Understanding the growth that is coming to Central Florida and how residents of each county can be involved in shaping the future of the region are the themes being explores during 21 Community Input Sessions being held throughout Central Florida during May and June.

Sponsored by myregion.org and its partners and co-hosted by County Commissions and local visioning organizations, these meetings are designed to create awareness and provide the initial set of data collection for the 15-month “How Shall We Grow? – Creating a Shared Vision for Central Florida” campaign.

The initial round of Community Input Sessions during the last three weeks have been a tremendous success with more than 600 citizens from Volusia, Lake, Seminole and Osceola Counties offering their opinions on how Central Florida should grow over the next 50 years.

Central Florida is currently growing at three times the national average and citizens across the entire region are grappling with what that could mean to their future quality of life.

In 2000, the population of the seven-county Central Florida Region (including Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Seminole and Volusia Counties) totaled 3.05 million residents. By 2005, the population for the region had increased by more than 16% to 3.52 million. By 2050, the population for the region is projected to double to more than 7.2 million residents.

In the first round of the two part schedule of Community Input Sessions, participants spend the evening placing population “chips” on enlarged maps of the region in an attempt to see what the Central Florida could look like if population projections are accurate.

Designed to be a “conversation starter,” the “Chip Game” creates energy and excitement as citizens realize just how difficult it is to balance environmental and infrastructure needs with personal preferences.  Issues including water, transportation, protecting the environment and providing housing and lifestyle choices have come to the forefront as citizens grapple with the task.

While participants are asked to look beyond their own city and county, many struggle with how to accommodate the population increase while also maintaining agriculture lands, farms, horse ranches and other open space options that have long been a part of the region.

Because Central Florida is blessed with many valuable environmental areas, most participants agree that maintaining as much environmental landscape as possible is an important priority. However, it is also clear that there will be tradeoffs to every choice. Preserving the Kissimmee Prairie, Wekiva-Ocala Greenway or Volusia Conservation Corridor means that other areas in the region will need to be developed with higher densities of population.

By looking at the issue of growth from the regional perspective, most participants seem to walk away with a better understanding of why it is important that dialogue on the question of “How Shall We Grow?” be conducted across the entire region with participation from many sectors of our population. 

The second round of Community Input Sessions is a workshop led by the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council. This two-hour session is an opportunity to collect specific citizen input for integration with the “Paint The Region” software, which will be used to create and refine regional growth scenarios “in real time” during a large community meeting in late September.

During the second round workshops, participants are provided a map of their particular county and asked to select where they want different types of developments to be located. Ranging from rural to urban, the developments are weighted so that participants receive environmental “credits” when they choose higher density areas. Then, they can utilize their credits to choose which current green space in their county they want to be maintained.

Though this process looks only within one county, it is similar to the “Chip Game” in level of difficulty for the participants. Because they focus specifically on the area in which they reside, participants are more closely tied to their choices and often struggle with whether they want to see increased development in their area, even if it seems to be the logical choice.

Protecting environmental lands and creating roadways that can handle increased traffic are major challenges. Some participants have chosen not to add additional roads due to a perception that roads attract development. They generally have chosen to locate development near existing major roadways and within current cities.

Other participants have chosen to add new roadways and create large population clusters in areas that currently have minimal population. Often, their reasoning has been that creating new roadways and developments in contained areas will reduce the level of sprawl in areas that are already developed.

Meetings will be starting soon in Orange, Polk and Brevard Counties with all remaining meetings scheduled for the month of June. For a complete schedule and to register for a session, go to www.myregion.org.

This 15-month campaign, which started in March 2006, is designed to culminate with the Creation of a Shared Vision for Central Florida. The final vision will be unveiled at a Community Summit in June 2007.