Case Study: A New Community Vision: Montana's Empowerment Project by Paul Reichert, AERO |
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Community Organization: Alternative Energy Resources Organization (AERO) Project Coordinator: Paul Reichert PURPOSE OF ORGANIZATION AERO is a Montana nonprofit citizens group founded in 1974. AERO assists people and communities with finding sustainable solutions to local problems. AERO promotes smart growth and alternative transportation, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy and conservation. STATEMENT OF NEED Montana has some of the fastest growing counties in the nation, with population growth rates over 20 percent since 1990. The Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) is projecting a 90 percent increase in vehicle miles traveled by 2015. Yet, rural cities and towns lack a clear vision of how they should accommodate growth and proactively plan for a sustainable future. Local governments and residents have little access to new planning strategies and are unprepared to deal with the transportation costs and community impacts associated with continued sprawl. CAMPAIGN SUMMARY To find more sustainable solutions to the current pattern of development, AERO initiated its Smart Growth and Transportation Project in 1994. Project goals are to:
PICTURE HELENA! Montana’s state capital Helena (population 25,000) is located on the eastern edge of the continental divide along US Interstate 15. In the fall of 1994, the AERO and a group of local citizens, with the support of City commissioners, began planning a visual survey called Picture Helena! Project Background The visual survey process was pioneered in the early 1980s by architect and urban designer Anton Nelessen. In 1994, AERO introduced the concept of visual surveys in Montana at its Livable Communities Conference. The city of Helena adopted a similar visual survey process for Picture Helena! because it was a fun and easy way to get the public involved. AERO and the city received additional funding from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to pilot the visual survey process. The purpose of Picture Helena! was to give local people the opportunity to tell the City what they want Helena to be like as it grows and develops. AERO believes people need to take an active role in creating a vision for their community, one they can see and understand so planners can use this information to create new development standards. Picture Helena! was designed to give residents an active role in planning the new city zoning code. The city completed a comprehensive plan update in April 1994 and planned to revise the city zoning code to implement the new plan. AERO and the City of Helena decided to collaborate in designing and facilitating the survey. More than 30 community groups and 500 area individuals participated.
 These images were used in the Picture Helena! visual preference survey. The picture on the left received a rating of -2.55, while the other image was rated at +5.86 by community participants. Respondents were asked to rate their feelings about each image on a scale of +10 for very positive to -10 for very negative. The overall rating assigned to each image is an average of the participants answers. The Survey The Picture Helena! survey asked people to rate 200 slide images of different aspects of development on a scale from -10 (strongly dislike) to +10 (strongly like). The City of Helena and AERO created the Picture Helena! process to meet the need for more market-based information before writing new development standards. Visual images are easy for most people to see and understand, and can send a clear message about what is wrong and what is possible. Images can take an intellectual debate and turn it around into a community development and urban design discussion. People need to see what it is they are building with their land use decisions and public investments in transportation. Picture Helena! looked at five categories of images: commercial; residential; public places; downtown; and rural. Respondents were asked to notice things like the landscaping, parking, streets and sidewalks, commercial signs, public art, building setbacks, building style and architecture, parks and public space, rural and open space. At the end of each meeting participants discussed the images that they liked and disliked. Recorded comments and numerical responses (average rating from all surveys) for the photos compiled and published as a summary. The summary included more than 40 photos and described what people said they wanted and did not want regarding specific zoning code topics. Results Picture Helena! engaged a large number of people who are usually left out of local planning decisions. In most small towns, the issue of zoning is usually left to "experts" and neighbors fighting new development. The Picture Helena! survey succeeded in getting new people involved in planning issues. As a result, there is greater political will and more consensus among residents that current zoning standards are inadequate. Picture Helena! has been the catalyst for tackling specific zoning issues, especially in the areas of street design standards, and parking and landscaping requirements. It has motivated citizens, local officials and developers to talk about specific changes in local codes. For example, the City is updating its residential street standards because of survey results and pressure from developers who want streets smaller than the current 40 foot standard. Picture Helena! has also brought the issue of urban design to the forefront, and has helped create a new language for articulating the community's desire for a livable city. Citizen groups, planning board members, city commissioners and developers are now using phrases like pedestrian friendly, walkable neighborhoods, and slower traffic to describe their desire for higher quality development. The visual survey has helped everyone be more articulate about what they want new development to do for the city. Lessons Learned A survey can be conducted with a small amount of money and volunteers. The greatest expense was volunteer and staff time taking photos, organizing meetings, and assembling the presentation and format. The photos themselves cost less than one thousand dollars. Volunteerism was critical for keeping cost low -- most of the photography and the survey analysis was donated. Organizing the public process took longer than anticipated. Working with the city meant facing the bureaucratic and political realities. The planning board and other officials needed to see several mock surveys before agreeing to move forward. Seasonal constraints and the lack of professional help made taking quality photographs for the survey difficult. Even with 1500 photos it was difficult to narrow down to 200 representative images of the town. The principle criteria for photo selection were to:
Other communities have expressed substantial interest in modeling the visual planning process. AERO has given more than a dozen visual survey trainings to communities throughout Montana. Requests for survey trainings and more information are coming in from as far away as Connecticut. Picture Helena! has captured the imagination of other community leaders, and increased the interest of citizens in the issues of community planning and design. BIG SKY OR BIG SPRAWL In 1996, AERO launched a 12-month study of transportation costs and land use impacts in two Montana locales: Cascade County and Great Falls, and Lewis & Clark County and Helena. AERO's report, Big Sky or Big Sprawl, published in October 1996, is a 20-page executive summary that details what transportation and land use decisions cost Montana communities. Project Background The need for this research was identified through AERO's participation on a state energy policy committee organized by the Montana Environmental Quality Council (a subgroup of the state legislature) and the MDT. The prevailing belief was that land-use and transportation are unrelated, and that drivers have a right to demand bigger and better roads because they pay for them. These perceptions were countering AERO's efforts to promote a state policy that included transportation demand management and least-cost transportation planning. The purpose of the research project was to expose the real cost of growth in Montana and provide better documentation for advocates to use in promoting transportation alternatives and smart growth strategies. The report is intended to inform community leaders and elected officials what it really costs to accommodate cars, growing traffic, and suburban sprawl. AERO plans to use our research findings as the basis of a public education program planned for 1997. The Process AERO hired a local consultant to conduct the research and publish the report. The research addressed three questions: 1) How much does it cost communities (both direct and indirect costs) to accommodate cars? 2) Who pays these costs? 3) How has the pattern of land use changed over time? The report found that:
The research provides residents and elected officials with a clearer picture of what auto transportation costs our communities. AERO has used the findings to advocate for smart growth strategies in local transportation and land use decisions. For example, the fact that a significant number of people do not drive has helped advance the importance of designing pedestrian friendly streets. Parking requirements are being reconsidered in local zoning, and local governments are just beginning to look for ways to make their revenue sources more equitable. Big Sky or Big Sprawl encourages people to begin asking a different set of questions about what growth decisions cost. The research provides critical information for residents, elected officials and agency staff to reevaluate the priorities in communities. Lessons Learned The report only provides a snapshot of the financial budgets analyzed throughout the process. It took 10 months longer than planned, and in some cases the findings raised more questions than there was time to answer. AERO is still planning publicity for the report, so it is difficult to predict its impact. The research provides economic documentation needed to better advocate smart growth reforms. It provides the basis for why communities need to move toward smart growth by changing zoning codes, street standards, transportation priorities and highway design. Future Plans AERO's goal is to use the report as the basis for a traveling education workshop called Planning for Change: Moving Toward Smart Growth that will serve to organize community action and educate local elected officials. The program will provide Montana-based information about the costs and consequences of different land-use patterns, suggest specific activities for public involvement using smart growth strategies, and provide tools that communities can use to improve transportation and land-use decisions. COMMUNITY ASSISTANCE AERO educates and consults local governments, citizens groups, state agencies, and developers on how they can incorporate transportation demand management, progressive urban design and transportation choices into their plans and decisions. Since starting the project in 1994, AERO has received hundreds of requests for assistance. AERO has a lending library of nearly 300 books, manuals, fact sheets and videos that we share. AERO also manage an e-mail list service for Montanans interested in networking with others to share information and ideas for smart growth. AERO receives requests from people and communities looking for ways to reform transportation and land use policies and decisions. Recent requests for assistance include: 1) A Kalispell city commissioner has asked AERO to sponsor a smart growth conference for key community leaders in February 1997. He wants to form a smart growth commission in one of the fastest growing areas of the state. 2) Two Missoula neighborhood associations are asking AERO to help them get transportation demand management policies incorporated into their local transportation plan. They want the city to spend some of its transportation investments on things other than road expansions. 3) A small conservation group in Ronan, MT is asking AERO to help them form a regional citizen and local government alliance to impact the design of a proposed highway expansion on US Highway 93. They want to link the efforts of the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes with local conservation groups and elected officials. Results As a result of AERO's assistance, transportation demand management and pedestrian and bicycle improvements are being formally adopted in local transportation plans. A private developer is building the first generation neo-traditional neighborhood in Helena-linking parks with residential and commercial development. Zoning code revisions are also underway in Helena. Traffic calming projects are being built in Missoula, Bozeman and Helena. And most important of all, citizens are getting better organized to promote livable communities at the local and regional level. CONCLUSION In Montana, AERO’s CEP helped focus people’s energy and imagination and gave them access to practical information. Through the visual survey, residents were presented with a tangible way to express their views and impact the future of their community. The investment in AERO, a community non-profit organization, provided enough dedicated staff time to instigate and coordinate the community visual survey. Among other things, Picture Helena!, Big Sky or Big Sprawl and AERO’s outreach have provided people with a new language to talk about transportation and land use issues. The language has enabled people to more accurately describe their vision for Montana and is a key ingredient to move people towards smart growth initiatives. The language and issues of the growth debate influence people's views of what the real problems are, and the potential solutions for solving those problems. As a result of the CEP in Montana, new citizens groups are forming to work on local transportation and community planning issues. People are making the connection between transportation and land-use decisions, and its impact on their quality of life. Furthermore, AERO's role as a coordinator and resource provider is expanding because of these projects. AERO will take the work initiated under the Empowerment Project to the next step in 1997 as we plan to use our experiences from these efforts to develop a mobile training workshop for spreading the message of smart growth throughout Montana. CONTACT INFORMATION Paul Reichert
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