Recognizing the assured growth of southwest Florida, Lee County is faced with the challenge of shaping our growth in ways that will improve the fundamental character of our community. Smart Growth represents a solution to that challenge.

The mission of the Lee County Smart Growth Task Force is to lead and encourage diverse community involvement and consensus to further the vision of Smart Growth in Lee County. The task force defines Smart Growth as a continuation of growth, balanced economic development, environmental preservation, sound government fiscal policy and sustained improvement in quality of life. With this model in mind, its vision is to shape the future growth of Lee County through a proactive, inclusive community effort that continuously improves the quality of life by reaching a harmonious balance between economic development, environmental sustainability and community livability, to provide a legacy for future generations.

In conducting our activities, we will be guided by the following beliefs and values:

• Inclusiveness and collaboration are essential for success
• We will operate with integrity
• We will share knowledge, while being respectful of others’ views and opinions
• We will stay proactive, positive and vision oriented
• We will respect the needs of future generations
• A sense of community is important to our quality of life
• We will subscribe to innovation, new ideas and reinvention

To further the mission of Smart Growth in Lee County, the task force will undertake the following activities:

• Increase public awareness through education
• Develop and maintain a web site to foster community input and knowledge
• Foster a positive and proactive attitude
• Develop a sustainable process for community involvement and visioning
• Facilitate solutions/alternatives through consensus building, collaboration and involvement of the community
• Analyze, compile available data/studies
• Ascertain funding sources and prioritize funding needs
• Develop a methodology for evaluating success

The recommended process for the task force and its working groups is consensus building. Consensus building is a facilitated face-to-face interaction between stakeholders that aims to increase the quality of their communication and explore options for addressing the issues identified. The goal of this process is to gather many ideas from which clear, concise and formal recommendations can be drawn to reach a win-win solution.

The working groups will conduct in-depth meetings to identify all respective issues, including Land Use, Water Supply, Environment, Transportation and Community Character. Each will look for common ground and consensus around recommendations for improvement.

Facilitators will be at hand to help participants follow the ground rules and communicate productively, respectfully and with focus on the issues.

The task force will coordinate and support the process and review and summarize the recommendations of the issue working groups.

The consensus building process will be successful if it is inclusive of all interested groups, owned by the stakeholders, vision-oriented with a final result in mind, creative, unifying, resulting in change of policies and in long-term positive change of attitudes towards the way of dealing with different perspectives about growth management.

For additional information contact:
Beverly Fox, Smart Growth Liaison
foxba@leegov.com
(941) 338 - 3161