FINAL Document 1/23/2013 - Hardee County
FINAL Document 1/23/2013 - Hardee County
FINAL Document 1/23/2013 - Hardee County
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY<br />
<strong>Hardee</strong> <strong>County</strong> embarked on a community-wide visioning effort to help develop a framework for balanced future<br />
growth and development while retaining the <strong>County</strong>’s quality of life assets. The Visioning is aimed at identifying<br />
community goals and a means to achieve those goals, both short and long-term. <strong>Hardee</strong> <strong>County</strong> is faced with difficult<br />
choices in the current economic times. Realizing that growth and development have the ability to either support or<br />
hamper the community’s desired progress, county officials began to develop a Community Vision that could properly<br />
guide future development and identify solutions to challenges.<br />
include representatives from the various community groups, individuals as well as governmental entities. These<br />
Champions were identified to further assist in the targeting and implementation for subsequent action steps and overall<br />
strategy development.<br />
The Vision or the community’s plan has been built using comments received from the steering committee and focus<br />
group meetings, formulated into an overall vision and a “road map” of ideas. In general, each Focus Group started with<br />
the basic questions of:<br />
<br />
“What challenges do you see to <strong>Hardee</strong> <strong>County</strong> growing, economically, culturally, and environmentally?<br />
The Visioning process is intended to utilize a broad range of community comments, issues and opportunities in<br />
developing community recommended strategies. The Visioning process is also intended to develop a framework within<br />
which to proactively plan, develop milestones and identify potential community champions for the recommendations.<br />
With each successive meeting, the community refined the broader comments into more focused, action oriented<br />
recommendations that will be used to develop the overall final Vision. The strategies identified are not necessarily<br />
government directed and/or supported, and in numerous cases involve local community and civic organizations with<br />
specific interest or association with related programs. This method creates broad based community support and<br />
responsibility for the implementation of the strategy. It should be noted that during the period of review and comment<br />
by the respective focus groups and the Board of <strong>County</strong> Commissioners adoption, certain strategies and or components<br />
of strategies have been implemented by various entities including the Chamber of Commerce (community<br />
coordinator/PR) and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) (greenways master plan).<br />
The <strong>County</strong> identified five areas of review and analysis that were discussed through a series of “Focus Groups” and<br />
community meetings to prepare the Visioning Report and to provide guidance for future projects and decisions. These<br />
groups included:<br />
• Economic Development,<br />
• Land Use/ Recreation/ Open Space/ Environment,<br />
• Quality of Life/Housing,<br />
• Education/ Workforce,<br />
• Infrastructure.<br />
The Focus Groups identified both opportunities and constraints that<br />
may impact the overall growth and development of <strong>Hardee</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
These groups provided input as to recommended strategies and desired<br />
outcomes, including identifying “Community Champions” that would<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
What can be done to overcome those challenges?<br />
Where would you like to see <strong>Hardee</strong> <strong>County</strong> in the next 5-10 years? 20 years?<br />
What would it take to achieve that? Who needs to be involved to make the vision a reality?<br />
What unrecognized or underutilized opportunities are present within the community that can assist (or be<br />
refocused to assist) in achieving the community’s goals?”<br />
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