If you were given $1,000 to spend on regional issues, how would you spend it?
That’s the question the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission hopes residents will answer in a survey available this month, said Eric Walberg, the principal for planning and economics at the Hampton Roads Planning and District Commission.
The commission is a quasi-government organization that focuses on regional goals and challenges, ranging from economic forecasts to flood mitigation. It includes 17 localities from Gloucester to the North Carolina border, from Virginia Beach to Southampton County.
In the absence of a regional government, the commission steps in to foster collaboration between local governments and partner organizations, Walberg said.
One of the commission's latest projects is developing Hampton Roads Horizon, a long-term strategic plan for the region.
“There's a tremendous amount of work that's going on in the region, so this is by no means starting from scratch,” Walberg said. “But we do see the regional strategic plan as being the glue that will hold a lot of that together and look across a lot of different types of initiatives.”
The regional plan is also required by the Code of Virginia, Walberg noted.
The commission analyzed nearly 60 different plans at the state, regional and local level – with the help of artificial intelligence – to identify recurring issues and themes, he said. Now, the commission wants people who live in the region to weigh-in.
The survey gives each participant an imaginary $1,000 to put towards 19 different issues in Hampton Roads. Those issues include economic opportunities, public transit, road quality, health, education, flooding and affordable housing. The catch is that people can only allocate $100 at a time up to that $1,000 total. This means some categories will be left blank — and that’s part of the point.
“It kind of puts people in the same situation as a lot of our local leaders are in when they make hard budgetary decisions,” Walberg said.
Jeffrey Bonavita, the director of analytics and planning at Virginia Peninsula Community College, said he took the survey at a workshop in January.
“I think it was a really good way to force you to prioritize,” he said. “And it was interesting to see then how when all of us did that, what rose to the top.”
At the workshop he attended, more people prioritized issues relating to quality of life for residents over the economy or regional marketing to attract visitors, he said.
“From that activity, it seemed like really what at least the people who took part in that activity are focused on is more, ’How are we going to take care of the people who live here?’” he said.
Walberg said input from the survey will guide regional goals and decision-making in the future.
And any Hampton Roads resident can take the survey, he said — the more, the merrier.
