Agenda - Planning Commission - 03/06/2014

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Integration Integration is the intentional combining of related activities to achieve more effective, greater results, leveraging multiple policy tools to address complex regional challenges and opportunities. The Metropolitan Council is committed to integrating its activities to pursue its outcomes, achieve greater efficiencies and address problems that are too complex for singular approaches. The Thrive outcomes —Stewardship, Prosperity, Equity, Livability and Sustainability—are lofty ideals that cut across the Council's functions and responsibilities. Pursuing them demands that the Council use its full range of authorities and activities in ever -more coordinated ways. Achieving integration means: • Moving beyond organizational silos to leverage all of the Council's divisions, roles and authorities in addressing regional issues; • Coordinating effectively with partners and stakeholders across and throughout the region. Moving beyond organizational silos A growing challenge faced by the region is diminishing funding. As available funding decreases even as the region continues to grow, the Council will have to produce more efficiency with each dollar it invests. That efficiency increasingly lies at the intersections between different systems. For example, the Environmental Services Division of the Council provides wastewater service, surface water quality planning and coordination, and water supply information and planning for the region. In the past, the Council has conducted each of these activities on its own, but today's challenges, especially emerging groundwater issues, have prompted the Council to incorporate all three water topics into a new, integrated approach: water sustainability. By considering all three as available tools, the Council will be able to do more with the same amount of water: increase groundwater recharge, provide clean wastewater discharge re -use options, and decrease demands on groundwater supplies. The principle extends throughout Council activities. By integrating its activities, the Council can produce more benefit from each investment. The Council will pursue this approach in its activities and investments within and among its divisions to advance the five Thrive outcomes, find greater efficiencies in investments, and address problems that single approaches cannot address. This will include activities such as: • Including regional trails, where appropriate, in designating regional bicycle transportation corridors; • Exploring Council -wide activities to address the effects of climate change; • Integrating water supply activities, surface water management and wastewater management toward increased sustainability of the region's water resourcse; • Requiring land use in transit corridors, especially in station areas, to be commensurate with the level of transit investment; DRAFT FOR PUBLIC COMMENT Last revised: February 21, 2014 35