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Community Investment Toolkit

Planning and conservation  ›  Urban development and revitalization  ›  Community Investment Toolkit

The Community Investment Toolkit provides information to local governments, nonprofit organizations, developers and community leaders about best practices for creating and enhancing vibrant urban communities.

Metro seeks to identify proven strategies and tools that can be used to stimulate investment in the region's centers, corridors, employment and industrial areas to implement the 2040 Growth Concept. The Community Investment Toolkit provides local government officials, developers, property owners, nonprofit organizations, investors and others with ideas and information on innovative practices and approaches to create thriving and healthy urban centers.

The Community Investment Toolkit focuses on three topics:

• Financial incentives
• Urban design and local zoning and building codes
• Economically and ecologically sustainable employment and industrial development

By highlighting the region's success stories, the toolkit shares these successful approaches across the region, demonstrates how these strategies are achieving results and serves as a guide for future investments. With technical assistance from Metro, the toolkit will help local partners overcome barriers to building vibrant downtowns and main streets and creating places for businesses to flourish.

The toolkit was developed through extensive research and collaboration with representatives from local governments, nonprofit organizations and stakeholder groups, as well as developers, investors and citizens through advisory committees and public forums.

Three volumes of the toolkit have been developed:

Eco-efficient Employment

The newest volume of the toolkit, Eco-efficient Employment, unveiled in November 2010, provides creative ideas for attracting new businesses and achieving greater economic and ecological efficiencies through development in existing employment areas. This toolkit showcases best practices employed in communities across North America and the results they have achieved. Download the volume

This volume of the toolkit is organized around three categories:

• High-performance infrastructure: How can we build more environmentally and economically sustainable infrastructure that reduce resource waste and the demand on current systems?
• 21st Century Design: How can we design vibrant employment areas that facilitate community, attract industry and reduce the impact of climate change?
• Revitalizing employment areas: How can we redevelop and reuse underutilized employment and industrial areas for future economic growth?

A diverse team of local planning and economic development officials, business leaders and other experts contributed to the development of this toolkit. In the coming months, Metro and other local partners will host a variety of seminars and workshops that will assist local officials, planning commissioners and other interested persons implement these innovative tools at the local level.

Financial Incentives

The Financial Incentives volume of the toolkit describes different tools that local governments can use to stimulate mixed-use development in centers and corridors and near transit areas. It also provides ideas and information on ways to promote the redevelopment of underutilized property and to finance infrastructure improvements necessary to enable private development to occur. Download the volume

Topics include:

• Vertical housing incentives that encourage development of dense, mixed-use projects in specific areas through the provision of targeted tax abatements
• Transit-oriented tax exemptions that promote the construction of transit-oriented, multiple-unit housing developments in urban centers in order to improve the balance between the residential and commercial nature of those areas
• Brownfields assessment and cleanup funds that enable local governments and property owners to identify and clean up polluted or contaminated sites and make them suitable for redevelopment
• Urban renewal and tax increment financing that can stimulate private investment in targeted areas and provide a source of equity to make capital improvements and development projects financially viable
• Improvement districts that can fund physical and visual improvements in centers, corridors and employment areas and attract more private investments to make these areas vibrant and healthy
• Impact-based system development charges that can more accurately reflect the costs of infrastructure development, determine charges based on the impact of different development patterns, and serve as a financial incentive for more effective provision of facilities and services.

Innovative Design and Development Codes

The Innovative Design and Development Codes volume of the toolkit provides model approaches for local governments to consider in adapting design and development codes to reduce the costs of development projects and provide the regulatory framework that enables the types of development that are desired and can be tailored to the unique identities of different communities. Download the volume

Topics include:

• Public realm transitions that enable the development of more pedestrian-scaled, urban environments with a vibrant mix of uses
• Density and use transitions that allow local governments to better integrate mixed-use in centers and corridors
• Code flexibility that promotes standards so that new developments can be designed and tailored to fit within the context of an existing community
• Transition zones that provide more gradual transitions in building form to enable new mixed-use developments to better complement existing single-family neighborhoods
• Parking management that can help reduce congestion and demand for parking and improve the urban design of a center or corridor
• Visualization tools that can analyze whether local zoning codes can enable the desired development forms and help citizens better understand how innovative new development projects can take shape and enhance local communities
• Neighborhood involvement tools that enhance public engagement in developing design and development codes that build greater public support for new urban development

The publication of the Community Investment Toolkit complements ongoing support and assistance provided by Metro to local communities to achieve their desired goals of creating and enhancing vibrant centers and corridors in keeping with the region's 2040 Growth Concept.

Related Documents

• Financial Incentives Toolkit 12.8M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published June 20, 2007
• Innovative Design and Development Codes Toolkit 11.9M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published July 30, 2008
• Case study: Cottage housing in Wood Village 2.7M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published October 26, 2009
• Eco-efficient Employment Toolkit 12.4M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published December 2, 2010

Find out more

Innovative design and development codes workshop

The second volume of the Community Investment Toolkit was unveiled at a workshop on July 30, 2008. Download presentations from three experts who shared information on the successful application of the tools.

Building Tomorrow's Jobs forum

Tools and techniques from the third volume of the Community Investment Toolkit were the central focus of a breakfast forum on Feb. 1, 2011. Download presentations from the nationally recognized experts.