Linking the Water Resources Element and the Municipal Growth Element

For municipalities with planning and zoning authority, the municipal growth element (MGE) is required to be prepared in the same time frame as the WRE, that is, by October 1, 2009. The MGE section of Article 66B contains specific requirements about how much additional land will be needed and how various services will be impacted by the projected population of a municipality in proposed growth/annexation areas. Those various services include water and sewerage, which in turn depend on adequate water supply sources and the assimilative capacity of water bodies to accept treated wastewater discharges and stormwater runoff.

The MGE and the WRE must address some of the same issues regarding proposed new municipal growth areas. Therefore, the technical work necessary to produce both elements overlap and comprehensive plan policies and actions that are derived from this work should be compatible, if not identical, in both elements. A separate Models and Guidelines publication has been prepared for the municipal growth element. That document uses a fictional town to illustrate how to prepare the MGE. The fictional town of Piedmont is used in both documents to illustrate how to prepare each element.