From Planning Comm'rs Journal Editor Wayne Senville:
Included in the Summer 2010 issue of the Planning Commissioners Journal is a short article with a long title: "Integrating Physical, Economic, & Fiscal Considerations in Community Planning" (for excerpts from the article & to order/download). The authors, Brett Sheckler and Brian Murphy, focus on an important topic that planners and local officials sometimes lose sight of: the importance of linking physical planning to local fiscal strategies and to plans for economic development.
Just a bit about the authors: Brett Sheckler is an economist with expertise in finance, governance, and strategic planning. He has worked with governments for more than a decade at the local, state, and federal level and recently founded Integrated Economics in Seattle, Washington. Brian Murphy is a senior policy analyst, strategic and business planner, and facilitator at Berk & Associates, also in Seattle. He leads the firm’s Strategic Planning and Facilitation practice, and has managed dozens of community planning, policy, and program development projects.
Wayne: What got you both interested in the importance of integrating physical, economic, and fiscal planning?
Brett: The ideas we are talking about -- the value of bringing a holistic perspective to planning and governing -- are really born out of need. Recent events have underscored how the standard approaches to planning and governing have fallen short.
When the recession hit, too many local governments found themselves overextended. Too many governments found themselves deeply dependent on revenues that had been coming from an unprecedented building boom. Too many governments found that, even during an unprecedented construction and consumption bubble, they were still not achieving the economic development they had targeted. And when the bubble burst, all bets were off.
The ideas we are talking about here come from successes we have enjoyed working with jurisdictions, and they are based on hundreds of conversations we have had with city managers, county commissioners, city council members, planners, and other senior staff.
In the end, what we are really talking about is fundamental to governing and planning -- the idea that, to be successful, you have to start with the right foundation.
Success in policy and planning begins with a shared vision -- a vision that is powerful, a vision that is realistic, and a vision that recognizes what true success really entails. All of the members of the community -- constituents, governmental staff, and governmental decision makers alike -- need to think about what success looks like in a true and holistic way. The community needs to recognize that achieving a rich physical environment is inextricably linked to economic and fiscal strength. And they need to understand that the reverse is true as well.
Brian: The linkages among a community’s fiscal, economic, and physical realms and the impacts of actions (or non-actions) in one arena have real implications in the others. This is true whether you recognize the connections and take a proactive, analytically-informed and strategic approach, or if you ignore them and make less informed decisions in a silo-like manner. Having seen the results of both approaches, we’re making the case that recognizing the interconnections, analyzing your situation, and having some realistic and maybe tough conversations will lead to better outcomes for the community.
Wayne: Given that in many cities and counties, different departments have responsibilities for physical, fiscal, and economic planning, just how can you develop the coordinated approach you suggest? What steps can you take to break down "silos," that increasingly used word.
Brett: This is the key issue. Typically, we as consultants (or we as staff or decision makers) are charged with a task, but by the time the task has been defined the key mistake has already been made -- our given project has already been placed squarely within one of the silos. The only way to avoid that trap is to go back to the beginning and shift the starting point.
Many of us engaged in governing and planning believe that, to be successful, policy needs to be driven by a shared vision of what we are trying to achieve. What we are arguing here is communities are in a better position if that vision is developed from a holistic perspective, recognizing the physical, economic, and fiscal realms that underpin success. If a community brings a holistic perspective to their visioning process, they are more likely to develop a vision that is powerful, realistic, and that recognizes what true success really entails.
In practical terms, this means shifting the starting point of your visioning process. It means investing time to develop what I'd call "foundational knowledge," that is, knowledge of how the system works; knowledge of where the community stands today; knowledge of the community’s challenges (again, within the physical, economic, and fiscal realms); and knowledge of opportunities that may exist.
At least three positive results will come out of this broadened visioning process:
First, the community will be more likely to develop a vision that reflects the reality of today and offers a realistic vision of success in the future.
Second, community members will have a deeper appreciation of the role they play in achieving success. And they will have a deeper appreciation about the connection between the things they want and the things that need to happen to make it possible -- including their support through taxes.
Third, after going through this discovery process, governmental staff and policy makers will also have a much more robust understanding of the ways in which the three realms are interconnected.
To focus people’s attention a community would want to embark on this visioning process with the goal of developing a true strategic plan -- a plan with three interrelated components: one addressing the physical environment, one addressing economic competitiveness, and one addressing fiscal sustainability.
Brian: Leadership is a critical ingredient. Organizations operate in silos because it’s easy and even efficient in the short-term. It takes vision to see the opportunities inherent in taking a more holistic approach, and leadership to bridge across organizational silos to bring participants into a collaborative and multi-disciplinary planning process. In some cases, participants may need to be convinced of the value of the effort or they may resist the time and resources required or the “intrusion” of other decision makers in their area of focus.
Leadership is also critical in maintaining a consistent direction over time given the changes that will occur in the environment and among city staff and decision makers. This kind of leadership can come from long-standing elected officials or city staff, or perhaps most effectively, from engaged community members who participated in the visioning and planning process and continue to hold the city accountable for consistent implementation of the plan.
Wayne: Are there any specific success stories you can point to?
Brian: In the case of one community I worked with recently, a key piece of analysis involved looking at the city’s projected fiscal health. We could see that their costs are rising more quickly than their revenues, as is the case with most cities in Washington State given our tax environment with limits on the growth of property tax revenues.
We went to the citizens via a phone survey of randomly selected residents and asked whether they’d like to see the city address this issue via economic development, tax increases on residents or businesses, or a decrease in municipal levels of service. We tried to give a realistic and fair representation of the implications of these choices, as well as the implications of pursuing various forms of economic development. For instance, market analysis shows that the city is well-positioned to attract additional large-scale retailers, which would bring both tax revenues and traffic.
The consensus back from the community was a clear direction for the city to prioritize economic development efforts. We developed an economic development plan that supports their broader vision for the community they want to be and involved the planning commission in helping identify what physical locations and planning parameters would best integrate retail and employment uses in ways that would contribute to and not disrupt neighboring uses.
Overall, the process gave them a good understanding of their situation and their options, and established a concrete set of actions to advance their vision.
Brett: One big success I would point to is a collaborative planning process that is under way in Spokane County, here in Washington State. For a couple of years now, Spokane County and all of the Spokane metro-area cities have been engaged in an inter-jurisdictional process to try to resolve areas of conflict and to pursue common interests.
At the outset, the collaboration was largely focused on issues of planning and land use, but as the partners have deepened their understanding of the issues, they have increasingly recognized the interconnectedness of the physical, economic, and fiscal realms. We are now in the process of developing an inter-jurisdictional fiscal strategy --a strategy that is designed to address and complement the land use and development goals of the various communities.
Wayne: One last question. Can you tell us more about the role a consulting firm such as Integrated Economics or Berk & Associates can play in the process you describe in the article?
Brian: A good consultant acts as a trusted advisor, providing an objective perspective, analytic and planning expertise, an understanding of what has worked for others, and a way for different voices to be heard. In this regard it’s not so different from being a psychologist or counselor!
A consultant is well-positioned to do fair and objective analysis, gather information and perspectives from a broad range of community stakeholders, and then facilitate a dialogue about a community’s options, vision, and action plan. Of course this really can’t happen effectively without close collaboration with the client; an engaged client who is willing to roll-up their sleeves and contribute to analysis and plan development is just as necessary as a good consultant. In the end, it’s the community’s plan and to be able to implement it well, the client has to understand the inputs and really believe in the plan.
If you have any questions about either the article or the interview, you can contact the authors by email:
Brett Sheckler: brett@integratedeconomics.com
Brian Murphy: Brian@berkandassociates.com
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