Land use planning is the practice of organizing how land is developed in cities and surrounding environments. Without it, cities would quickly become disorganized and polluted with pollutants from development activities taking place on them.
Land use planning refers to the allocation of space for various activities that guarantee their sustainability, such as urban, agricultural and recreational zones.
Zoning
The SEP will bring people living in communities, counties, states and the nation as a whole together in a deliberative democratic process whereby they determine land use policy through land use committees. Higher-level experts and scientists will serve as advisors, supporters, funders, educators and coordinators of local committees.
Regional co-management councils will include natural resource and land use planning professionals from cities, counties, states, tribal governments, federal government agencies; natural resource and land use planning specialists from private citizens such as farmers, ranchers and private landowners; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and environmental organizations. Furthermore, they will collaborate closely with national SEP co-management committees who create comprehensive land use management plans for nine ecoregions.
SEP co-management committees will ensure that the values of ecological integrity, social equity and just sustainability are integrated into comprehensive land use management plans for level III ecoregions. In addition, co-management committees will aim for secondary boundaries that provide landscape diversity ranging from urban developments to rural backcountry wildernesses with relatively easy yet regulated movement and access for all.
Community Involvement
Community involvement is integral to land use planning. If the public becomes actively engaged with this process, local leaders are more likely to make decisions that benefit all residents in a town or city.
Communities can be broadly defined, including anyone with an interest in the area being planned; or they can include only specific stakeholder groups like decision-makers and neighborhood associations. Engaging people from the start allows planners to ensure goals align with local interests while increasing buy-in for the final plan.
Community engagement techniques also enable communities to identify any potential development-related problems, including traffic congestion, environmental degradation and cultural disruptions. By understanding potential issues beforehand and acting to prevent them, community engagement techniques provide more lasting results than reacting afterwards. To learn more about its benefits check out NAHB’s resources on Three Types of Community Engagement.
Housing Options
Land use planning has an enormous effect on the types and locations of homes built in an area, taking into account various public benefits to determine both quantity and type of housing units that can be constructed while also impacting how much infrastructure such as roads or schools may be developed.
Land use review processes have an immediate and detrimental impact on affordable housing options, failing to keep pace with demand and often disqualifying applicants who cannot afford its lengthy review processes. Furthermore, they tend to favor traditional development which drives up costs and limits affordable options.
Environmental review processes tend to be too narrow, focusing on negative impacts while overlooking any possible benefits from development projects. For instance, New York City’s SEQRA process is activated whenever any discretionary rezoning application is filed; yet most such applications pertain to affordable homes or accessory dwelling units – an imbalance that creates uncertainty about a project being approved while hindering those which otherwise would move forward as expected.
Sustainability
Land is a finite resource and must be treated as such. There are multiple uses for it that have far reaching consequences both for people and the environment.
Sustainable land planning aims to strike a balance between economic development, environmental protection and community interests. For instance, this may involve encouraging businesses that employ sustainable practices such as renewable energy or ecotourism; creating policies which incentivize sustainable building designs or landscaping techniques and encouraging entrepreneurship that supports such practices.
Environmental impacts assessments, zoning regulations and land use assessments can help protect open spaces like parks, wetlands and agricultural lands from development, while also helping address climate change by reducing carbon emissions through environmental impact assessments, zoning or other land use regulations. Furthermore, multisource big data has recently been used to create block-level land-use inventories which link directly with housing prices – something not previously available before now!