Welcome to the Strafford Regional Planning Commission meeting from 1/18/13. The mission as stated on the SRPC website: "Our Mission- Strafford Regional Planning Commission's (SRPC) fundamental mission is to plan and act to achieve sustainable development and improve the quality of life. Sustainable development is balanced economic progress with environmental protection and community well being." The term 'sustainable development' was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The Commission was formed at the United Nations and is one of the base reports that led up to Agenda 21; the Agenda for the 21st century. Agenda 21 is a framework that is a product of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. It is an action agenda for the UN, other multilateral organizations, and individual governments around the world that can be executed at local, national, and global levels. The goal of the agenda is to control all aspects where humans have impact on the environment. The Federal Government has agreed to incorporate "Sustainable Development" into all Federal departments. The executive order that formed president Clinton's; "Presidents Council on Sustainable development" in 1993 laid the framework to achieve SD in the United States.
The Federal Highway Administration; Federal Transportation Agency; Environmental Protection Agency and Housing and Urban development are being tasked to incorporate the principles in SD into land use and transportation planning. The SRPC states on their website: "SRPC's professional planning staff assists in land use, transportation, environmental planning, economic development, support services and project management."