New Approach
for Land Use Planning Available

Community leaders across America are charged with the responsibility for planning the current and future use of their land. In general, communities are expected to forecast the need for additional residential, commercial, and industrial land, and then to put comprehensive plans in place to ensure the adequate supply of land and the appropriate use of such land.

But how? How can community leaders forecast the need for various categories of land?
Historically, community leaders simply look at the consumption rate of land over the previous decade or two, consider some state and national trends that relate to the need for land, and then put the plan on paper. Sometimes plans hit the mark; most times they do not.

Frequently absent in land use planning is an objective look at what economic strategies a community should have in place, and the specific land use implications for such strategies.

Brian Cole, in his upcoming book Building Communities: 25 Strategies to Advance America, presents a new approach for community leaders to objectively identify likely future land use demands.

The Building Communities methodology uses a very comprehensive and objective approach to analyze a community by studying the comparative advantages and disadvantages of 85 key success factors to select economic development strategies to advance a community.

Once selected from the menu of 25 economic development strategies, the specific strategies advanced by communities each have unique implications for the future consumption of residential, commercial, and industrial land. Certain strategies demand huge tracts of industrial land while other strategies focus on the need for commercial and/residential land.

For every strategy, the book provides a brief narrative on the implications for use of industrial, commercial, and residential land.

By utilizing Building Communities, community leaders avoid the oftentimes needless study of demographics, and focus more on the relevant factors that will influence the community’s likely growth—or lack of future development.

“Community leaders that engage the Building Communities process for land use planning will begin their process with a very understandable, engaging, and relevant discussion of the comparative advantages that a community has to advance itself,” said Cole. “Based upon this realistic assessment, local planners can make land use decisions based more on local issues and assets rather than nebulous statistics and national trends.”