Toolkit for quality community and economic development: livable communities [June 2004]

Livable Communities

HERITAGE PRESERVATION | SENSE OF PLACE | ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION | GROWTH PREPAREDNESS | APPROPRIATE BUSINESSES | EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES | HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES | LOCAL SELF-DETERMINATION | REGIONAL COOPERATION | SHARED SOLUTIONS | EMPLOYMENT OPTIONS | REGIONAL IDENTITY | INFILL
Toolkit for Quality
DEVELOPMENT | TRADITIONAL NEIGHB ORHOODS | OPENSPACE PRESERVATION | TRANSPORTATION
Community and Economic Development ALTERNATIVES | GROWTH PREPAREDNESS | APPROPRIATE BUSINESSES | EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES | HOUSING
OPPORTUNITIES | LOCAL SELF-DETERMINATION | REGIONAL COOPERATION | SHARED SOLUTIONS | EMPLOYMENT OPTIONS | REGIONAL IDENTITY | INFILL DEVELOPMENT | TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOODS | OPENSPACE PRESERVATION | TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVES | HERITAGE PRESERVATION | SENSE OF PLACE | ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION | GROWTH PREPAREDNESS | APPROPRIATE BUSINESSES | EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES | HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES | LOCAL SELF-DETERMINATION | REGIONAL COOPERATION | SHARED SOLUTIONS | EMPLOYMENT OPTIONS | REGIONAL IDENTITY | INFILL DEVELOPMENT | TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOODS | OPENSPACE PRESERVATION | TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVES | HERITAGE PRESERVATION | SENSE OF PLACE | ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION | GROWTH PREPAREDNESS | APPROPRIATE BUSINESSES | EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES | HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES | LOCAL SELF-DETERMINATION | REGIONAL COOPERATION | SHARED SOLUTIONS | EMPLOYMENT OPTIONS | REGIONAL IDENTITY | INFILL DEVELOPMENT | TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOODS | OPENSPACE PRESERVATION |HERITAGE PRESERVATION | SENSE OF PL ACE | ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION | GROWTH PREPAREDNESS | APPROPRIATE BUSINESSES | EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES | HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES | LOCAL SELFDETERMINATION | REGIONAL COOPERATION | SHARED SOLUTIONS | EMPLOYMENT OPTIONS | REGIONAL IDENTITY | INFILL DEVELOPMENT | TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOODS | OPENSPACE PRESERVATION | TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVES | GROWTH PREPAREDNESS | APPROPRIATE BUSINESSES | EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES | HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES | LOCAL SELF-DETERMINATION | REGIONAL COOPERATION | SHARED SOLUTIONS | EMPLOYMENT OPTIONS | REGIONAL IDENTITY | INFILL DEVELOPMENT | TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOODS | OPENSPACE PRESERVATION | TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVES | HERITAGE PRESERVATION | SENSE OF PLACE | ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION | GROWTH PREPAREDNESS | APPROPRIATE BUSINESSES | EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES | HOUSING

QUALITY COMMUNITY OBJECTIVES
HERITAGE PRESERVATION
The traditional character of the community should be maintained through preserving and revitalizing historic areas of the community, encouraging new development that is compatible with the traditional features of the community, and protecting other scenic or natural features that are important to defining the community's character.
SENSE OF PLACE
Traditional downtown areas should be maintained as the focal point of the community or, for newer areas where this is not possible, the development of activity centers that serve as community focal points should be encouraged. These community focal points should be attractive, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly places where people choose to gather for shopping, dining, socializing, and entertainment.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Environmentally sensitive areas should be protected from negative impacts of development, particularly when they are important for maintaining traditional character or quality of life of the community or region. Whenever possible, the natural terrain, drainage, and vegetation of an area should be preserved.
GROWTH PREPAREDNESS
Each community should identify and put in place the prerequisites for the type of growth it seeks to achieve. These might include housing and infrastructure (roads, water, sewer and telecommunications) to support new growth, appropriate training of the workforce, ordinances to direct growth as desired, or leadership capable of responding to growth opportunities.
INFILL DEVELOPMENT
Communities should maximize the use of existing infrastructure and minimize the conversion of undeveloped land at the urban periphery by encouraging development or redevelopment of sites closer to the downtown or traditional urban core of the community.
LOCAL SELF-DETERMINATION
Communities should be allowed to develop and work toward achieving their own vision for the future. Where the state seeks to achieve particular objectives, state financial and technical assistance should be used as the incentive to encourage local government conformance to those objectives.
EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
Educational and training opportunities should be readily available in each community to permit community residents to improve their job skills, adapt to technological advances, or to pursue entrepreneurial ambitions.

W hy is a quality community so important? The question is simple; the answer more complicated. Today, Georgia's communities are competing not only with their neighbor down the road, but with communities around the globe, in a new world of economic opportunity that offers unmatched prosperity and demands unbounded resources. Locally, these resources are your institutions, your infrastructure, your environment, and your people. But, beyond these physical resources, it is the quality of life in your community which makes you unique and gives you an advantage over the community down the road or on the other side of the globe.
What is Quality of Life? It is a variety of things from a vital downtown to public recreation areas and parks, from providing educational opportunities to transportation corridor management, from livable neighborhoods to quality jobs, from preserving a community's sense of itself to preserving the common threads that bind communities together into a region. Building a quality community involves local leaders stepping up to identify and address these quality of life issues, thus enhancing their competitiveness in the new world of economic opportunity.
The traditional approaches communities have used to encourage growth and development have often led to a number of undesirable consequences sprawl, decline of older neighborhoods, and degradation of critical natural resources. Traditional approaches are gradually being replaced with new "smart growth" concepts focusing on maintaining and enhancing the quality of life and managing the impacts of growth. To remain competitive, communities will have no choice but to adapt to new ways of handling development and growth issues.
Development cannot happen unless a community is adequately prepared. Communities that choose to grow must be ready to do so in a world where new rules apply. They must have more to offer than an industrial park served by roads and sewer lines, just like their neighbors down the road. Communities that are already growing must be able to accommodate growth in a manner that preserves the quality of life. Because growth management involves a sensitive balance between accommodating growth and protecting quality of life, this is not a simple task. Even those communities that simply do not want new growth will face development challenges. As their citizens become aware of quality of life initiatives in other areas, these communities may begin to feel some pressure to improve their quality of life through similar methods, whether it is improving their downtown areas, or providing more recreational opportunities for their citizens.
As a result of this growing statewide focus on issues of quality of life, several organizations, including the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), have identified a critical need to provide more technical assistance to local governments in implementing new and innovative approaches to managing growth and development within their jurisdictions. Toward this end, several statewide organizations with an interest in smart growth, including DCA, the Atlanta Regional Commission, ACCG, GMA, the Georgia Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy, and the Home Builders Association of Georgia, are currently working together to provide communities with solutions and strategies for improving and maintaining local quality of life by:
Preparing a toolkit to provide practical advice, step-by-step guides for implementation, considerations about costs and administrative requirements, and model ordinances that may be used by local governments in implementing particular smart growth solutions.
Providing intensive training for local officials and volunteers on implementing particular strategies.
Sharing case studies and lessons learned from both successful and failed attempts to implement smart growth strategies at the local level.

T he smart growth toolkit is available to local governments in both printed form and via an interactive web site at www.georgiaqualitygrowth.com. Topics addressed in the toolkit include:

Introduction to quality growth Gaining community acceptance of quality growth Effective public involvement processes Reducing existing barriers to quality growth Achieving consensus on community appearance Visualization techniques Managing community appearance Tree preservation Retrofitting existing corridors Approaches to historic preservation Fostering compact development patterns Strategies for re-use of abandoned buildings Strategies for re-use of brownfields Attracting businesses your community needs Attracting jobs your community needs Improving local workforce qualifications Developing needed infrastructure Alternative approaches to economic development Retaining and attracting the elderly Protecting environmentally sensitive areas Overlay zones Storm water management Effective management of septic systems Strategies for preserving open space State and federal development program Conservation Subdivisions Infill Development Strategies Mitigating Heat Islands Reducing Barriers to Affordable Housing Farmland Protection Effective Floodplain Managements

Water conservation practices Mixed-income housing strategies Life-cycle housing considerations Planning for job accessibility Growth management techniques Using infrastructure to direct growth Controlling your transportation destiny Smart transportation solutions Congestion management Transit oriented development Planning for bicycles Design for walkable communities Encouraging mixed uses Upgrading downtowns and other activity centers Fostering traditional neighborhood development Opportunities for intergovernmental cooperation Strategies for intergovernmental cooperation Alternative land use regulations Simplified land use management system One map planning and zoning Incentive zoning and density bonuses Performance zoning Innovative subdivision regulations Promoting innovative site design Smart Parking Solutions Local Government Communications/Marketing Strategies For Re-Use of Grayfields Accessory Housing Units Costs of Growth Appropriate School Siting Context-Sensitive Road Design

DCA is committed to making additional technical and financial assistance available to support community smart growth initiatives resulting from the toolkit. Where the Department does not offer the specific resources needed, assistance may be arranged through partnerships with the various other organizations interested in promoting smart growth throughout Georgia.

HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES
Quality housing and a range of housing size, cost, and density should be provided in each community, to make it possible for all who work in the community to also live in the community.
REGIONAL COOPERATION
Regional cooperation should be encouraged in setting priorities, identifying shared needs, and finding collaborative solutions, particularly where it is critical to success of a venture, such as protection of shared natural resources.
SHARED SOLUTIONS
Regional solutions to needs shared by more than one local jurisdiction are preferable to separate local approaches, particularly where this will result in greater efficiency and less cost to the taxpayer.
TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOODS
Traditional neighborhood development patterns should be encouraged, including use of more human scale development, mixing of uses within easy walking distance of one another, and facilitating pedestrian activity.
OPEN SPACE PRESERVATION
New development should be designed to minimize the amount of land consumed, and open space should be set aside from development for use as public parks or as greenbelts/wildlife corridors.
TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVES
Alternatives to transportation by automobile, including mass transit, bicycle routes, and pedestrian facilities, should be made available in each community. Greater use of alternate transportation should be encouraged.
EMPLOYMENT OPTIONS
A range of job types should be provided in each community to meet the diverse needs of the local workforce.
REGIONAL IDENTITY
Regions should promote and preserve an "identity," defined in terms of traditional regional architecture, common economic linkages that bind the region together, or other shared characteristics.
APPROPRIATE BUSINESSES
The businesses and industries encouraged to develop or expand in a community should be suitable for the community in terms of job skills required, linkages to other economic activities in the region, impact on the resources of the area, and future prospects for expansion and creation of higherskill job opportunities.

Georgia Quality Growth Partnership
The Georgia Quality Growth Partnership (GQGP) is a collaboration among diverse public and private organizations formed out of the desire to coordinate their efforts at promoting "quality growth" approaches throughout the State of Georgia. The primary purpose of the GQGP is to facilitate local government implementation of quality growth approaches by:
1. Disseminating objective information on the various approaches. 2. Developing tools for implementing these approaches. 3. Sharing of best practices learned from other places, times, and cultures. 4. Promoting acceptance of quality growth by the general public and community leaders. Founded in March, 2000, the GQGP has grown to more than forty organizations, each contributing time, in kind services, or financial resources to fostering Partnership efforts.
Guiding Principles The GQGP member believe that fostering livable communities requires innovative solutions that:
1. Ensure equitable access for all citizens to a range of options for education, transportation, housing, employment, human services, culture, and recreation.
2. Create opportunities for citizens to learn more about community planning and actively encourage their involvement in public decision-making.
3. Respect and protect our natural resources wildlife, land, water, air and trees. 4. Shape appealing physical environments that enhance walkability and positive social
interaction. 5. Recognize that community decisions have an impact on neighboring jurisdictions and,
therefore, must be made from a responsible regional and statewide perspective. 6. Incorporate practices learned from our local experience as well as from other communi-
ties and cultures. 7. Preserve and enhance our cultural and historic places for future generations. 8. Provide for the efficient and economical use of public infrastructure. 9. Employ the principles of sustainability and balance to ensure the economic viability of all
communities and to enhance the state's economic competitiveness.

GQGP PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS & ASSOCIATIONS
Association County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG) Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership (ANDP) Atlanta Regional Consortium for Higher Education (ARCHE) Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) Cool Communities of Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) DNR Historic Preservation Division Georgia Chamber of Commerce Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) Georgia Economic Developers Association (GEDA) Georgia Department of Industry, Trade & Tourism Georgia Forestry Commission Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) Georgia Power Company Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) Georgia Recreation and Park Association Georgia Rural Development Council (GRDC) Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA) Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Planning Association (GPA) Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation Greater Atlanta Homebuilder's Association (GAHB) GSU Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Home Builders Association of Georgia (HBAG) Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce Georgia Regional Growth Management Initiative Regional Business Coalition of Metropolitan Atlanta (RBC) Research Atlanta Sierra Club, Georgia Chapter Southface Energy Institute The Georgia Conservancy The Nature Conservancy Trees Atlanta Trust for Public Land (TPL) UGA Alliance for Quality Growth Urban Land Institute (ULI)

Cover Photo Courtesy of DITT