Contact: Doug Christensen, PE, Mead & Hunt
Phone: (866) 441-5214 or E-mail: doug.christensen@meadhunt.com
Website: www.thegrandvision.org
Contact: Phil Callighan, Sr. Account Executive, Knorr Marketing
Phone: (231) 947-9707, ext. 207; Mobile: (231) 342-7590 or E-mail: philc@knorrmarketing.com
Public Starts The Grand Vision Process
(Traverse City, Michigan) — Last night (Wednesday: 10-17-07), a capacity crowd at the Park Place Hotel Dome participated in the first in a series of six hands-on visualization and scenario planning workshops as part of The Grand Vision (www.thegrandvision.org). The workshop started the public-led process of regional land use and transportation planning throughout the Grand Traverse region to handle expected growth in the region during the next 30 - 50 years.
Following introductory remarks from local leaders and Kirk T. Steudle, Director of the Michigan Department of Transportation, Scenario Planning Specialist John Fregonese set the stage for growth challenges facing the region. According to Fregonese, research has indicated that between 2005 and 2030, the population of Grand Traverse County will grow by 41%. The five contiguous counties to Grand Traverse (Acme, Benzie, Kalkaska, Leelanau and Wexford) will grow 35.8% during the same period. Meanwhile, the State of Michigan, as a whole, will only grow by 13% between 2005 – 2030. “In other words, this region will be growing three times faster than the state,” said Fregonese.
Small groups, of 10 participants each, worked at tables covered with a regional map and chips representing different types of land use and housing densities. Then, they began to decide where new growth should and should not occur within the Study Area.
Participants also discussed the general form that new growth should take, and the type of transportation system needed to serve it.
Robert Grow, a Visioning Expert who, along with Fregonese and others, is consulting on The Grand Vision process, felt the evening was a great success. “I look around and see a good cross-section of people from this area having fun and yet seriously engaged with this process,” said Grow. “That’s the true measure of its success.”
Grow added, “This is a grand region that deserves a grand vision to create some grand action. It’s a great beginning for the next generation that will live here.”
The Grand Vision is a federally funded project, conducted by a team led by Mead & Hunt, an engineering firm with offices in Lansing and Traverse City, Michigan. The process will also include reviews of past area studies, values surveys, interviews and implementation strategies.
According to a spokesman, the next workshop for The Grand Vision is being planned for early 2008.
