borders for trails/greenways/bike paths
Lobby for Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) authorization in North Carolina and promote their effective use in South Carolina
Require environmental and traffic review of any new development in any greenfields area
For developing rural areas, encourage the development of new towns or villages rather than strip-generated rural sprawl, through land use planning and zoning
Adopt land use plans and transportation plans jointly by city/county so that urban service boundaries are respected, and so that development will not leapfrog into areas intended for more rural character.
Adopt stormwater management practices
Ensure that solid waste and recycling programs operate efficiently, effectively and work to reduce waste to the maximum extent possible.
