AGENDA #5a

MEMORANDUM

TO:                  Roger L. Stancil, Town Manager

FROM:            J.B. Culpepper, Planning Director

                        David Bonk, Long Range and Transportation Planning Coordinator

SUBJECT:     Process for Creating Socio-Economic Projections for the 2035 Regional Long Range Transportation Plan

DATE:            September 27, 2006

PURPOSE

This memorandum outlines a process for the update of the 2030 Regional Long Range Transportation Plan to the horizon year 2035; specifically, the development of socio-economic and land use forecasts for the Town of Chapel Hill. 

Background

The Durham/Chapel Hill/Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization is responsible for transportation planning in the urbanized areas of Durham and Orange Counties, and northern Chatham County. The Metropolitan Planning Organization has begun an update of the 2030 Long Range Transportation Plan adopted on April 13, 2005, to project regional transportation needs through the year 2035.

Federal regulations require all Metropolitan Planning Organizations to develop a long-range transportation plan in order to receive federal highway, transit, and other transportation related funding. The long-range plan is used to guide funding and development decisions that relate to constructing transportation infrastructure, minimizing highway congestion, and improving air quality in the region. 

Federal regulations also stipulate the contents of the plan and the process used in its development. The plan must have:

• A multi-modal approach that includes not only highway projects, but provides for other modes such as public transportation, walking, and bicycling.
• A minimum 20-year planning horizon.
• A financial plan that balances revenues and costs to demonstrate that the plan is financially responsible and constrained.
• An appropriate air quality analysis to show that forecasted emissions will not exceed air quality budgets.
• A public involvement process that meets federal guidelines, and is sensitive especially to those groups traditionally left out of the planning process.
• A vision that meets community goals.
• An update at least every three years.

As part of the development of the 2035 Plan, Town of Chapel Hill planning staff has been working with Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) staff to develop a socio-economic forecast of households and employment to 2035.  The forecasts will be used as inputs to the regional travel demand model, which will be used to project future travel patterns. 

PROCESS

Although the Durham/Chapel Hill/Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization and Capitol Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is responsible for Wake County, will develop separate plans, the staffs from the two organizations have coordinated specific tasks.  For the development of the 2035 Plan, the Triangle J Council of Governments has been engaged to coordinate and oversee the process to prepare socio-economic forecasts in both areas.

All jurisdictions within the two Metropolitan Planning Organizations are using the same process, based on one developed for the Wake County School System, to prepare the socio-economic forecasts.  This procedure uses parcel-level information to describe current land uses and project future development and redevelopment.  The specific amount of housing and employment in Chapel Hill will be based on development templates created by planning staff, which describe the mix of uses and site design characteristics for future development and redevelopment.  Multiple templates will be created to reflect the unique characteristics of development.

The current MPO schedule for the 2035 Plan proposes that the socio-economic forecasts, endorsed by local governments, should be completed by December 2006.  Under this timeline the forecasts will be released for a 42-day public comment period beginning in January 2007, during which time local governments will have the opportunity to comment on the combined projections for the entire Metropolitan Planning Organization planning area.  The forecast is expected to be adopted by the Transportation Advisory Committee in April 2007.

While the schedule for creating the 2035 forecasts precedes the ongoing process to update the Town Comprehensive Plan, we expect that completing these projections now will inform and improve the update of the Comprehensive Plan. 

We propose the following schedule:

♦ November 6	Presentation of Draft 2035 Plan Socio-Economic Projections to Town Council
♦ November 8	Planning Board Review of draft projections
♦ November 9	Transportation Board Review of draft projections
♦ November 20	Town Council public forum on draft projections
♦ December 4	Anticipated Council action to endorse 2035 projections
♦ December 13	Projections submitted to the Durham/Chapel Hill/Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization
♦ January 2007	Anticipated public comment period on all regional projections

NEXT STEPS

We will prepare draft socio-economic forecasts to present to the Town Council on November 6, 2006. At that time we will ask the Council to refer the projections to the Planning and Transportation Boards and set a public forum to receive comment on November 20, 2006.