Land Use
Land Use Planning
The way we plan the physical layout, or land use, of our communities is fundamental to sustainability. Two main features of our land use practices over the past several decades have converged to generate haphazard, inefficient, and unsustainable urban sprawl:
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zoning ordinances that isolate employment locations, shopping and services, and housing locations from each other;
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low-density growth planning aimed at creating automobile access to increasing expanses of land.
The complex problems shared by cities are evidence of the impacts of urban sprawl—increasing traffic congestion and commute times, air pollution, inefficient energy consumption and greater reliance on foreign oil, loss of open space and habitat, inequitable distribution of economic resources, and the loss of a sense of community.
Community sustainability requires a transition from poorly managed sprawl to land use planning practices that create and maintain efficient infrastructure, ensure close-knit neighborhoods and sense of community, and preserve natural systems.
This section provides an introduction to key planning principles as well as resources for strategies, tools, and civic participation to help your community with sustainable land use planning.
Civic Participation in Land Use Planning
Participation by a wide variety of community stakeholders in the planning process is essential. In an excellent report by the Center for Livable Communities titled Participation Tools for Better Land Use Planning, the value and necessity of civic participation is outlined in the following five points.
Civic participation in the land use planning process:
1. Ensures that good plans remain intact over time
2. Reduces the likelihood of contentious battles before councils and planning commissions
3. Speeds the development process and reduces the cost of good projects
4. Increases the quality of planning
5. Enhances the general sense of community and trust in government