Scroll down the page to view all questions & answers.

Your question still not answered? Either email us at: pcjoffice@gmail.com or phone us at: 802-864-9083.

Not yet a member? Download our PlannersWeb information flier.

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Time to renew? You’ll receive an email from us in advance of your expiration date. When it’s time to renew, simply go to our Membership Renewal page. You can also find the expiration date of your membership on that page. You must be logged-in as a group administrator or have a JustOne account to access this page.

1. What will we have to pay for membership? Will all of our planning commissioners be able to access your new site?

Please take a look at our membership sign-up page for pricing information.

Basically, we tried to keep it simple, while allowing for some flexibility. First point, everyone who is a member will have access to all the same content. Second, there are four “tiers” of membership based on how many individuals you would like to provide access to the PlannersWeb.

For many communities our “Basic10 plan” ($95/year) will work fine. It will allow up to 10 planning commissioners, staff, or anyone else you select, to have access to the PlannersWeb. We also have membership plans that cost a bit more, but that enable you to give access to more board members (if you have a large planning board), staff, governing body members, and/or others.

If you just want a membership for yourself, the cost is $65/year. We also offer a $30 student discount rate for students enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs. For details on our student rates.

2. I’m a group administrator. Can you tell me how to add new members, or change existing members?

You’ll also find complete instructions on how to add new members; remove members (e.g., when a commissioner leaves); or edit member information (like their email address on our Instructions for Group Administrators page.

3. Not all of our planning commissioners like to go online and some simply don’t have access. Will we able to print out materials for them?

Yes, you can print out materials for your commissioners as long as you have a group membership. If you have a “JustOne” membership, you can print out materials just for your own use. If you have questions, please contact us.

4. I’m a librarian at a college. How can we gain access to the PlannersWeb?

Our library rate for colleges and universities is $115/year, giving you full access to our site, including all our archives. We can enter a range of IP addresses, allowing faculty and students access. Please phone us at: 802-864-9083 or email us at: pcjoffice@gmail.com so we can get the information we’ll need to set up your account.

5. Can we print out and distribute Planning Commissioners Journal articles that we download, or new content that will be available on the PlannersWeb? What are your copyright policies?

If it’s for use by other PlannersWeb members, the answer is “yes.” For example, you’ve signed up for our Basic10 membership, and included your seven planning commissioners and three staff. There’s a particular Planning Commissioners Journal article you spotted on our site that you’d like them to take a look at — but you don’t want them to have to go to the trouble of tracking it down on our site. Certainly, you’re free to print it out for them, or to email them the pdf of the article.

But if you have an individual (JustOne) membership, the material is for just for your own use. For other use, please contact us for approval.

If you have questions about our copyright policies — for example, if you want to quote from an article, or reprint an article (or excerpts from an article), please see our more detailed information about this.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT PRINTING ARTICLES CLEANLY: 

We’ve had several inquiries from PlannersWeb users that when they print out pages, the left side of the page is cut off — or there are related problems. The way to avoid these problems is to use the print icon button at the bottom of any post you want to print out. It’s right under the Share button at the end of every article we post — see the example on the right.

6. How will your article archives work? Will we need to pay an additional fee to download any articles?

No. Every PlannersWeb member will have access to past Planning Commissioners Journal articles at no additional cost — this is included in what you’ll be paying for in joining the PlannersWeb.

7. The over 600 articles in your archives is a lot of content. It might be overwhelming for a planning commissioner to locate things and get an overview of a topic. Is there any way you can address this?

We’ve grouped material by categories in our “menu tree” structure on the PlannersWeb. Just use the horizontal blue menu bar visible at the top of every page. This will give you quick and easy access — after you select a category from the menu — to a one or two sentence summary of each article we’ve published on that topic. From there, you’ll also links to excerpts from each article, and the ability to immediately download and/or print out the full article.

We’ve also highlighted a group of articles that we think are of especial value to new planning board members.

Finally, we also have an easy to use “Search” box where you can search the full content of our site.

8. What if I just want to order a few articles from past issues of the Planning Commissioners Journal, but not have an annual PlannersWeb membership?

You can purchase our low-cost ($9.50) one day (24 hour) access to the full site. This will enable you to download the articles you’re most interested in obtaining.

9. What’s the best way to keep up-to-date on what you’ll be posting on the PlannersWeb?

When you become a member you’ll automatically be subscribed to our regular email updates. But non-members are also welcome to subscribe to our updates. In each update we’ll be summarizing new content, and providing you with other useful information.

We’ve also set up an email update service for those of you don’t want to wait and would prefer to be notified as soon as new content is posted on the PlannersWeb (it’s Option 2 on the page linked to).

10. Who does the beautiful illustrations on the PlannersWeb? Are they available for purchase?

We’ve been most fortunate that talented illustrator Paul Hoffman has done all 86 of our cover illustrations, plus the illustrations for our Planning ABC’s series. That’s well over 100 illustrations over 20 years (and counting). We’ve used crops from a number of his cover illustrations on the PlannersWeb site.

A number of Paul Hoffman’s cover illustrations for the Planning Commissioners Journal are available for purchase — as framed illustrations that will look great on your wall, and in other formats. If there’s an illustration you particularly like that you don’t see in our Cafe Press store, let us know and when time permits we’ll add it.

Please note that Hoffman’s illustrations on our PlannersWeb site (and in the PCJ) are copyright protected; so please don’t copy them.

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If you have any other questions, please feel free to either email us: pcjoffice@gmail.com or phone us: 802-864-9083.