Tennessee communities are determined to grow and prosper.

Jobs are needed to keep communities whole. New revenue enables them to maintain and enhance community services. Yet they cherish their legacy of natural beauty and bountiful water. The Tennessee Growth Readiness program helps communities learn how land use decisions affect water quality. It gives them resources to comply with regulatory requirements, and to make informed decisions about managing growth.

Growth and water quality are not an either or proposition.

Tennessee communities want both. They want growth and prosperity without losing the quality of life that Tennessee’s natural resources afford them. The Tennessee Growth Readiness program helps planners and public works officials effectively reach out to elected and appointed officials, and to community opinion leaders. In the Leadership Training Workshop, they learn how to explain the complex issues and choices surrounding land use and water quality. They do this through presentations to elected officials, developers, builders, farmers and residents. In these presentations, they suggest actions that each group can take to have both development and water quality.

Communities can have both water quality and growth if they make informed decisions.

They can choose to incorporate water quality considerations into their comprehensive plans and development rules. The Tennessee Growth Readiness program helps planners and public works officials build consensus among community opinion leaders for changing their approach to growth management. In the Site Planning Roundtable Management Workshop, they learn to build consensus for integrating best practices into their development rules. They choose from a menu of 22 model development principles formulated by national experts. In the Land Use Planning for Water Quality Workshop, they learn to integrate water quality considerations into their planning process. They practice water quality planning techniques. They learn to integrate results into their community’s land use plans. The program offers limited technical support to communities actively pursuing changes to their development rules and processes. A number of communities are successfully implementing these new practices and processes.

Tennessee Growth Readiness was developed by and for local officials.

The program is focused on planning and public works officials because they are intimately involved in the day-to-day, nuts-and-bolts of their community's land use and water quality decisions. Officials from four communities helped develop and pilot the program for their colleagues in other communities. Pilot communities included the cities of Alcoa and Maryville, and Blount and Knox counties. They worked with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, UT's Water Resources Research Center, Southeast Watershed Forum and Tennessee Valley Authority, to build the program from existing best practices by the University of Connecticut, State of Alabama and Center for Watershed Protection.

Tennessee Growth Readiness workshops and technical assistance provide a roadmap for development.
The program’s workshops and technical assistance considered as a whole support a community’s logical progress toward reducing the impact on water resources as their community develops. Here is an outline of the resources provided through the program and how they support a community’s decisions:

Program Resources

Leadership Training
Participants learn how to deliver presentations to gain support for considering changes to how their community will grow.

Participants make presentations and gain support for considering different approaches to how their community manages growth.

Site Planning Roundtable Management Training
Participants learn how to evaluate their development rules against model principles, and how to organize and lead a consensus building process. They build consensus for adopting new principles and planning practices.

Participants evaluate their existing codes and ordinances. They identify changes they can make. They begin to organize a process to gain consensus for needed change.

Land Use Planning for Water Quality
Participants learn to make land use allocation decisions that reduce the impact of future growth on water resources. These decisions complement new development rules.

Participants adjust land use allocation in their Comprehensive Plan to reduce the impact of future development on water resources, and complement new development best practices.

Action Planning Workshop
Participants develop a work plan for changing their development rules and processes.

Participants begin taking actions that lead to changes in their development rules and processes.

Multiple Jurisdiction Review Workshop
Participants identify how they can work together across jurisdictional boundaries on changes to development rules and processes.

Participants begin working with their colleagues in other community to develop consistent approaches to growth management.

Community Growth Readiness Workshop Series
Through a series of workshops, participants come to consensus on changes to their community’s development rules and workshops.

Community officials enlist the support of key opinion leaders to develop recommended changes to development rules and processes.