WCU Studio
Multiple topic
meetings

Cashiers
Kickoff, 6pm

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complete schedules

CULLOWHEE, NC, May 14, 2008 – After more than a year of prologue, an intensive workshop to produce the Mountain Landscapes Initiative “Tool Box” is underway. For many in the North Carolina mountains, the lead-up has been even longer.

[ STORY CONTINUES BELOW VIDEO > ]

At the kick-off event on Tuesday night at Western Carolina University, Bill Gibson, executive director of the Southwestern Commission, called the project “something we’ve been looking forward to for more than 30 years.”

Pat Smith, president of The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina said that while “we may have had problems talking about these issues in the past, our future is too important to just let change happen to us.” She’s looking forward, she said, to this week’s process producing “a people’s plan.”

The workshop, called a charrette, will produce a “Tool Box” of responsible planning and development guidelines for property owners, developers, and communities hoping to create long-range growth management plans in the North Carolina Mountains. The Southwestern Commission and The Community Foundation are partners in the “Tool Box” project, which is a pilot program of The Community Foundation’s Mountain Landscape Initiative (MLI).

Southwestern Commission assistant director Vicki Greene explained to those gathered for an opening presentation at Western Carolina University that the “Tool Box” stage has been set by two processes. One was the June 28, 2007, Growth Management Workshop where some 50 elected and appointed officials from the seven westernmost NC counties asked for three things:

• An example of a public involvement process that could help build a consensus for planning in mountain communities;
• Authoritative research and trend data to inform better decision-making; and
• Examples of regulatory approaches to address the unique challenges of planning and building in mountain landscapes.

The second process was the five-month-long outreach effort that produced a documentary of interviews with citizens in the region, then used the documentary to start focused conversations in a series of Community Forums in April. Out of those Forums came a list of Top 10 Questions citizens wanted addressed during the charrette. “Tool Box” contents will be shaped around the range of proposals that answer citizens’ questions and regional leaders’ requests for growth management tools.

Over the course of the next week, Lawrence Group principal Craig Lewis will lead a team of national and regional experts on design, engineering, transportation policy, and other specialties. They’ll collaborate with regional citizens and their leaders to sort through ideas and test approaches that may be suitable for the “Tool Box” first draft, which will be presented on Tuesday night, May 20. For a full schedule of the week’s meetings – including schedules for satellite charrettes in North Macon County and Cashiers – go here.

Everything is open to everyone all the time. So come join us in person at the charrette sites. And don’t forget to follow the action on these web pages. We’ll update the process daily through May 21.