As we move through some extremely difficult economic challenges, we sometimes get away from the focus of planning for the long term growth of our Puget Sound region.
I've just read a 70- page report put together by ULI, Urban Land Use Institute and the Quality Growth Alliance regarding an event calledReality Check 2008.
It's about an unusual collaboration of 250 key leaders from important groups in four Counties:
-- business
-- political
-- environmental
-- community
-- non-profit
The four Counties are King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap.
The first sentence of this report crystallizes the purpose of the collaboration: Change is coming to the Puget Sound region. We all are part of these groups in one way or another, and we certainly know that these groups have often been at loggerheads over goals and planning. This report indicates some good participation from each group in working towards the mutual goals of thinking together, and working together (successfully).
The purpose of this collaboration was to have all 250 participants work together to frame a vision for how to accommodate the addition of 1.7 million new residents, and 1.2 million new jobs in our Puget Sound region by 2040.
Yes, I said 1.7 MILLION new residents, and 1.2 MILLION new jobs. Want a visualization of that?
Think the entire metro area of Portland, Oregon. And they all moved to the Puget Sound area.
This collaboration has resulted in the Quality Growth Alliance: A Framework for Sound Action to:
-- Raise greater awareness of land use, transportation and climate change
-- Provide expertise to key communities
-- Research compact development policy and best practices
-- Highlight regional successes
To see the Quality Growth Alliance video, click here: When this opens, you'll need to click the arrow on the left side of the screen, it will take awhile to load, and it's initially going to look like the page is missing content, just click the arrow on the left and be patient.
Here are some quotes by some of the participants.
"There are two very special characteristics of the Puget Sound region. One, it's just beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful, and we all have a responsibility to maintain that beauty. Number two, the economic engine in the Puget Sound Region is truly extraordinary. We've outpaced job growth for 30 years over national averages. So we can have both. We can have prosperity and we can have beauty, but we can't keep them both without planning effectively." --Patrick Callahan, Reality Check Co-Chair, CEO of Urban Renaissance Group
"Transportation, open space, affordable housing, climate change – all those things really boil down to land use. It's the common thread." -- Greg Johnson, President, Wright Runstad & Company, ULI Seattle Chair, Reality Check Partner
"To meet the region's long-term need for housing and environmental responsibility, we must ensure that our essential workforce has innovative and affordable housing choices near where they work." --Sam Anderson, President, Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties, Reality Check Partner
"Over the last couple of decades we have made remarkable progress in coming together to think as one region. We have powerful tools to achieve our growth management, environmental, economic, and transportation goals. But it will take a lot of hard work and committed leadership at all levels -- public and private--to make it happen. --Bob Drewel, Executive Director, Puget Sound Regional Council, Reality Check Partner
"Every day we come to work and mark our time hour by hour, day by day, week by week. This is a time to mark it decade by decade, to confront reality as we know it, and truly predict it, and adjust for it. Too often we let it happen to us. This is our chance to take control of reality." --Emory Thomas, Publisher, Puget Sound Business Journal
"It's worth taking a day . . . to think, to debate, and to dream a little bit." --Doris Koo, President and CEO, Enterprise Community Partners, Reality Check Partner
"This region is incredibly beautiful. But it is also incredibly fragile. And the actual buildable land is very constrained." --Stephen Norman, Director, King County Housing Authority
"The people are here, but the jobs are over there. We don't have enough transportation available, either roads or rail or ferry or whatever. So you really get a clear picture of where the bottlenecks are." --Tom Kilbane, Member, Kitsap Community Foundation
"Many of the issues we are confronting are usually considered in isolation, in their own separate planning initiatives. By combining climate change with land use decisions, zoning and transportation infrastructure and looking at it together, that allows us to solve things in a more effective manner." --Patrick Callahan, Reality Check Co-Chair, CEO of Urban Renaissance Group
"What comes out of this will be a big second wave and possibly a new approach to how we look at growth management in the region." --Jay Kipp, Graduate Student, UW College of Architecture and Urban Planning
"Our goals must include the creation of highly livable, compact, complete, connected urban neighborhoods--beautiful ones--that will help us grow cooler." --Bert Gregory, President and CEO, Mithun
"The elected officials in the room and others who we all vote for and support have got one heck of a burden on their shoulders. They are going to have to reinvent zoning. They are going to have to reinvent processes. They are going to have to speed the works because we've got until 2040 when the equivalent of the metropolitan Portland population is here in our region." --Bill Kreager, Reality Check Co-Chair, Principal, Mithun
"From today we're starting to see the beginning of a consensus that we can build on to fundamentally improve this region. --Gene Duvernoy, Reality Check Co-Chair, President, Cascade Land Conservancy
"RealityCheck today, April 30, is the start of two years of implementation work. We have to take all of the great ideas that come out of today--all of the energy, all of the vision, all of the inspiration and excitement, and this time we have to make it work. We have to take our principles and achieve quality growth." --John Hempelmann, Reality Check Co-Chair, Chairman, Cairncross And Hempelmann, P.S.
"Where these 1.7 million new residents live and work will affect everyone and have a dramatic impact on quality of life throughout the region," said Greg Johnson, chairman of the Urban Land Institute's (ULI) Seattle District Council. "Residents will either live in walkable, thriving transit-oriented communities near job centers, or in spread-out, auto-centric areas that many of our current planning policies encourage. We can take a new approach to address today's problems, or we can continue responding with decades-old strategies. The choice is ours and now is the time to decide."
For the 87 page final report, click here. Change is coming to the Puget Sound Region.
