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ITD-supported regional plan wins Gem Award

A regional plan supported by the Idaho Transportation Department has been named winner of the 2015 Gem Award by the Idaho Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA).

Titled theTeton View Regional Plan for Sustainable Development – May 2015, “the plan and its 20 supportive studies and companion tools chart a realistic path towards economic and community sustainability across a changing social and environmental landscape” of Fremont, Madison and Teton counties in eastern Idaho, and Teton County in Wyoming.

In announcing the award, Teton County Planning Administrator Jason Boal said that, of all the nominations received, the regional plan best exemplified the 2015 Idaho APA Conference theme: “Rural Spaces and Urban Places: Charting the Future of Idaho.” It also met the criteria for a Gem Award, which recognizes planning achievement and leadership. Boal chairs the 2015 Idaho APA Awards Committee.
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The Western Greater Yellowstone Consortium, which the four counties formed to prepare the plan, aimed to help local-government officials and public-land managers better coordinate land-use planning, resource management and community development.

The plan (http://sustainableyellowstone.org/) is "creative, attractive and comprehensive," said ITD District 6 Public Information Specialist Bruce King.

In addition to the four counties, the consortium includes Island Park, Ashton, St. Anthony, Rexburg, Driggs, Victor and Jackson. Other participants include the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, Bridger-Teton National Forest, U.S. Bureau of Land Management Upper Snake River District, Idaho Department of Lands, and ITD.

The Yellowstone Business Partnership and the Ashton Community Foundation were nonprofit partners in the consortium, which launched a three-year planning process in February 2012. The consortium received a $1.5 million Sustainable Communities Planning Grant in November 2011 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to fund the planning effort.

“The planning endeavor was significant because rarely do rural counties engage in such cooperative planning,” said Bill Shaw, ITD District 6 senior transportation planner, pictured below.

Fremont County, which applied for the HUD grant, led the planning mission. Planning and Building Department Administrator Tom Cluff, of Fremont County, said consortium members focused on what the region shares in common while respecting the varied economic, political and cultural views of each community.

“The group accepted the reality of differing perspectives across the four counties, presenting the plan as a voluntary, livability roadmap to guide each jurisdiction in future development,” Cluff said. “The plan outlines parallel paths that each locality may travel independently or through coordinated, regionwide implementation.”

The consortium submitted the plan and its appendices to HUD this spring. Findings, conclusions and recommendations of the research studies and of data assessments were integrated into a draft document, which received public scrutiny in February and March.

The Teton View Regional Plan profiles high-priority community-scale projects and multi-sector initiatives to be led voluntarily by local cities, counties and organizations. The plan also summarizes smaller projects that may be implemented by localities over the long term.

Officials of Idaho APA will present the Gem Award to the Western Greater Yellowstone Consortium at the 2015 Idaho APA conference in Sandpoint Oct. 7 (http://idahoapa.org/2015-annual-conference/).

“The plan begins by observing that we all ‘lead regional lives,’ since we all travel, sometimes great distances, to work, shop and play,” Cluff said. “Useful as that observation may be, it is even more true to say that, while we function within our larger region, we actually live very locally.

“Each of us identifies with our own place – a specific locale that we’ve chosen for our own deeply personal reasons. It is in those places that we feel most alive – and where we will find the motivation to go to work and solve real problems to meet real needs – no matter how far afield we may roam.”