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ASG ORGANIZATIONAL STATEMENT
Overview
ASG is committed to working to ensure that Alexandria remains
a community where each neighborhood enjoys a high quality of life.
To this end, ASG's goal is to elect a Mayor and City Council every
three years who will bring vision, new ideas and new leadership
to face our City's development and transportation challenges. Between
elections, ASG will monitor the decisions of our city's public officials.
ASG is a nonpartison organization of concerned citizens who care
about their community and are committed to ensuring that Alexandria's
future will be strong and vibrant. The leadership of ASG, who have
been community activists collectively for more than 70 years, want
to ensure that Alexandria is a city that truly serves all of its
citizens regardless of their economic background or what neighborhood
they live in.
Alexandria's Challenges Now and in the Future: An opportunity
for new thinking and vision
Alexandrians now enjoy a high quality of life and a government
that strives to meet the needs of a community with far-reaching
and diverse needs. Nonetheless, Alexandria will be facing great
challenges in the next three years and well into the future that
put at risk our quality of life:
Tremendous automobile traffic from existing and future developments,
particularly the anticipated opening of the Patent and Trademark
Office in 2004, which threatens to further overburden our transportation
system and the health and safety of the entire city;
A scarcity of open space that serves the multigenerational needs
of our citizens;
A lack of available and affordable land for Alexandria's outstanding
public school system; and
A historical legacy and a high quality of life which are at risk
if future development projects are not planned carefully with creative
and innovative thinking that relies on existing and alternative
transportation infrastructure.
These challenges are further exacerbated by a governmental decision
making process and culture that:
does not recognize, value, or reach out to the tremendous resources,
viewpoints and talents of its citizenry;
continues to solve long-term problems with out-of-date solutions;
diminishes the legitimate concerns of residents for their neighborhoods
and disrespects differing points of view;
subordinates Alexandria's needs for the interests of the region;
lacks new thinking and energy to meet Alexandria's challenges;
and
continues to approve traditional development projects that provide
the revenue but does not further the vision that Alexandria needs.
Mission Statement of Alexandrians for
Sensible Growth
The mission of Alexandrians for Sensible Growth is to have a Mayor
and City Council elected every three years who will ensure that
Alexandria continues to meet its challenges head on with new leadership,
creative thinking and energy.
ASG's Vision for Alexandria
In the year 2025, Alexandria will be an outstanding community
that enjoys a high quality of life with diverse residential neighborhoods
and economically thriving commercial areas that provide employment
opportunities and make substantial contributions to the financial
health of the city. Alexandria's government will be a model of openness
to both its citizens and to innovative ideas for solving long-term
challenges. Alexandria's leaders will proactively work with colleagues
in neighboring jurisdictions to set the agenda and solve regional
problems.
In 2025, Alexandria will continue to offer a quality of life for
people of diverse means and life styles unmatched in the metropolitan
D.C. region. Alexandria's quality of life will be enhanced by preservation
of the City's historical legacy, an integrated, multi-modal transportation
network, sufficient open space and parkland, and provision of high
quality public services (including public safety, public education
and services for persons with needs).
Goals and Strategies
GOAL NO. 1: Alexandria 2025 Plan -- To develop a comprehensive
vision and plan for Alexandria's future, called the Alexandria 2025
Plan.
This plan is intended to provide a blueprint for achieving the
vision for the City that will assure its citizens that the quality
of life in Alexandria will be maintained and improved.
The plan will provide guidance for public and private investment
in the City. This plan should also include various component plans--land
use, transportation, open space and recreation, community facilities
and services (including schools, police and fire), affordable
housing, historic preservation, economic development, services
to people with needs, and fiscal resources.
The plan should also include mechanisms for annual reporting
on progress made on achieving Alexandria's vision.
Strategies:
- Develop and implement a process and schedule to create the
Alexandria 2025 Plan. The process should include reviewing the
1994 "Vision for Alexandria" plan to ascertain progress on achieving
previously articulated citywide goals.
- Reach out to all segments of Alexandria's communities to encourage
active participation in the development of the Alexandria 2025
Plan.
- Create, review and amend, as needed, the component plans,
including the master land use plan, a comprehensive transportation
plan and the various small area plans, to complement the Alexandria
2025 Plan.
- Implement in City ordinances, such as the zoning code, and
other policy documents the Alexandria 2025 Plan.
GOAL NO. 2: Transportation -- To support policies and programs
that increase usage of metro, bus, bicycle and pedestrian transportation
modes and decrease automobile traffic and its impact on residential
neighborhoods and schools.
Strategies:
- As part of the Alexandria 2025 Plan process, conduct a Citywide,
comprehensive (all-modes) transportation planning process after
the Master Land Use plan is reviewed and updated.
- Plan and implement means to increase public transit usage,
develop alternatives to automobile usage, and where necessary,
introduce new and innovative traffic calming measures.
- Plan and implement means to make the City more pedestrian
friendly.
- Plan and implement means to make the City more bicycle friendly.
- Determine effectiveness of the Transportation Management Program
by evaluating currently approved plans for effectiveness.
- Reestablish a citizens Transportation Planning Board to review
and monitor enforcement of TMPs.
GOAL NO. 3: Open Space -- To preserve, increase and upgrade
open space in the City.
Strategies:
- Establish an Open Space Fund that will receive contributions
from private and public sources to preserve and acquire additional
open space, parkland, including recreational fields and easements.
- Develop a policy and program for acquisition and use of easements
to preserve existing open space that is privately owned.
- Eliminate from the current zoning ordinance all credits for
open space and parkland from inappropriate sources, such as
balconies and rooftops.
- Aggressively pursue federal and state grants for acquiring
open space.
GOAL NO. 4: Small Area Plans -- In conjunction with the
Alexandria 2025 Plan process, continue the existing small area planning
projects and initiate small area planning processes for Eisenhower
West, the Old Town waterfront and other neighborhoods.
Strategies:
- Develop a vision and small area plan for Eisenhower West that
creates profitable, transit-oriented developments with a sense of
place and livability, respects the quality of life in existing neighborhoods
in the City, and does not increase automobile traffic on Duke Street
and other existing arterials and neighborhood streets. The planning
process must include evaluation of environmental risks in the area,
such as the Waste-to-Energy Plant and other current industrial uses.
- Develop a vision and small area plan for the Old Town waterfront
that increases public access to the waterfront, improves the appearance
of the area and respects and balances private property interests.
GOAL NO. 5: Public Participation -- To encourage meaningful
public participation in the visioning, planning and implementing
of City policies.
Strategies:
- Develop approaches to encourage participation in civic affairs,
including the process for the Alexandria 2025 Plan, by residents
of all neighborhoods and from all socioeconomic groups in the
City.
- Investigate means to effectively and proactively inform citizens
about the City's planning efforts and other initiatives and services
that will affect neighborhoods.
- Create a new position, Special Assistant to the Mayor for
Community Relations, who will be responsible for proactively informing
civic associations and citizens about development and other issues
potentially affecting their neighborhoods as well as assisting
small businesses in meeting city requirements for conducting business
(i.e., acquiring licenses and permits).
- Upgrade and improve the City's web site to make it faster
and more user-friendly and provide Spanish-language capability.
- Conduct a formal evaluation of the City's public input and
decision making processes, explore alternatives used in other
jurisdictions and develop and implement procedures that encourage
meaningful public participation in the decision making process.
As part of this study, investigate alternatives to supplement
formal public hearings and task forces. Also conduct a formal
evaluation of the recent small area plan planning processes and
incorporate any resulting recommendations in future planning processes.
- Review the City's implementation of Virginia's freedom of
information act and develop policies that proactively promote
expeditious citizen access at as low a cost as feasible to City
documents.
- Establish City Council procedures for the conduct of public
matters, including prohibiting last-minute amendments and changes
to development and other projects without adequate public discussion
and review, encouraging respectful behavior toward citizens and
Council colleagues, and posting all docket-related correspondence
sent directly to the Mayor and City Council on the City webpage.
GOAL NO. 6: Legislative Remedies -- To empower communities
to exercise greater control over land use issues, such as requiring
financial, environmental and neighborhood impact statements that
accurately assess the costs and benefits of development projects,
requiring developers to pay for more infrastructure costs and reviewing
current provisions in state law available to local governments for
controlling development to ascertain their applicability and appropriateness
to Alexandria.
Strategies:
- Develop a state legislative agenda that will allow Alexandria
to have more discretion over development projects.
- Join with other jurisdictions in the Commonwealth of Virginia
in coalitions working to give local governments more power over
land use decisions, such as the Virginia Coalition of High Growth
Communities.
- Give higher priority to the Department of Planning and Zoning's
efforts to preserve the character of neighborhoods through the development
and implementation of Conservation Overlay Districts.
ALEXANDRIANS FOR SENSIBLE GROWTH
Adopted December 21, 2002
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