The Alliance Calls on Patrick Administration to Commit to Sustained Prosperity

Alliance members have kicked off the new year with meetings with key secretaries and other high-level staff of the Patrick Administration to remind them of the importance of advancing a growth and development agenda that ensures prosperity in the Commonwealth in a sustainable and equitable way. We have outlined a few short-term steps that the administration can take to ensure that growth in the Commonwealth is deliberate and thoughtful:

Publicly recommit to the Commonwealth’s Sustainable Development Principles. Governor Patrick could embrace these fully-vetted Principles and challenge the Cabinet to do what the Romney Administration did not do – follow-through on them and rigorously implement them across all the agencies.

Adopt criteria for distributing state infrastructure dollars. A first step to making the Principles “real” would be to ask each of the Development Cabinet agencies to develop a clear set of criteria for distributing capital and program funds. A second step would be for the Administration to raise the state’s annual bond cap and dedicate that increase to projects that will advance the Principles, e.g., transit, affordable and public housing, and land acquisition and parks maintenance.

Announce the Administration’s commitment to advance a top 20 or 30 priority projects. The Development Cabinet should select high-profile and critical housing, jobs, transportation, and land protection projects. These projects would be selected based on criteria derived from the Principles and deliver outcomes such as reviving gateway cities, generating new jobs and housing, promoting housing opportunities for underrepresented groups, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and showcasing exemplary development techniques.

Develop shared, inter-agency policies on key issues. Issues that cross-cut the purviews of different agencies, such as transit-oriented development, reforming the state’s land use and zoning laws, and addressing long-standing patterns of residential segregation, should be expressly addressed by the Development Cabinet.

Encourage municipal behavior change . Under the current system of home rule, municipalities make most land use decisions. The concept behind the previous administration’s Commonwealth Capital Fund of providing carrots in exchange for better land use and zoning is sound, but the execution was flawed. One way to revise Commonwealth Capital so that it really mobilizes municipalities, would be to pare the Fund down to a few state programs, and then add in other infrastructure funding programs that municipalities really want.

Engage key experts by periodically including stakeholders in Development Cabinet meetings. A team of interested, expert parties can only help make the decisions of the Administration stronger. If once every month, the Development Cabinet invited a select, diverse group of stakeholders to participate in a Cabinet meeting, the administration would further its goal of civic engagement, provide information to organizations outside government, and benefit from the advice of experts.

Advance technical assistance in land use planning for municipalities. The Patrick Administration should focus on coordinating and funding technical assistance for municipalities, especially those with limited planning staff.

We applaud the Patrick Administration’s desire to “shake things up” and re-examine the way that things were previously organized. Administration officials have committed to designing policies and making investments that promote smart growth in meetings and in the press, and the Alliance will continue to help the new Administration advance the programs that have worked in the past and hopefully develop a much stronger smart growth portfolio than the state has ever had.

Upadated as of 3/12/07