On Monday December 3^rd, 2007, a regional planning exercise called Reality Check took place that involved 150 participants from the public and private sectors and various not-for-profit organizations representing land-use, development, and conservation from around the Berkeley Charleston Dorchester region. Reality Check is a national planning initiative that was launched by the Urban Land Institute (a 501(c) (3) land use research and education nonprofit) with the purpose of exhibiting to localities the importance of future land planning at the regional level. The participants of Reality Check got into fifteen groups and gathered around large-scale regional maps to discuss the placement of theoretical new jobs and housing (denoted by Lego blocks), transportation and green space corridors (denoted with ribbon), and parks (denoted by green dots). The BCD Reality Check is a part of the Urban Land Institute’s South Carolina District statewide visioning effort that will also include Reality Check exercises (to take place later) in the Midlands and the Upstate. Reality Check has already taken place in Los Angeles, CA; Washington D.C., North Texas, the state of Maryland, and Tampa Bay, FL.

Other Reality Check exercises are scheduled within the next two years around the country in Seattle, WA; Phoenix, Flagstaff, and Tucson, AZ; the research triangle area of North Carolina; Jacksonville, FL; and Richmond, VA. As the BCD region is expected to see 265,000 new residents and 186,000 new jobs by the year 2030, the need for the region to consider their growth patterns and impacts as a whole is imperative. By the end of the BCD Reality Check, there were several common sentiments that became apparent in all of the participant groups’ maps. These “Guiding Principles” will contribute to the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of the region if the region continues to plan as a whole.

Consensus Guiding Principles - (quoted by Bill Settlemyer President and CEO, Setcom Media):• Preservation of the region’s unique and treasured natural and cultural resources should be an integral part of all growth management discussions and development decisions.

• The region should focus on the development of “live-work-play” communities with a mix of housing types, jobs and recreational and civic amenities.

• More emphasis should be placed on providing affordable housing.

• The region should promote urban infill and development and encourage higher-density development along existing and augmented transportation corridors.

• Major transportation corridors should become interconnected multi-way corridors with a mix of vehicle, transit, bicycle and pedestrian mobility options.

• Housing and jobs should be better balanced through the region to allow more people to work and shop at places closer to their homes.

• A regional visioning, cooperation and coordination process should be developed in support of these goals. To find out more about the BCD Reality Check, please visit the website at www.RealityCheckBCD.com. For more information on the South Carolina District of the Urban Land Institute, please see their website at http://southcarolina.uli.org.

Filed under: Charleston SC Green Living, I'On Group, Urban Sustainability on January 23rd, 2008