REVIEW OF VISUALIZE 2045 Summary Review: The draft Visualize 2045 is a major advance over past TPB every four-year

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1 October 5, 2018 REVIEW OF VISUALIZE 2045 Summary Review: The draft Visualize 2045 is a major advance over past TPB every four-year plans. Very importantly, it goes beyond the typical fiscally-constrained framework and develops seven aspirational program elements, all of which could be implemented, at least in part, over the next several years. It is also important that Visualize 2045 is a general guide for Metropolitan Washington s overall physical and economic development potential. And it does so within a correct policy context of the 2010 Region Forward, the 1998 TPB Vison, and other policy elements. Visualize 2045 is a very solid regional document. The rest of this review will make suggestions relative to one of the seven aspirational elements--- Bring Jobs and Housing Closer Together; it will deal with the high projected regional employment forecasts, derived from the forecast REMS model and processes to develop COG s Cooperative Forecast System; and, it will deal with Other Planning Matters, including a number of recommendations. 1.Bring Jobs and Housing Closer Together, and Further Implementation of the Transportation Land Use Connections Program: I strongly agree with the aspirational element, bring jobs and housing closer together, as found on page 26 of Envision The TPB Transportation Land Use Connections (TLC) program, as discussed on page 34, is one definite means for implementing this aspirational goal, especially as related to regional activity centers. The TLC program has been in existence for years and its funding portion has been used for small competitive grants to local governments and others for the planning of improved transportation/land use connections. More specifically, the TLC planning program has been used for the planning of compact urban centers sometimes including housing, TODs and/or transit development, bicycle and pedestrian planning, trail planning, complete streets, and other similar transportation/land use connections. The TLC has been well-received by recipients and is now at a half million dollars per year. Annually, TPB itself puts in $260,000, and the Maryland and Virginia Departments of Transportation, respectively, fund $160,000 and $80,000 per year. While the TLC is well-received, in comparison to similar programs for other MPOs, the overall TPB funding level is quite low. For example, the Atlanta Regional Commission, an MPO, for over nearly 20 years has funded, on the average, about a million dollars per year for the local planning grants portion of its Livable Center s Initiative. The interstate Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, the MPO for the Philadelphia Area covering five and one half million people has, since 2002, expended a total of 16.7 million dollars for the Transportation and Community Development Initiative, its planning grant program to local governments. The interstate Mid-America Regional Council in the Kansas City Area and covering four counties, started its Planning Sustainable Places local assistance program only five years ago, but in 2017 it awarded nearly two million dollars per year for its local planning grant program. From my calculations, the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, the MPO for the Cleveland area of five counties, in a 12-year period of time and on the average, provided local planning grants totaling about $900,000 per year under its Transportation for Livable Communities Initiative. These are but just four examples. This information comes from a 62-page May, 2017 document: 1.

2 Summary of Regional Livable Communities Programs Prepared by Forum Participants, and jointly put together by the Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division of the American Planning Association and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. It contains information on TLC-like and similar program information from 35 regional planning and/or MPO agencies from across the country. A copy of this 62-page document can be made available upon request. Again, the TPB TLC program is a good one and well-respected by local governments and others. However, in a practicable sense and as one of the needed actions to meet the spirit and thrust of the Vision 2045 aspirational element---"bringing jobs and housing closer together ---the TLC program should be gradually expanded with TPB monies. Over the next year or so the TPB might initially expand this program by about $200,000, maybe with PL funds, and then within three or four years, perhaps to a total of about a million dollars per year which would include continuing contributions from the States of Maryland and Virginia. Finally, either prior to or after the TLC program has reached a million dollars per year, a thorough evaluation should be made of the program, coming up with possible future directions. 2. Fully Deal With Regional Program Needs Via Cooperative Forecasts: On page 6 of Visualize 2045, it is indicated that between 2018 and 2045, the population of the Region will grow from 5.7 million in 2018 to 6.9 million by 2045 and that employment will grow from 3.3 million to 4.3 million. Thus, in this 27- year period, population will grow by 1. 2 million and employment will grow by 1.0 million. That means that the jobs to population ratio will be 83 percent, a very high ratio. Or, for every five new jobs added to the region, there will be a population growth of six people. I conducted a quick sanity check by reviewing the figures from the latest Cooperative Forecasts in 2016 which, I believe, are the basis for the above Visualize 2045 figures. I found that the ratio of jobs to population growth in the 27-year period was slightly over 75 percent, not 83 percent. This may seem like a trivial comparison, but it is not. Unless I am missing something, the figures on page 6 of the Visualize 2045 should be checked out and corrections made if needed. Even a jobs to population ratio of 75 percent seems high, relative to data bases developed elsewhere, that I have used in the past which looked at metropolitan areas across the country. Therefore, I went back and checked two Cooperative Forecasts before 2016, the farthest back had a base year of They all came up with a jobs to population ratio in the mid-70s percent range. Historically and again, across the country this is high, but then strong economies such as that of Metropolitan Washington usually have high jobs to population ratios. However, possibly, there is something else at play. COG s Cooperative Forecast system, initiated in 1975 is recognized as one of the better regional forecasting systems in the country. However, based on my past experience with even more extensive systems elsewhere, I know that that forecasting systems can, from time to time, become a little off-kilter, either because the model needs tweaking, or because the data fed into the model are based on somewhat faulty assumptions. Therefore, I would first do a sanity check of COG s Regional Employment Monitoring System followed by a check of the assumptions behind the data used in the modeling system. It could be that employment projections coming in from one or more local governments have gradually become too high. Or other inputs for population or households may be too low or too high. 2.

3 All of the above relative to Cooperative Forecasts may seem inconsequential. However, in my professional opinion, they are not. The Cooperative Forecasting System, very correctly so, is used for many important COG planning programs as well as for many local planning systems (e.g. the current update of the District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan). Therefore, it is important that this System be reviewed from time to time. It is an excellent system. Let s keep it that way. (Even if I owned a smoothrunning Mercedes-Benz, I would still do periodic checkups.) (Further Note: I have discussed this matter with a pertinent COG staffer and the staff assistance on this matter was excellent and very helpful.) 3. Other Planning Matters: It is my understanding that at the August, 2018 Board Retreat the issue of housing throughout the Region was a very important matter of discussion. And that further, it was also a very important matter of discussion at the September COG Board, including Resolution R , a copy of which I have. The crux of the matter is that the supply of jobs in the Region is outpacing the supply of housing, especially affordable housing. This conclusion initially came out of a scenario developed under the TPB Long Range Plan Task Force, such a scenario originally presented to the COG Board at its April 2018 meeting. The September, 2018 Resolution R directed the Executive Director of COG or his designee to work with both the COG Planning Directors Technical Advisory Committee and the COG Housing Directors Advisory Committee to assess the Region s ability to identify 100,000 housing units beyond those currently projected in the Cooperative Forecasting System. Given this very necessary, but demanding task, with regard to transportation planning as somewhat broadly defined, I would recommend the following: a. Conduct a basic check on the Cooperative Forecasting REMS model as well as on the population, employment, and household projection data inputs from local governments. Particularly make sure that the assumptions behind the various local government population, housing, and employment inputs are basically, congruent across the various jurisdictions. b. Examine and develop programs for those regional activity centers which are either not yet subject to development or are now underutilized, working with federal, state, and local officials as well as private and non-profit organizations and individuals. c. Identify in the next year or two those possible urban corridors which might, in the relatively near - future, be ready to accommodate more housing and to serve somewhat the same purposes that regional activities centers do. Then, three or four years from now, after the decennial 2020 U.S. Census numbers are released, all regional activities centers should be reviewed and this should also include the identification of a system of high-density corridors to be packaged with regional activity centers. d. Put together alternative packages of incentives to foster the further development of regional activity centers. Included might be the TLC program, TAP, CMAQ, and perhaps even the Commuter Connections program as might be pertinent. Also, determine if other federal, state, and local programs as well as non-profit programs, such as those of the Urban Land Institute, might be included. 3.

4 e. Conduct a socio-economic impact analysis of regional activity centers for those programmed for further development so as to ensure that that the development of such centers will not have unintended and adverse socioeconomic impacts. Further, I assume that some of the existing regional activity centers programmed for further development will be in Prince George s County, and the eastern portions of the District of Columbia and Fairfax County. If I am correct in this assumption, I suggest that initial socio-economic impact analyses be for these particular and existing regional activity centers. The TPB s Equity Emphasis Areas approach might well be one very important tool in this type of impact analysis. In any case, the Access for All Committee should be involved in all such studies, be in those regional activity centers suggested above or anywhere else in Washington Metropolitan Region. (Note: pages 26, 34, 41 and perhaps elsewhere in Visualize 2045 certainly imply further development of underdeveloped and existing regional activity centers as does the previously-mentioned COG Board Resolution R , dated September 12, 2018.) f. Work very closely with the Housing Technical Advisory Committee and COG staff, pertinent state and local housing agencies, as well as housing and community development entities, both profit and nonprofit, to come up with a regional housing program or a set of programs, including a strong affordable housing component. Lee Schoenecker, AICP th Place, NW Washington, DC

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