This past decade, we rolled up our sleeves and tackled the issues of growth. Cities in our position know that the growth-management battle includes radical views and proposals. For Southern Nevada the battle cry began three years ago when state proposals to control, or even stop growth, were pushed to the forefront of public discussion. We heard calls to place a growth restrictive "ring around the valley", to dramatically increase development fees to slow growth, and even to place a moratorium on building permits. Some of these proposals made their way to the State Legislature, where state representatives considered replacing local government authority to manage growth issues with state mandates.
In 1997, the Nevada State Legislature recognized that growth is a local issue, best managed by those governments most closely connected to its challenges and responsibilities. The Legislature, with a clear majority vote, passed SB 383, creating the Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority. The 21 member Authority consisted of elected representatives from Southern Nevada City Councils and the Clark County Board of Commissioners along with Southern Nevada business leaders and residents. The Authority members were charged with developing a 20-year Strategic Plan for the Las Vegas Valley. The plan brought together a variety of public and private members with strong individual interests to reach consensus on both a vision for the future of the valley and an action plan to get us there.
The final product, the Strategic Plan, was presented to the 1999 Nevada State Legislature. The Plan identified twelve areas impacted by existing and future growth, and included goals, objectives and strategies to address each of these issues. No Southern Nevada entity had ever undertaken a comprehensive study of this scope from a regional perspective, and the recommendations contained in the final plan represents a historical and significant local initiative in dealing with growth and quality of life issues.
Throughout this process, the authority members agreed that local government handling local problems, with regional collaboration on regional issues, is by far the most effective solution to sustaining livable communities and enhancing the quality of life for our residents. Regional Collaboration on issues of regional importance became an effective tool for addressing issues such as: transportation, environment, economy, and education. Most importantly, we recognized that a cookie-cutter approach to individual community standards, such as parks and recreation and land use planning, is not always appropriate, or beneficial, to our citizens if we lose the authority and responsibility inherent in a municipality to resolve community problems. For example, I mentioned earlier that the City of Henderson residents were satisfied with local community standards, but their priority concerns were for regional in nature. It is clear that the City of Henderson alone could not adequately address our residents' top priorities without regional collaboration.
Lead by local governments, business leaders and citizens, the Authority's regional effort has received national praise. In the 1998 Urban Land Institute's publication, "Smart Growth", the Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority is highlighted as a regional approach to smart growth initiatives. Locally, many of the recommendations included in the Strategic Plan have already been adopted. One such initiative is the creation of the Southern Nevada Planning Coalition, composed of elected representatives from local governments, whose charge is to oversee the implementation of the recommendations included in the Strategic Plan.
The City of Henderson continues to work proactively in addressing our growth-related issues. In a recent agreement between the City of Henderson and Clark County, both jurisdictions agreed to jointly plan along jurisdictional boundaries for consistency in transportation, land-use, and future utility siting. This is another first for Southern Nevada, and represents the kind of intergovernmental collaboration necessary to meet the challenges of growth while maintaining and enhancing the quality of life for our residents.
In reflecting on our accomplishments over the last two years, we have seen an incredible paradigm shift in how local governments interact to address issues of growth. It became incredibly clear that disjointed or unplanned growth, without regard to whether people enjoy living here in the Las Vegas Valley, does not serve the public interest. The Authority members are proud of our hands-on, consensus-based approach, as this diverse group had to learn how to delve into the tough issues and arrive at decisions together. The challenge we successfully faced was to define what "quality of life" means to the people who live here so that the right strategies could be pursued to protect and improve our lives.
In the final analysis, we've found that our Strategic Planning process got to the heart of what concerns most cities across the nation while the debate regarding quality of life issues has elevated to the national level. The recent dialogue surrounding the Administration's Livability Agenda hits at the very core of issues covered during our two year Strategic Planning process. We mirror the Livability Agenda's concerns in addressing the preservation of open and green spaces, clean air and water, safe places for families to work, play and relax; easing traffic congestion; enhancing citizen and private sector involvement in planning; collaboration between neighboring communities; and promotion of economic competitiveness.
Our desired outcomes are the same: how do we protect and enhance our quality of life? Our completed Strategic Plan and its legacy of regional collaboration is evidence that these tough issues can be resolved locally. Perhaps the Authority's Strategic Plan will be useful as a blueprint for local cooperation and solutions to effectively address growth.