These tools ensure the continuing presence of agriculture and prevent the development of productive farmland. For more information.

-Green Payments are one form of economic incentive used to help farmers return a profit, thereby keeping their land in agriculture and preserving rural character. They help farmers engage in conservation practices that result in environmental benefits. In this form of incentive, crops are viewed as only one of a range of products associated with the benefits of agriculture and the rural lands that agriculture maintains. Farmers would also earn a portion of their living from producing environmental services such as provision of wildlife habitat and open space and areas for recreation, and carbon sequestration. In a Green Payment program, government looks first to rural lands to provide services that those lands are well equipped for and that have a clear economic value that can be quantified and are important to viable communities. The economic value of those services can represent an additional revenue source for agricultural landowners that would contribute to making it financially feasible to keep private lands in agriculture or open space. For more information.

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These tools help communities and regions remain competitive in a rapidly changing environment by measuring progress towards specified goals or by exposing challenges to be addressed. For more information.

-A community scorecard or audit is a qualitative monitoring tool used by citizens and public officials to evaluate how well existing policies, projects, and plans meet a set of defined principles or to monitor a community’s progress. This tool can be used to evaluate a local government’s services such as fire protection, public safety, land use planning practices, or provision of open space and parks. A scorecard can also be utilized to evaluate community livability, using factors such as neighborhood walkability, the quality of civic spaces, protection of natural systems, and the usability of transit, or to examine the potential benefits and drawbacks of development proposals. The livability factors evaluated are generally drawn from features that residents have said that they value in their community. For more information.

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This wide range of tools can help local governments get organized, prepare to adapt to a changing climate, and reduce their greenhouse emissions. For more information.

-Getting organized for climate change involves knowing the resources and the steps involved in designing and implementing an effective program.

Florida communities have access to a wide variety of climate change and energy efficiency resources. At the state level, the primary resource is Governor Charlie Crist’s climate change initiative Serve to Preserve, which provides information on the initiatives, climate change science and terminology, and the impacts of climate change on Florida. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has been designated by the Governor to serve as the lead agency for the state’s climate change activities. DEP is working to provide sound science-based information to raise awareness among citizens and stakeholders and inform state level policy making.

Links to national organizations that provide information and tools is included in the toolbox in addition to links to climate change programs in communities across Florida. For more information.

-A sustained, well organized education and outreach effort should serve as the basis for a successful mitigation and adaptation program. Sarasota County has developed a “Roadmap to Sustainability” that provides the guiding framework for the county’s climate change initiatives. Public education and involvement are core components. The county also holds an annual Sustainable Communities Workshop, partners with Florida Power and Light on renewable energy education and outreach, sponsors energy workshops, and provides technical assistance to local government, community groups, and businesses. Community events encourage residents to take the annual Change a Light, Change the World ENERGY STAR pledge by promising to switch at least one light to an efficient bulb. For more information on the Sarasota Roadmap and other education and outreach tools.

-The fact that Florida’s increase in vehicle miles of travel more than doubled the rate of population growth underscores the land use planning-climate change connection and the fact that most Floridians depend on a car to get to where they want to go. The predominant pattern of growth in the state (low density, disconnected development pushing into rural areas and away from urban areas) not only encourages more driving, but also requires it. That has led to longer commutes for daily activities, more time stuck in traffic (meaning higher carbon emissions), less greenspace to sequester carbon, and higher energy consumption. Those outcomes, coupled with limited opportunities for biking, walking, and transit due to the low density form of development, have only magnified Florida’s GHG emissions (and explain why 40 percent of those emissions are attributable to transportation). The strategies included as part of this tool illustrate steps that local governments and communities can take to start reshaping land use patterns, thereby reducing the number of miles Floridians drive each day and the state’s GHG emissions. For more information.

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Reflecting growing numbers of minority residents, Florida communities are using a variety of tools to involve a culturally diverse population in local planning processes and help ensure that new investments benefit ALL residents. For more information.

-Prosperity campaigns connect low-wage workers to economic benefits programs available to them, with the goal to help them gain greater economic stability through higher earnings. Prosperity campaign services typically include helping low income people apply for the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit and providing free income tax preparation assistance. Some programs offer one-stop service center where lower income people can participate in matched homeownership savings programs, obtain help in resolving credit issues, receive money management and job assistance, and learn how to set up Individual Development Accounts. Current (as of August 2007) Florida counties with prosperity campaigns are Alachua, Broward, Collier, Duvall, Flagler, Hillsborough, Manatee, Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach, Pinellas, and Volusia.

The primary resource organizations in Florida are the Prosperity Campaign Office (housed in Workforce Florida, Inc.) and the Florida Prosperity Council. The Prosperity Campaign Office is responsible for educating citizens about economic benefit programs and the importance of wise financial decision-making. Its services include: offering free tax preparation and economic benefits screening services; providing information to businesses to enable them to distribute economic benefit information to employees; coordinating existing prosperity campaigns in the state and establishes new campaigns in designated regional workforce areas; and working with the federal Internal Revenue Service in providing programs for low-wage workers. For more information.

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A daily scan of headlines across Florida highlights what is an increasingly common occurrence: the price of a house has far outpaced incomes and the gap between incomes and housing costs grows larger each year. These tools address increasing housing affordability for Florida residents. For more information.

-A housing linkage fee on nonresidential and market-rate residential development goes toward building affordable homes to help ensure that the number of homes in a community keeps up with the number of jobs, thereby improving the jobs-housing balance and reducing the need for long commutes. The fees collected are placed in a housing trust fund or separate housing account and are used by affordable housing providers to build lower-cost homes within the community. Enactment of a housing linkage fee recognizes that employers hire employees at various wage levels, triggering the need for housing at different price levels.

Although many housing linkage fee programs are applied at the city or county level, such a program can be applied at the regional level, as jobs-housing imbalances do not always occur only within one municipality. A regional housing linkage program evens the playing field among communities by creating an equivalent climate for business in each community. The Chicago region is developing a regional linkage program. Fees, which will be calculated from increasing tax bases, will be paid by municipalities rather than by developers. As with the housing linkage fee paid by a developer, the concept links economic growth to a responsibility for the creation of affordable housing. The critical difference is that the Regional Jobs/Housing Fund would not collect fees from the developers, but from the municipalities that permit and benefit from the new development. That avoids legal challenges in states that require a direct link between fees to private landowners and impact. (A sample housing linkage fee ordinance is available from the Florida Housing Coalition.) For more information.

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Transportation planning issues are a major concern for many Florida residents and businesses. Because of growing traffic congestion within and between communities, Floridians are spending more and more time in traffic and driving greater distances to jobs, housing, and basic services. These tools are designed to increase transportation options in Florida communities. For more information.

-The term road diet applies to taming, or what Walkable Communities, Inc., calls skinnying up, fat, higher-speed multi-lane roadways that were expanded in response to growing traffic. In a road diet, the number of road lanes is reduced or reallocated. For example, a four-lane road may be changed to two lanes, with the other lane space available for on-street parking, bicycle lanes, or creating sidewalks. Putting a road on a diet also makes it possible to create landscaped boulevards, add street trees, and install wider sidewalks and other features that enhance the walking and driving experience. Because the reduced number of vehicle lanes slows traffic, the road is safer for cars (because of fewer and less severe vehicle-to-vehicle crashes) and for pedestrians (due to having fewer lanes of traffic to cross and slower moving vehicles). Businesses along a road can also benefit from a road diet because people are more apt to walk down the street and the street environment is more attractive, which can result in new business investment and a higher tax base. For more information.

We hope you find these and other ideas in the Florida Planning Toolbox of value in your efforts to improve quality of life in your neighborhood, city, or region.

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Check here to review the Economic Development Research Institute (EDRI) Winter Quarterly report on leading economic and business indicators for Palm Beach County, featuring commentary by Dr. William B. Stronge; Professor Emeritus of Economics at FAU, and a Fellow with CUES.

This link will take you to quarterly reports on progress towards implementation of the county’s 21st Century Strategic Economic  Plan, a project that CUES is actively engaged in. For more information, contact Marie York at myork@fau.edu or Mary Beth Hartman at mhartman@fau.edu.

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