Session: Smart Growth Plan Approval

March 30, 4:00 PM

Jerry Swanson
Town of Gilbert

Linda Edwards
Town of Gilbert

Preparing a smart growth comprehensive plan for voter ratification presents challenges. Arizona cities have used temporary and existing staff and consultants to prepare successful plans covering growth areas, costs of development, environmental sustainability, commercial revitalization, and more.

• Under Arizona law, Cities and Town must prepare multi-element General Plans and have them adopted by the electorate every 10 years. For cities over 2500 population the adoption and ratification deadline initially was the end of 2001; it was extended by the legislature when most communities missed the deadline.
• Growing Smarter and Growing Smarter Plus legislation was adopted in part to avoid more stringent and limiting growth control ballot measures.
• For the first time, Arizona requires implementation actions to “conform” to the adopted General Plan—a higher standard than “consistency” and much higher than the prior official Arizona standard.
• Although every community had a mandated deadline for completion of the adoption/election process, no sanction was provided.
• Because there was now a lot at stake, many more topics had to be covered, and the legislation was unclear about many requirements, the planning community in the state largely set about trying to comply, but underestimated the complexity and short time horizons involved.
• Many communities chose to take more time, even though it meant missing the state deadline; others, including Gilbert, were advised by legal counsel that development could be in jeopardy if a compliant plan was not in place by the mandated deadline.
• The Growing Smarter and Growing Smarter Plus legislation required a public participation plan to be adopted prior to formally beginning the General Plan process.

• Gilbert is a Phoenix suburb, located south of Mesa and East of Chandler. It has a population of nearly 140,000. It is regarded as a family community, with very good schools, a low crime rate, nice neighborhoods, a growing trails network, and well-designed commercial areas.
• Nearly 95% of residents in the 2002 annual community survey found Gilbert to be a good or excellent place to live.
• During the last decade, Gilbert was the fastest growing community in the nation over 100,000 people, eclipsing Henderson, Nevada.
• Gilbert adds roughly 1000 residents every month, and has generally done so for the past ten years.
• The Census Bureau ranked Gilbert as the “most married” community in America, with 69.5% of its households being married, with or without children.
• Gilbert has the second highest average household size in the Phoenix area at 3.2 persons per household.
• Most of Gilbert is new, with homeowners associations managing their neighborhood parks and open spaces.

• The last adopted General Plan prior to Growing Smarter was 1994; the population was then approximately 50,000.
• At the 2000 census Gilbert had grown to 108,000 people. The majority of residents had not lived in the community when the last Plan was adopted.
• The 1994 General Plan was “general” in that it allowed flexibility to the point of vagueness. Neither use nor intensity could be accurately predicted.
• Work began in earnest in 2000 to develop a plan that met state requirements and would be helpful in managing the rapid growth of the community.
• The Town hired new professional staff for two years to mange the project.
• An update of the Parks, Trails and Open Space element of the Plan was a major undertaking, assisted by a consulting firm.
• To make the Plan more predictable, and to insure that it could be efficiently implemented, the new plan became much more precise.
• Significant land use map changes were avoided, but the classification system was revised. Other than becoming more specific, almost no change was made to residential areas or classifications.
• Several area plans were incorporated into the General Plan as “character areas.”
• The Town hired an independent planning consultant to perform a “peer review” of the draft General Plan. He identified policy and substantive issues that were corrected for the final version.
• The majority of the staff and consultant work on the plan was overseen by the Planning Commission, which served in the role of the steering committee. Almost all of the Commission’s work was televised.

• Time
  • Deadlines make people get serious about planning.
  • Schedule is determined by starting at the election date and working backwards.
  • Required periods for referring the Plan to the electorate, holding public hearings, circulating drafts to other jurisdictions and to the State add up to a lot of lead time.
  • The focus of planning work becomes the General Plan; unlike business as usual, advance planning became the planning priority.
  • Consensus is more important when there is not time for endless debate.
  • The option to double back and rethink direction is less available; there is less room for error.
  • Nitpicking is minimized; people focus on the big picture.
  • Between the date the Council adopts the General Plan and when the ratification election can be held is between 90 and 120 days. This affords an opportunity to concentrate on implementation.
• Power
  • There is a subtle shift of power to the public from special interests—especially
    non-resident property owners and businesses. Only voters count in the election, and only residents can vote.
  • Neighborhoods are an even more important constituency than with a traditional General Plan.
  • Sweetheart deals are largely out—the unusually open and public process proved somewhat intimidating to insiders.
  • Most residents are not directly involved, but get their information from secondary sources, including the media, the Town webpage, community organizations, neighborhood associations and word of mouth.
• The Media Role
  • Media has a pivotal role to play, give the compressed schedules and limited participation.
  • Open processes are critical. In Gilbert the media had no controversial issues to focus on, so it got bored. When a General Plan press briefing was held prior to release of the final draft, no reporters came. The same was not true in other communities.
  • The media was helpful in conveying information by reporting schedules, facts, content and major milestones.
  • Media controversy could distract from the overall General Plan message, causing people to be unsure, ultimately leading to a failure to pass the ballot measure.
• Ballot Measure—Planners Become Political Strategists
  • Once the General Plan is adopted, ballot language has to be adopted by the Town Council.
  • The Planning department hired an attorney specializing in election law to craft the ballot language.
  • After the General Plan is adopted, planners have to avoid becoming advocates, sticking instead to factual information.
  • Citizens who had been involved with the Plan adoption formed a political action committee to sponsor pro-General Plan ads and to speak in favor of passage of the ballot measure.
  • No opposition surfaced to the Plan during the election; other communities were not so fortunate. One ballot measure in a small community failed.
• Public Participation an Essential Component of Growing Smarter
  • Arizona legislature deemed participation to be a critical element, and a Public Participation Plan had to be adopted prior to formally starting on the General Plan effort.
  • The PPP must include all legally required steps, plus maximum efforts to involve the public in the Plan.
  • Gilbert tried most conventional and some unconventional participation methods.
  • Actual participation was modest; opportunity to participate was high.
• Presumption of Validity
  • Elected officials can and do use the voter approval to justify policy decisions.
  • The “spirit of the General Plan” is as important as the letter.
  • Staff and the Planning Commission convey General Plan policies daily.
  • The General Plan in Arizona is voted on every 10 years; local elected officials must run every two to four years. The Plan life is longer than the usual term of office.
  • Annual General Plan updates are needed to avoid the plan becoming outdated, but changes need to be well justified. In Gilbert’s case, because a number of details were not done correctly due to the compressed schedule, the first annual update was substantial.
  • The Planning Commission sees itself as the “guardian” of the General Plan, and is quite protective of its key provisions.

Gilbert’s experiment with voter ratification of its General Plan in November of 2001 resulted in an 84.3% yes vote. There was a higher percentage of positive votes for ratification of the Plan than for our 2001 bond election. This was the highest approval percentage of any Arizona community, although others were close. All things considered, from the Town perspective the Growing Smarter experiment was a success. Gilbert is better off for having this process.

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