Integrating Physical, Economic, & Fiscal Considerations in Community Planning
Too often local fiscal and economic development policies fail to mesh with comprehensive plan goals. What can planners do?
Misc. Planning Tools
A variety of other tools than can help planners & planning commissioners in their work.
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Turning Downtowns Around: Business Improvement Districts
Planner and contributing writer Beth Humstone looks at how business improvement districts work and what they’re doing to address today’s downtown challenges.
Growing Safer: Improving Roadways for Everyone
Transportation planners know how critical it is to assess safety issues. But what can we do if a strategy to improve safety for one group of roadway users, such as drivers, has the unintended effect of decreasing safety for others, such as pedestrians?
Managing Stormwater Runoff: A Green Infrastructure Approach
The practice of stormwater management is evolving beyond engineered approaches to methods that look at managing stormwater in more natural ways.
Pattern Books: A Planning Tool
“Pattern books” filled with historical and architectural data and guidelines can help cities and towns protect and enhance their identity. The push to create them often comes after a community creates a special redevelopment district, or witnesses buildings that seem out of place.
GIS & Planning
An overview of the world of geographic information systems, with examples of some useful planning-related applications. Plus sidebars on how citizen planners in one New York county are making use of GIS, and a look at the future of GIS.
B is for Budget
One of the key responsibilities of many planning commissions and departments is the preparation of a recommended capital program for the local governing body’s consideration.
M is for Maps
Accurate and up-to-date maps are the foundation for all community and regional planning. An overview of how the use of maps has evolved in planning over the past century.
Preparing Successful Grant Proposals
Preparing a winning grant proposal requires the 3 C’s: a clear concept, a concrete strategy, and creative goals. Advice on researching and writing a proposal you and your community will be proud of.
Considering Stormwater Management in Site Plan Review
Site plan review should include consideration of a development’s impact on water resources — and stormwater runoff.
Purchase of Development Rights: Preserving Farmland and Open Space
An introduction to purchase of development rights (PDR) programs: how they work, what they can accomplish, and questions that often come up.
Planning for Historic Preservation
Planning Commissioners Journal issue #52 included a series of articles providing an introduction to historic preservation planning and why it is has become important to our cities and towns. The download includes the full issue.
Building Consensus
Land use mediation can be an effective tool in aligning divergent interests, developing creative solutions, and resolving heated disputes. An overview of how land use mediation works — and when it’s most effective.
