Task Force Duties:
1. Reviewing legislation relating to patterns of development carried over by the First Regular Session of the
119th Legislature and making findings on the following issues:
A. The role of state office buildings in the continued viability of downtown service centers within the State and
the impact of growth-related capital investments and location decisions by the State, drawing on the concepts contained
in Legislative Document 1080, "An Act to Direct State Capital Investments to Locally Designated Growth Areas,"
and Legislative Document 1414, "Resolve, to Support Downtown Revitalization through the Location of State
Facilities and Targeting Economic Development Funding";
B. Fiscal policies that may have the effect of pushing rural lands out of productive use, including issues raised
in Legislative Document 544, "An Act to Value Homestead Exemption Farm Land at Current Use," placing
unintended burdens on service center communities or promoting development sprawl;
C. Coordination of state and local urban transportation planning and streamlining of local and state land use rules
and regulations, including highway access management, to permit and encourage efficient neighborhood and economic
development in growth areas;
D. The productive use of farms and woodlands and the preservation of open space around urbanizing areas, including
issues raised in Legislative Document 449, "An Act Requiring Disclosures to be Made to Purchasers of Land
Abutting Agricultural Land"; and
E. Such other areas as the task force considers appropriate.
In making its findings, the task force shall draw upon past work of the Legislature and state agencies, including
the recommendations of the Task Force on Regional Service Center Communities contained in its September 1998 report,
"Reviving Service Centers," and the findings of the State Planning Office in its May 1997 report, "The
Cost of Sprawl";
2. Assessing how other states have responded to these issues; and
3. Based on its findings, making recommendations to the Legislature concerning pending legislation and, as necessary
to implement its findings, preparing legislation to promote orderly development, to ensure that state offices continue
to enhance the historic role of downtowns, to strengthen the State's regional service center communities, to promote
rural enterprise and preserve the open lands on which rural enterprise depends and to discourage development sprawl.
In preparing its recommendations, the task force shall rely to the greatest extent possible on nonregulatory means
to achieve these objectives, including tax policies, financial incentives and disincentives, capital investment
policies, streamlining of regulations for development proposed in locally designated growth areas, downtown and
historic preservation reinvestment policies, right-to-farm provisions and similar mechanisms.
Sec. 9. Reporting dates. Resolved: That the task force shall submit its report by December 15, 1999, together with
any implementing legislation, to the joint standing committees of the Legislature represented on the task force.
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