Institute of Urban and Regional Development

The Growth Management Consensus Project (GMCP) was an 18-month effort from the time the participation of stakeholders was first sought, in which representatives of virtually all the major interests came together to build consensus on basic features for statewide legislation on growth management. The group achieved a remarkable amount of mutual understanding and agreement among most of the players in view of the complexity of the issues, the range of highly adversarial interests, and the short 10 months of actual meetings. The project produced a 28-page report2 outlining a wide range of issues and principles on which there was substantial agreement among most players. These “emerging” agreements helped to shape participants’ views and the positions of the interest groups they represented, both during and after the process. While the group produced no specific legislative recommendations a number of the “emerging” agreements they reached were incorporated into pending legislation. The participants also influenced legislative and executive deliberations as they testified in public hearings and as their staff lobbied in the following year.