We’d like to alert you to this important annoucement from the Smart Growth Leadership Institute:
Join us for a Knowledgplex Experts (Online) Chat as we introduce the Smart Growth Implementation Toolkit on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 2 p.m. ET
The Smart Growth Leadership Institute, through a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is releasing a set of tools to help communities untangle the thicket of policies and procedures that get in the way of implementing smart growth strategies and sustainable urban development. These tools will allow communities around the nation to gauge whether their current policy and regulatory frameworks encourage and support smart growth. The tools were developed through a four-year technical assistance program to help communities that have made a commitment to smart growth but were struggling with implementation, building support, identifying the most problematic policies, and other issues that typically accompany a major change in development practice.
KnowledgePlex and the Smart Growth Leadership Institute will present this online discussion of the tools as well as lessons learned in Smart Growth Implementation from the technical assistance program.
Panelists:
Ilana Preuss, Director, Technical Assistance Program, Smart Growth Division, EPA
Tamar Shapiro, Executive Director, Smart Growth Leadership Institute
Susan Weaver, President, Weaver Consulting Group
Benjamin dela Pena, Associate Director, Smart Growth Leadership Institute
KnowledgePlex Expert Chats are free to attend and use Microsoft’s Live Meeting Software, a small and free program you must first install. (For more instructions on the installation, click here). While you can install Live Meeting at any time, we recommend you do so at least 30 minutes prior to the start of the chat. Please note – while you may install the software at any time, you will not be allowed into the chat room until 30 minutes before chat time.
You may listen to the chat through your computer or by dialing into a conference call. To join the chat, click or cut and paste this URL into your browser:
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/fanniemaefoundationseminars/join?id=Toolkit&role=attend
To listen via phone, dial 641-715-3828 and use this access code: 8360630#
Email info [at] sgli.org for more information about the tools.
Do you have any resources or events in Texas?
What type of technical support is available? Do you have a speakers bureau?
Our county is the only county in Texas that has ordinance and zoining powers just like a municipality without any incorporated cities in the county. The county now has the authority to adopt and implement policies and regulations… and I am facilitating a strategic plan and a master plan for the county. I am working with our attorney, who is drafting the ordinances and zoning regulations, and the urban planner from Univ of Texas who I hired to prepare the master plan as well as a group of county residents (125) who are part of working groups assisting in developing the strategic plan.
Our goal is to develop smarth growth strategies and ordinances & zoning that also protect our rich natural resources. Zapata County is a world class destination for hunting, fishing, bird watching, nature photography, rock hunting, hang gliding, historic/heritage sightseeing, and all outdoor recreation. We are situated on a 97,000 acre lake, Falcon Reservoir. Zapata County provides about 15% of the nations natural gas supplies…the energy industry is driving our economy, and tourism and agriculture are 2nd and 3rd.
We want to protect the “lifestyle”. I am interested in how we can direct and control growth…yet enable our private sector to expand thoughfully…we experience about a 58% sales leakage to other counties.
We are trying to prepare for future growth…