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Program and Activity Summary

Economic Development

Commission work activities focus on collecting and providing economic data necessary for the county and communities to prepare the economic development element of the Smart Growth Law. This activity also provides data necessary to evaluate regional economic trends and to assess the interrelationship between regional development policies and economic development. Economic trends data is published annually in the Commission’s Regional Trends report.

The commission partners with the Madison Area Transportation Board to generate economic development projections concurrent with new Census information as a basis for allocating growth projections for the region.

Community Development

The Commission maintains the Dane County Land Use and Transportation Plan, the general land use plan for the region, by reviewing requests to amend 20-year service area boundaries to accommodate urban growth. The Commission also provides information and technical assistance to local communities and others regarding Census data and demographics, housing, urban design, density, redevelopment and infill studies. A central work activity involves working with local communities in the Future Urban Development Area (FUDA) planning program, which is a collaborative long range local community planning initiative in the context of local comprehensive planning. FUDA planning creates an opportunity to inform local planning activities of regional issues and opportunities, and concurrently informs regional planning activities of local needs and interests.

The Commission serves as the lead agency for the Sustainable Community Regional Planning Grant awarded to the Capital Region by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The $2 million, three-year grant provides funding to foster regional collaboration, conduct planning and pursue demonstration projects for sustainable communities. One of the major projects is CARPC’s Future Urban Development Area (FUDA) planning. Recognizing that regional challenges – healthy environment, mobility, economic opportunities for all, and quality of life – require collaborative and integrated approaches, 27 governmental and private entities came together as the Partnership for Sustainable Communities to successfully compete for these grant funds.

Land Use & Environmental Resources

The commission is the area-wide water quality management planning agency for the region under contract with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The Commission engages in natural resources monitoring and inventories, ground and surface water quality and quantity management, planning point and non-point source pollution control, resource protection, and other environmental planning contained in the Dane County Water Quality Plan. Additional work is carried out in natural resource monitoring and screening work associated with FUDA Environmental Conditions Reports and related activities.

The commission coordinates the needed resources to maintain an ongoing water quality monitoring program in partnership with the USGS. It also coordinates the needed resources to maintain a groundwater hydrologic model for the region in partnership with WGNHS.

As part if the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant, the Commission has added a restoration biologist to perform a qualitative inventory of habitat resources in the region.

Transportation
Transportation planning activities were part of the work of the Dane County Regional Planning Commission and were separated out by the creation of the Madison Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MAMPO) upon the re-organization of the DCRPC in 1999. The CARPC contracts with the Madison Area Transportation Planning Board (TPB, formerly MAMPO) for transportation planning work associated with amendments to the Land Use and Transportation Plan and for the rural portions of the region.

As part of the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning grant, in partnership with the TPB, transit corridor studies will be conducted for the Central Urban Area.

Information & Data Systems
The Commission maintains and updates GIS layers on natural resources, land use, service area boundaries and environmental corridors for the Dane County region. Its staff also participates in interdepartmental staff meetings to coordinate the GIS activities of the RPC with the rest of GIS enterprises in the region. The Commission also conducts a Land Use Inventory, which involves the use of aerial photography, field reviews, and GIS databases to produce maps and land use statistics. The commission is a Census data clearinghouse and maintains community data on growth, development, economic activity, and transportation for the region, and publishes an annual Regional Trends report.

Association of Wisconsin Regional Planning Commissions: 2011