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Background
The Research Triangle regional quality-growth initiative is a direct outcome of the Reality Check visioning exercise and summit held in February 2009.
Sponsored by Triangle Tomorrow, a program of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, and the Triangle District Council of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), Reality Check used ULI methodology to bring more than 500 members of the community, representing business, govenrnment, civic organiziations, media and the nonprofit sector, to consider how best to accommodate the 1.2 million new people and 700,000 new jobs expected to be created over the next 20 years.
The 15-county region of the quality-growth initiative includes the 13 counties of the Research Triangle Region plus neighboring Alamance and Wilson, which have close economic ties to the region and significant worker commuting.
Reality Check participants agree on guiding principles
Three hundred area representatives came to the Raleigh Convention Center Feb. 24 to participate in the first part of the event — a half-day, hands-on visioning exercise in which diverse groups built consensus about regional challenges. They developed guiding principles for growth, identified barriers to accomplish these principles and discussed action steps. The groups used Legos to create and visualize optimal scenarios for locating housing and jobs.
Three days later, more than 500 area business leaders, government officials, educators and interested citizens gathered in the Progress Energy Center's Meymandi Concert Hall to participate in the interactive Results Summit. The Reality Check steering committee presented options developed by teams at the planning exercise. Audience members used hand-held voting devices to rank in importance the value of factors that will affect — and be affected by — the region's growth. Improving mass regional transit systems emerged as the piority for ensuring quality growth along with promoting vibrant population centers and protecting green spaces and natural resources, particularly water. Participants identified possible barriers to effective growth management, such as regional governance, community resistance to density and transit; and lack of funding for infrastructure, and solutions to overcome those barriers.
Implementation group forms to focus on three guiding principles
Smedes York, chairman of Triangle Tomorrow and the Reality Check Action Committee, announced in May that task forces had formed to implement the vision for quality growth agreed upon by regional stakeholders through the Reality Check process. Three task forces will work over 8-24 months to develop strategies for achieving three guiding principles. A fourth task force will seek endorsement of the three guiding principles from all city and county governments in the 15 counties and focus on communicate the importance of quality growth to the community.
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