Land use planning is an essential process that involves examining land and making preparations for future development. Land use planning also ensures that communities have various housing options available while simultaneously helping reduce environmental impact.
Land use planning can be undertaken at a local, town, or city level and requires engaging the local community for proper implementation. Nevertheless, it can be an expensive and lengthy process.
Efficient use of land resources
Efficient land use is essential to economic development and environmental sustainability. Achieve this requires balancing multiple demands on the land such as agriculture, industry, housing, transportation and natural resources. Land-use planning strategies can assist with meeting this challenge and realizing all its potential.
Strategies may include increasing the floor area ratio (FAR), decreasing energy consumption and encouraging mixed-use development. They may also encourage transit-oriented development that reduces car travel needs while simultaneously decreasing air pollution levels.
Land-use planning is an indispensable tool of sustainable development, as it ensures both environmental protection and community wellbeing. Without adequate plans in place, cities would become unworkable and the environment damaged; moreover it helps find people places to live, work, shop and dispose of waste efficiently. Since ancient civilization, humans have relied upon land use planning as they settled larger communities that required designated spaces where they could reside, work and bury their dead.
Preparation for future development
Land use planning is an integral component of commercial land development. It provides a strategic arrangement of various land uses in the County necessary to meet the needs of an ever-expanding population, existing and prospective businesses, cultural resources preservation efforts and natural preservation projects while encouraging design guidelines that contribute to high-quality, liveable communities.
Land use planning offers many benefits for social engagement, community building, resource conservation and future land development; including economic, industrial and transportation needs consideration.
Without proper planning, our homes would become overrun with clutter, transportation systems would fail to operate smoothly, and industrial plants would pollute our air, waterways, and neighborhoods. By working with a professional land planner you can avoid many of these issues that result from inadequate planning; for instance a poorly designed subdivision might be too close to a coastline and therefore subject to flooding; it might also contain materials that easily ignite during wildfires.
Involvement of the local community
Land use planning relies heavily on engaging the local community. Citizens should be involved in discussions that directly affect them and their daily lives, making the issue personal while giving residents a voice in shaping housing strategies, while creating an equitable task force with diverse perspectives represented on its committees.
Consideration must also be given to the effects of local economic development on housing issues, including job opportunities outside residential areas and ensuring sufficient transportation options help facilitate sustainable development. Furthermore, open space preservation, farmland preservation and cultural resources preservation must all be maintained within an area’s bounds if vital environmental areas exist. Land use planning can assist these goals by creating attractive, distinctive and livable communities that promote residential uses nearby jobs and amenities.
Time-consuming process
Land use planning is a time-consuming task that must be completed prior to construction starting. Without it, economies could stagnate and communities at risk could suffer greatly. When planned properly, however, land use planning reduces environmental impacts, protects property rights, and ensures optimal use of public facilities.
The City needs a process for evaluating new projects based on their potential benefits and how well they align with its Charter-mandated strategic plans and other plans. Unfortunately, its current process focuses solely on potential negative impacts of development projects without taking account of potential positive ones; consequently many proposals never make it through to ULURP review process.
ULURP processes often take years to complete, putting project failure or the loss of financing and tenants at risk. Furthermore, New York’s political climate can prolong this process even beyond council or mayoral terms – creating yet another significant hurdle that needs to be addressed immediately.