Justin Steinman

Importance of comp planning

Principal Planner for the City of Auburn, AL, Nov 08, 11.

In many ways, the Great Recession has been a frightening time for planners. As development slowed, the flow of applications submitted for new development slowed from its torrent at the height of the housing boom to the trickle it is today. With the decline in applications came a decline in workload for public-sector planners working in current planning roles and a decline in revenue for the jurisdictions that employed them. The end result was hundreds of planners being laid off, and private-sector planning firms competing with one another for ever-decreasing shares of work from public- and private-sector clients.

The slowing in the pace of development has given those planners who remain something precious: time. Especially in America’s fastest-growing places, the pace of development at the height of the housing boom often left planners with little time to engage in planning that was not focused on the here and now. As a result, in many jurisdictions important work to update archaic zoning ordinances or old comprehensive plans was left undone. Comprehensive plans in particular suffered, as fast-paced development changed the face of towns and cities in ways not anticipated by plans of an earlier age. Except in those states where comprehensive plans are binding, the first hints of irrelevance (real or perceived) are often the death knell for a comprehensive plan’s effectiveness.

A good comprehensive plan that has earned the support of the community is one of the most effective tools planners have in effecting positive change in our communities. An effective comprehensive plan will:

• Provide guidance for the future, based on examining existing and future conditions, the best examples of planning practice from around the United States, and a place’s best vision for itself
• Give the aspirations of a community substance and form by providing recommendations on how to implement the community’s vision
• Provide predictability and fairness for citizens, elected officials, city staff, and the development community by providing a community with a visionary future land use plan that provides appropriate recommendations for the type, location, and scale of new development for that community for years to come
• Help the many plans and other guiding documents for a community work together effectively and toward a common purpose
• Have clear and effective methods for implementing the comprehensive plan’s recommendations. MORE

More Commentary