Reality Check - Are You Ready for Growth?

I had the good fortune of participating in ULI’s Reality Check event this week. Reality Check is a regional planning exercise with the goal of giving folks the chance to think through high-level ideas of how we will handle the growth projected for our area (1.2 million people to the 15 county region of the Triangle in the next 20+ years).

At our table were business leaders, elected officials, community and non-profit advocates, and citizens from all over the region. We even had a visit from the local news station, but more on that later...

The key here is the word ‘region’ – not individual cities, towns or municipalities. If we are going to avoid the mistakes of the sprawl formerly known as Atlanta, we HAVE to address density, mass transit, mixed-use development, and jobs. Not only is this the basis for sustainable development, it is the ONLY way we can grow and maintain the quality of life that has and will continue to draw people to our area.

My role at Reality Check was to facilitate the planning exercise for the participants at my table. We developed ‘guiding principles’ for our growth simulation, heard from voices hailing from all over the Triangle, and had a great time reversing the development regulations of the Research Triangle Park. Our table was completely covered with greenways and conservation areas, and we ended up with lots and lots of density all along I-40 and in each downtown area. One recurring mantra at our table made me smile – "No new highways!"

Okay, so there was zero connection between development and costs. There were no ‘consequences’ for adding 50,000 housing units to RTP, how/where we would locate transit lines, where jobs would go (ideally in/near the housing). There was no discussion of how we would support this growth with our natural resources, or whether a specific area had the infrastructure required to handle more people. It wasn’t intended to dig down into (any) details, rather offer a 30,000 ft. view of what it will take to grow ‘smart’ and not out. It was eye opening to any non-planner of all the sticky issues that come up when you are making decisions that have such a big impact on a region.

My takeaways included:
• People were generally for density, mass transit, lots of greenways and conservation areas, and a diverse job base
• No matter how hard we work to come to agreement on a visioning exercise, people will always revert to ‘protect’ their own areas (mass transit from RTP to Pittsboro and Siler City?)
• Having a little disagreement in the group is a good thing – as long as people can vocalize their differences and work to resolve them
• Protecting greenways and conservation areas is not controversial at the 30,000 ft. view – of course, we had no developers in the group trying to add mixed-use developments on Jordan Lake
• Everyone agreed on diversity of housing, jobs, and cultures - were we enlightened, or what?

All in all, the exercise was a big success. And, a shameless plug, little 'ole me made it on the evening news. The follow up results summit is on Friday – Hope you can join us!(RSVP on the web)