PL PACKET 07181995 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The other major subregional forecast areas that were used were the Metro Council policy areas: fully developed area, developing area, freestanding growth centers and rural service area. These areas were used for two reasons. One was to reflect Metro Council policies and the other was to be able to relate growth forecasts to the movement of urbanization outward from the core of the region.- • Policy area household control forecasts were determined using a similar extrapolation methodology as was used for quadrants. Policy area trends are not as stable as.quadrant trends and are not used rigidly as controls. The reason for this is that as cities in the inner policy area rill up growth moves further out--into the next policy area. • Land use data at the city-level was used to modify the city-level household. forecasts. This resulted in new policy area totals. • The household control forecasts for policy areas (as revised) were converted to population. MUNICIPAL LEVEL HOUSEHOLD (AND POPULATION) ALLOCATION Because of the great, and largely unpredictable variation that occurs annually in residential growth at the municipal level, the municipal allocation of households was done in a very methodical way. This is more equitable than having the Council attempt to guess which cities will significantly exceed their past trends and which ones will fall behind. • The formula for allocating household forecasts extrapolated a city or township's past share of its policy area/quadrant segment. This projection used different groupings of years, weighting recent trends more heavily. Several different groupings of years were tested. One- grouped years according to housing cycles (boom or bust). Another looked at residential growth trends by decade. • This formula-based process was modified to account for land supply and density trends of communities where land supply is, or will become a growth constraint. This process could not be specified using standardized equations and required some judgement. Adjustments were based on growth trends, land use data and local plan information. The final results were reconciled to quadrant household control forecasts. • As land supply shrinks in developing cities, growth slows, but picks up in adjacent, less developed cities. For most developing communities it was assumed that during the forecast period 70 percent of vacant land, if developed, would be residential (including streets and alleys). This is consistent with trends over the past decade. Also, the mix of single-family and multifamily was generally held at the current mix. Finally, densities were kept close to those that prevailed during the 19841990 period. • The household forecasts were converted to population at the city level, using projections of local population per household trends. The primary goal of the municipal allocation process is to establish a technically objective method that we believe produces reasonable results. The goal is to provide a reasonable number that is objectively and equitably determined, which can then be closely monitored. Growth trends that deviate from the forecasts over time (when it becomes clear that the changes are not simply cyclical variations, but a major trend shift), can be dealt with through the Council's interim forecast process. Forecast revisions will also be made for the region and all of its minor civil divisions approximately every five years.