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INITIAL PROJECT SCOPING

What will the project basically cost to construct, operate, and maintain?   

Does the project fit within existing local and state plans and regulations?   

What public facilities and services will need to be enhanced to support the product construction and operation?   

What revenues will the project generate? 

Purpose

 
Once your top priority short and long term potential projects have been selected, they need to be scoped out so their potential acceptability to the community can be predicted. The scoping process describes a proposed project as it would be in completed form giving sufficient detail for you to then assess its probable impacts. Scoping requires determining the size of the project, its location, construction, operation and maintenance costs, employee numbers and origin (local or newcomers), and any required revisions to existing plans or infrastructure and the related costs. It also involves projecting the number of visitors the project will attract and the related revenues generated. 

Scoping provides the action committee and community-at-large with a draft project to review. The draft may later be modified, accepted, or rejected. 

A word of caution: You need to be careful not to take scoping so far along that you become so committed to the project that you are determined to go ahead with it no matter what the impact assessments results indicate to be the wisest choice. This is a real possibility. Groups that have invested a lot of time and effort designing a project tend to develop a natural interest in seeing the project implemented, making it hard to remain objective. 

A note on precision. Revenues and costs can be measured with varying degrees of precision depending upon the data available to you and the time frame you wish to dedicate to collecting additional information. We do not advocate that you expend inordinate amounts of time to gather extremely accurate data at this point. You are looking for any glaring red flags of negative impacts or costs that clearly say to you Watch out or Don't proceed with a specific project. And, you are looking for projects that clearly shine forth as more likely than others to provide cash and non-monetary benefits to the community, indicating a green light. Don't be put off by ballpark figures. Combined with group judgement, they are sufficient for your task force to make a valid Go/No Go decision. 

Objective

 
At the end of this section, the action committee will have: 

• identified in a broad brush way what is intended, how large, at what cost, who is involved, completion date for each project on the priority list.

• gathered together main information needed to complete the Economic Benefit-Cost Analysis in the next section.

Getting Organized

Task forces should be assembled to scope out each proposed project on the priority short and long term list from the previous step. The task forces will be responsible for collecting the necessary information and presenting the results to the action committee. You may need to recruit additional local or outside experts to serve on these working groups. Useful experts might include: 

- operators of similar projects  
- architects  
- engineers  
- traffic coordinators  
- contractors  
- landscape architects  
- planners  
- builders  
 
Summary of Steps 

Step  Step 1    Step 2          Step 3    Step 4

Description  Scope out proposed projects    1a.  Draft physical description     1b.  Describe employment needs     1c.  Estimate construction, operation &            maintenance costs   Estimate carrying capacity    2a.  Identify sources of information     2b.  Make inquiries     2c.  Summarize and evaluate information   Calculate total predicted costs  Figure annual revenues    4a.  Estimate number of visitors     4b.  Estimate visitor expenditures     4c.  Forecast tax revenues

Form #  8-1          8-2; 8-3        8-1  8-4