Envision Cache Valley | Cache Valley Vision

Cache Valley Vision

The Envision Cache Valley Vision is the culmination of an extensive public visioning process. Public preferences expressed at ten workshops were used to create alternative growth scenarios. Residents weighed on components of the scenarios at 13 town hall meetings and online. Components favored by the public were used to create a vision statement, vision principles, and vision scenario maps and projected consequences. These documents summarize how residents think Cache Valley should grow and represent the collective input of a broad sample of people living in the valley.

Vision Statement

Keep the City, City and the Country, Country.

Cache Valley citizens envision a future that embraces the character and quality of life that residents currently appreciate. Our communities are a source of pride and identity. We want to invest in our towns which have served us well as centers for living, industry and culture. We encourage most growth to happen in these communities, maintaining and creating safe, vibrant and rich places for future generations. Our communities will be sensitive to the varied needs of a diverse populationfamilies, the young, the old, the workforce, and all othersproviding viable housing and transportation options for everyone.

What happens outside our towns is equally important. We value our natural surroundingswater quality, scenic beauty, wildlife habitat, clean air, agriculture, and outdoor recreation. We will maintain and enhance those qualities we enjoy today, while attending to those things that could compromise our quality of life and the health of those who come after us. By focusing much of our future growth in existing municipalities, we will reduce the pressure on many of the features that make Cache Valley great. Further, we will work together to maintain and enhance the agricultural and natural lands that sustain us.

Vision Principles

General Growth Patterns

Enhance existing towns and cities and maintain individual community identity by encouraging inward growth and more compact development and buffering community boundaries with agrarian and natural lands.

Use incentives to encourage infill and redevelopment within towns and cities.
- Preserve and protect the unique heritage and character of individual communities, while accommodating infill and growth.
- Strengthen existing downtown areas in each town, fostering a sense of community identity.
- Plan development to be compatible with historic landscapes and architecture.
Use planning tools to preserve vistas, transportation corridors, and land uses that define the most desirable characteristics of Cache Valley.

Encourage the continuation of working farms and ranches and the integrity of natural systems and views.

Housing and Employment

Encourage mixed-use neighborhoods and town centers that include a variety of housing options and that allow individuals and families to live close to where they shop, obtain services, go to school, work and play.

Provide housing options for people of all ages, stages and incomes.
Increase housing options to better meet market demand; expand market options where growth is envisioned.
Create walkable and bikeable communities by integrating varied residential types and lot sizes as well as schools, shopping, services, and employment.
Encourage infill and redevelopment.
Encourage development patterns that use resources and infrastructure efficiently, reducing capital and maintenance costs as well as impact on air and water resources.
Encourage local-scale civic amenities like libraries and schools over regional ones.
Encourage local-scale parks and trails in addition to regional parks and trails.

Develop clean and sustainable industry and good-paying jobs close to home.

Build infrastructure that is efficient and ready for growing businesses.
Prepare underutilized/vacant land within existing towns and cities for compatible economic development.
- Designate specific areas for economic development and plan adequate infrastructure (transportation, energy, water, broadband, etc.).
Encourage the development of a job center on the west side of the valley, perhaps near the State Route 30/23 junction.

Transportation and Infrastructure

Provide a balanced transportation network with improved roadway connections, enhanced public transportation options, and streets that encourage bicyclist and pedestrian mobility.

Reduce transportation infrastructure costs by building the development it serves more compactly.
Coordinate roadway planning to maximize connectivity, providing multiple routes to destinations and reducing congestion.
Provide enhanced public transportation, matching capacity of service to growth pattern and population intensity. Some possibilities include a bus rapid transit (BRT) line from Hyrum to Smithfield (could transition to light rail if justified by future demand), express bus serving LoganWellsville (this line eventually expanding to Brigham city) and LoganPreston, enhanced peak-time bus loops serving other Cache County communities, and peak-time vanpool service in other Franklin County communities.
Design connected streets to encourage multiple transportation modes as appropriate: walking, biking, driving, and public transportation. Pedestrian and bicycle safety and access are priorities, and bike commute routes should serve all communities.

Invest in efficient infrastructure systems to serve existing communities and future growth. Systems manage such services as water, sewer, waste disposal, and energy.

Natural Resources and Working Farms and Ranches

Protect, preserve and improve air quality, water quality, wildlife habitat, agricultural land and the scenic beauty of Cache Valley.

Conserve floodplain, wetlands, wildlife habitat, scenic beauty, and agricultural land and improve air quality as development primarily occurs within existing communities.
Keep development away from natural features, like floodplains, wetlands, and steep slopes, that could pose a risk to public health and safety and diminish quality of life.
Maintain and improve natural resource networks and connections.
Maintain and improve air quality by reducing vehicle miles traveled.
Maintain water quality and encourage the efficient use of water.
Encourage the permanent conservation of working farms and ranches.
Encourage scenic corridor preservation to maintain views along roadways into the valley and between communities.

Recreation

Maintain and improve access to recreation by connecting local recreational amenities to a regional network.

Improve and expand bicycle and pedestrian trail networks, including the Bonneville Shoreline Trail (BST). Link local recreation systems to the BST. Use the BST to provide access to other regional amenities, including regional recreation centers, but also to recreation in more natural areas, like canyon trails and the mountains.
Create new local and regional recreation areas, including parks, greenways, and linkages.
Expand local recreational systems, providing small parks located near where people live and linked by trails for walking and biking.

Intergovernmental Coordination

Encourage close coordination among local governments, school districts, universities, businesses, and places of worship to address growth issues and implement the Cache Valley Vision.

The Regional Council meets regularly, providing coordination, leadership and resources to implement the vision.
Other groups, including the Cache Valley Mayors' Association, should assist in local implementation of the regional vision.
Work together to implement regional-scale priorities, like the transportation and conservation/natural resource principles, which will contribute to accomplishing a good general growth pattern and strong economy.
Work together to provide education and training to better understand policy options and implementation tools.
Work together to create model tools that can be adapted and implemented locally.
Identify policies and incentives that could encourage growth into efficient patterns that save tax payer dollars and safeguard natural resources on which we depend.
Ensure ongoing citizen involvement.
Work to improve quality of life for current citizens and future generations.

Vision Scenario Maps and Projected Consequences

The vision scenario maps identify one of many plausible ways the growth might unfold as vision principles are implemented. The maps arent a prediction, but rather serve to highlight common goals, such as focusing growth inward, maintaining communities that are distinct from one another, providing more transportation options, and maintaining our natural resources and working farms and ranches. Nor are the maps prescriptive: individual communities can implement the principles in many ways. Finally, the vision scenario provides a snapshot of potential benefits. Because it can be modeled and compared with the baseline scenario (a projection of recent trends into the future) and the alternative scenarios developed from public input, the vision scenario helps us understand how the visionrepresenting the preferred components of the alternative and baseline scenarioscould benefit our valley as it is implemented. When compared with the baseline, benefits range from reduced vehicular emissions and lower taxes to more housing options and increased opportunity for the protection of water quality and the conservation of natural resources, agricultural lands, and scenic views.

Click on the links below to view the vision scenario maps and projected consequences:

General Growth Patterns, Housing and Employment Map
Natural Resources, Working Farms, and Recreation Map
Transportation and Infrastructure Map
How Do the Scenarios Compare? (A Summary of Projected Consequences)

	Filesize	Last updated
FinalVision Transportation.pdf	1.37 MB	08-26-10

FinalVision LandUse.pdf	1.43 MB	08-26-10

Final Impacts Charts.pdf	646.39 kB	08-26-10

FinalVision Conservation Recreation.pdf	1.85 MB	08-26-10

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