In the spring of 2006, the Volusia Growth Management Commission (VGMC) issued a series of orders that required a regional approach to determine the transportation-related impacts from Comprehensive Plan Amendments or CPAs, seeking approval. These ‘conditional approvals’ required that each of the member governments, including Volusia County, enter into a series of agreements that called for them to analyze their future land use maps, as a group, and agree on a list of projects to mitigate those future developments. This was, at the least, the first study of its kind in Volusia County, if not the entire State of Florida.
The first order of business was to get a ‘buy-in’ from each of the partners (member governments) to approach the study from a holistic point of view. It was crucial for the members to have a clear understanding that transportation is ‘blind’ to city/county boundaries and that a solution to one member governments’ level of service failure may require mitigating another member's facility. If the goal was to control growth based upon the actual merits of the development in relation to the overall long-term vision of the community, a new approach was necessary. The scope of this study was that new approach.
Near the end of the study, similar studies were commissioned for North Jacksonville and Southwest Volusia County. All of which were directed by members of the AB&C team.