Contacts - Smart Growth Planning and Visioning Tools
Jim Holway
Western Lands and Communities Program Director
602-393-4310 x 313
Cameron Ellis
GIS Specialist
406-587-7331 x 3008
New Publication
Opening Access to Scenario Planning Tools, a Policy Focus Report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, was released at the American Planning Association Conference in Los Angeles on April 13, 2012.
Download the report to read about efforts to implement the key recommendations to advance use of scenario planning tools.
ScenarioPlanningTools.org
A new website to designed to facilitate ongoing collaboration among scenario planning tools users and developers.
New Planning Resource
Regional and Intergovernmental Planning: Spring 2013 an American Planning Association publication
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Where We Work Westwide - Western Lands & Communities Visioning and Planning Tools
Visioning and Planning Tools
| Scenario Planning Applications |
| Scenario Planning Tool Development |
| SCOTie |
| Sonoran Institute Growth Model |
Decision makers, planners and stakeholders all recognize that the land use planning and infrastructure investment decisions we make today will directly affect the well-being of communities and regions as a whole for generations to come. Visioning and scenario planning tools are becoming increasingly important in this context for facilitating community decision making. These tools also assist efforts to address sustainability concerns; including the uncertainty related to climate change, future market conditions and resource use.
Future challenges facing growing communities and regions will necessitate taking integrated approaches that can bridge traditionally separate concerns (such as water, energy, air, transportation, economic development, fiscal impacts and land use). Fostering partnerships and regional coordination with state, local and federal agencies as well as increasingly engaged local stakeholders is also essential to creating workable and implementable strategies. Visioning and scenario planning tools that capture alternative development futures and simultaneously quantify costs and environmental impacts will be increasingly important in such approaches. Western Lands and Communities is involved in a number of projects relating to smart growth visioning and planning tools. Click on the links below to read about each of our projects in depth.
Scenario Planning Applications
Western Lands and Communities is conducting three additional demonstration projects to further enhance scenario planning tools and the ability to apply them in different situations. We utilized Fregonese and Associates Inc's Envision Tomorrow Model, in combination with other tools in the following projects:
- Gallatin County, Montana - Examine multi-jurisdictional regional infill scenarios.
- Garfield County, Colorado - Analyze site specific opportunities to implement mixed use town center projects.
- Morongo Basin, California – Investigate advancing open space and wildlife habitat priorities through land use planning.
- Superstition Vistas, Arizona – Create a number of development scenarios to determine sustainable development options on this 275 square mile parcel of state trust land.
Scenario Planning Tool Development
Western Lands and Communities began collaborating with tool developers, users, potential funders and university partners in February 2010 to advance open source tools for scenario planning. Read more about our endeavors and forthcoming report on this issue.
- ScenarioPlanningTools.org
- Responding to Change and Uncertainty Workshop March 2012
- Open Source Tool Planning Meeting November 2011
- Open Source Tool Planning Meeting November 2010
- Planning and Visioning Tool Platform Developers
- Scenario Planning Tool Development Workshop Partners and Participants
Successful Communities Online Toolkit information exchange
The SCOTie website is an online resource that provides the intermountain west planning audience with case studies on creative planning measures from peer communities. Read more about the project. Visit the site at www.scotie.org or www.successfulcommunities.org.
Sonoran Institute Growth Model
The Sonoran Institute has worked on an improved GIS-based model for land disposition planning and prioritization. The Sonoran Institute Growth Model was developed allow land managers to predict future growth patterns based on a variety of growth attributes, policies, and conditions. The model can be calibrated to historical rates and patterns of development for specific place-based settings, allowing for predictive modeling of growth under "business as usual" conditions. It also allows for modeling of various future scenarios using "smart growth" land use policies, the imposition of desired outcome criteria, additional environmental constraints, and other variables. The model objectively measures the suitability of any given land parcel for development under these various scenarios and assign "suitability" ratings.
The growth model was initially applied in Western Montana to help guide county growth management plans. The Sonoran Institute continues to refine the model so that it can be easily adapted to other locations.
A conceptual diagram indicating the flow of the Sonoran Institute Growth Model (SIGM). Each shape is annotated with the software used to process or analyze data or file formats associated with data inputs\outputs. Bright blue indicates GIS processing and analysis; Green represents statistical analyses; Dark blue indicates input and output tables; Pink indicates a script that reallocates the number and distribution of predicted structures based on zoning capacities; Yellow indicates visualization tools. The large gray polygon indicates automated model components.
Conservation Priority Setting
Information forthcoming