Working Group Output

North Carolina’s growth is placing great strain on its built infrastructure and its natural resources, key elements for realizing sustained economic growth. Over the next quarter of a century the state will become home to at least four million new residents. They will need places to live, work and play. The private sector will drive much of the state’s new development, but the state of North Carolina and its local governments will be called upon to make unprecedented infrastructure investments in roads, water and sewer systems, schools and housing. How we make decisions about those investments requires us to reflect on the way we want to live and the way we build. 

The time is now to revisit our vision for the future in North Carolina and to set into motion a plan to build a resilient infrastructure that can withstand the increasingly powerful external pressures that have become more powerful in recent years, such as rising energy costs, climate change, natural disasters and financial crises.  This vision and plan will sustain our competitiveness over the long term, preserve our high quality of life and our natural environment and serve the needs of all North Carolinians, wherever they may live.

The following are eight “Statements of Direction” in bold identified and agreed upon by IEI’s Working Group as critical for North Carolina to address if it is to build and maintain resilient built infrastructure that is distributed in a balanced and equitable way.  The bulleted items serve as a Menu of Alternatives to achieving each corresponding Statement of Direction.  No consensus was sought in determining the Menu of Alternatives allowing for a diversity of perspectives to be included.  They are to serve, as their name implies, as a partial menu of choices to achieving each Statement of Direction.

Statements of Direction:

1.) Governance structures should be responsive to the state’s built infrastructure challenges by forging collaborative relationships and redefining government responsibilities for developing, maintaining and financing our built infrastructure.

Actively study and implement new forms of regional government decision making and financing authority for transportation and water/sewer infrastructure.  Approaches may differ in metro areas and rural areas

The state should financially reward intergovernmental collaboration and discourage fragmented approaches through withholding funding

Explore a state policy to expand broadband infrastructure statewide

Explore county funding of roads

Revisit the current structure, authority, accountability and boundaries of existing regional entities, for example, regional economic development agencies, Councils of Government, MPOs, RPOs

Explore alternative public revenue sources for built infrastructure (see 21st Century Transportation Report)

 

2.) Built infrastructure should be financed and managed in an economically sustainable manner, considering government needs and abilities, with a plan for future service shortages, crises and changing conditions.

Local governments should evaluate existing funding authorities for maximum utility and to provide dependable built infrastructure

Provide incentives for co-location of built infrastructure

Create built infrastructure funding mechanisms that are fair, equitable and broad based

Develop a coherent funding framework that incorporates local, state, federal and private funding options

Increase transparency and accountability in funding allocation

Increase the statewide real estate transfer tax to pay for infrastructure needs.

Requirements for surcharge on existing water/sewer users to pay future expansion and improvements 

Charge impact fees for financing expansion of new development

 

3.) Community planning should engage residents so that they understand the positive and negative consequences related to various land uses and can inform decision making about built infrastructure investments and North Carolina’s long-term vision for the way it builds and grows.

Require financial disclosure with planning proposals (e.g. if we do x then
      taxes will increase by y)

Communicate what the incremental costs are for new development

Educate citizens so that built infrastructure is not taken for granted

Include city planning and management curriculum in high schools

Develop a citizen interface to communicate the built infrastructure footprint (web based?)

Hold “Community Planning 101” for community residents

 

4.) Built infrastructure should be designed and operated so that it enhances, complements or sustains clean air and water, healthy farms and forests and abundant open space.

Identify failing built infrastructure and target funds to fix or abandon as appropriate

Strive to ensure that built infrastructure enhances the environment either directly or indirectly in the design and planning process

Develop a process for conducting environmental enhancement evaluation (change mind-set from environmental impact to environmental enhancement)

Develop incentives and requirements for reducing carbon footprint

Enforce existing environmental laws

Fund a stormwater retrofit program, the extent of which will be an economic stimulus package

Encourage research of cost and benefits to and beneficial use of ecosystem services to be incorporated into planning processes

Promote the development of a statewide policy for the implementation of Low Impact Development and green development including clean energy

Create public awareness efforts and educate citizens about our environmental impacts so the public will support needed changes

Conserve more land by providing dedicated increased funding for land conservation programs

Expand tax incentives for land owners who wish to preserve their land

 

5.) Future growth should create communities that offer transportation choices that are reliable, accessible, efficient, complementary, affordable, desirable and that enhance public and environmental health.

Adopt transportation funding mechanisms that are more transparent to system users (VMT, tolls, HOT/HOV, congestion pricing)

Commit to longer term funding for nonmotorized and transit infrastructure (not annual budgets for capital investments)

Develop incentive programs to connect local governments and planning with transit operations and service expansion

Provide tax benefits to workers and employers to use alternative modes

Integrate transportation infrastructure planning into other built infrastructure categories – it is the nexus for the connections between places and development

Reduce the weighting of mobility by private car as a criterion for transportation investment

Target highway investments toward existing built infrastructure that support other long term ‘good growth’ goals

Incorporate climate change and sea level rise impacts into transportation investments and decisions now 

Identify assets that we can leverage for creating additional choices – corridors, freight facilities, park and ride lots, etc. 

Maintain the condition of our existing freight network.

Explore new technologies to improve the efficiency of operations on our freight network.

Explore new funding and operations strategies to provide transportation choices in rural areas

 

6.) Communities should offer water/sewer/stormwater infrastructure that is reliable, accessible, efficient, affordable, economically sustainable and that enhances public and environmental health.

Study and encourage use of Low Impact Design for irrigation and stormwater runoff

Make drought plans mandatory statewide

Invest in R&D for cleaner, more cost-efficient water and wastewater treatment technologies

Encourage direct potable reuse of wastewater

Use gray water and rainwater for irrigation and cooling mechanisms

Make interconnections of water systems mandatory

Coordinate regional water/sewer authorities with land use planning

Improve fiscal analysis of installation of water and sewer systems (direct and indirect costs)

Encourage rate structures for water/sewer that account for direct individual costs and benefits (eg increasing block rate)

Provide strong education for water conservation techniques

Create rate structures that capture depreciation fully

Examine cost justified impact fees

Encourage ‘gray to green’ stormwater retrofits of existing neighborhoods and built infrastructure

Establish local and regional water/sewer delivery areas to limit sprawl and conserve limited resources

Strengthen permitting and inspection regulations for well, septic and package sewer systems.

 

7.) Communities should locate, build and maintain schools in a manner that is affordable, energy and resource efficient and enhances student learning.

County school boards and county government should encourage collaboration beyond government boundaries to efficiently serve student population centers

Evaluate existing built infrastructure to determine retrofitting or selective abandonment

Look to existing built infrastructure to improve current school structures prior to new construction

Redefine schools to be community centers including recreation, arts, libraries, public meeting spaces and community colleges.

Consider development of “right size” (ie 500 student population) schools instead of large school “factories”

Encourage school boards and county governments to actively pursue public/private partnerships for school financing

Explore giving school boards taxing authority

Incent green-building (i.e. LEED certification) and daylighting of school buildings

Encourage the construction of urban school design (multi-story, compact footprint) in urban settings

 

8.) North Carolina’s communities should offer a range of housing options that are affordable, energy and resource efficient and located so as to provide residents with appropriate access to transportation, jobs, schools and services.

School land should include affordable housing below market

Transit-Oriented-Development should require affordable, below market rate housing

Foster and support efforts for providing employer-assisted housing

Foster public/private partnerships to develop housing around new employment locations

Incent developers to offer a range of housing prices in new housing development or redevelopment

Encourage higher density and different housing designs in areas where development has already occurred