THE ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING PROCESS

Planning

Planning

about organizing resources and making choices to achieve goals and objective

Environmental Planning

explains how governments, businesses, and households decide how to use natural resources, financial capital, and human resources to solve problems in natural areas, rural working landscapes, and the built environments of cities, suburbs, and towns

Environmental Planning

can help communities to avoid or minimize air and water pollution, loss of wildlife, the conversion of farm and forest lands, and degradation of the built environment.

• Natural areas

• Working landscapes

• Built environments

3 main land uses

Natural Areas

undeveloped lands and waters that provide an array of environmental services, such as water supply, water recharge and filtration, fish and wildlife habitats, air filtration, and recreation. ____________ also include natural hazards that pose environmental constraints, such as floodplains, wetlands, and steep slopes.

Working landscapes

farms, rangeland, forests, mines, and commercial recreation areas provide food, fiber, lumber, minerals, and energy and contribute to the health of rural and metropolitan economies.

Built environments

cities, suburbs, and towns involve the design and siting of buildings, transportation systems, sewer and water facilities, and public spaces and parkland

Climate change

has raised air and ocean temperatures and is expected to produce more frequent and severe storms and droughts

Climate change

it also increases vulnerability to invasive species, wildfires, coastal storms, and rising sea levels.

Planning

central to any government policy or business decision

Public Environmental Planning

__________ is put into practice through federal, state, and local government laws, regulations, tax policy, and spending programs that discourage, encourage, or require certain actions by companies, individuals, and governments

Federal laws

it set national standards to protect public health and wildlife and compel improvements in air and water quality and the clean- up of hazardous waste sites.

1. decide on the appropriate uses of land and the spatial pattern of development

2. identify lands with development constraints

3. regulate the location, timing, and design of development;

4. invest in gray infrastructure

main purposes of local comprehensive planning process are to

Comprehensive Plan

establishes the traditional foundation for local and regional planning

Comprehensive Plan

it sets forth a vision of how a community or region should look, function, and grow over the next 10 to 20 years and sometimes longer

Comprehensive Plan

provides direction for public and private sector decision makers through an inventory of current conditions and the identification of future needs

Comprehensive Plan

expresses goals and objectives for housing, the economic base, public facilities and services, transportation, land use, parks and recreation, and the environment

environmental planning

like a comprehensive plan— should be holistic because, as the second law of ecology states, “everything is connected to everything else.

county comprehensive plans

often have several shortcomings for sustainable environmental planning

traditional plan

usually emphasizes economic development, transportation, and housing and does not place a high priority on environmental quality

traditional comprehensive plan

it lists several goals and objectives that are often difficult for planners and local governments to prioritize

• Functional plans

• Area plans

2 categories of strategic plans

functional plan

goes into more detail on a particular topic in a comprehensive plan

area plan

focuses on a certain geographic location, such as a neighborhood, a transportation corridor, or part of a county

Functional plans and area plans

can help to expand on the inventory and analysis of data and the goals and objectives contained in the comprehensive plan.

hazard mitigation plan

an area plan with elements of a functional plan that expand on the land use and natural resources inventory sections of a comprehensive plan

Local functional environmental plans

often include a park and open space plan, water supply plan, Energy Plan, Heritage Area Plan, transportation plan, stormwater management plan, and a hazard mitigation plan.

Strategic plan

lays out the regulations, incentives, and investments that a local government and the private sector need to make in order to achieve a level of environmental quality within a set time frame

Strategic plan

often include quantifiable goals, such as a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2025, or 10 miles of greenways and trails by 2020, or 25 more miles of light rail by 2030

Zoning

most widely used land- use control in the U.S. to guide the future growth and development of a municipality or county.

• a text describing the rules for each zoning district

• a map showing the location and boundaries of the zoning districts

traditional zoning ordinance consists of two parts

Climate Action Plans

hybrids of functional and area plans

overlay zone

creates a double-zone where a landowner or developer must meet the standards of both the underlying zone (such as R- 1 Residential Single Family) and the overlay zone (such as a Floodplain Zone)

overlay zone

Planners employ ____________ to protect the public health, safety, and welfare in sensitive environmental areas

overlay zone

include floodplain overlays, aquifer overlays, and steep slope overlays, among others

form-based code

regulates the design and appearance of buildings more so than land uses

form- based code

emphasizes the importance of the public realm and how private and public buildings influence the public realm in terms of the building height and bulk, building façades, orientation to the street, and parking requirements.

performance zoning

regulate the potential impacts of land uses rather than limiting land uses to those generally thought to be compatible with the area.

Fiscal Zoning

zones out low- income households and promotes both large- lot residential sprawl and arterial commercial sprawl instead of compact, mixed- use developments

Subdivision and Land-Development Ordinance

establishes rules for the design and layout of lots, necessary roads and sidewalks, sewage disposal, drinking water supplies, and stormwater drainage, as well as the retention of open space and vegetation.

sketch plan stage

the developer presents a conceptual layout of the proposal.

preliminary plat

shows a considerable amount of information about the proposed development, including planned lot configurations, building locations, streets, utilities, neighboring landowners and land uses, and environmental features such as streams, slopes, and vegetation

Final plat

At this stage, the municipality or county determines whether the developer has met the conditions attached to the preliminary plat, and if so, the chair of the elected officials signs the final plat and it is recorded with the recorder of deeds at the county courthouse

Capital Improvements Program (CIP)

used by local govt to budget 5 to 10 years into the future, but this may vary according to a community’s estimates of future population growth and service needs

• to anticipate the location, type, and amount of public service needs

• to provide adequate services at a reasonable cost.

• can help coordinate projects and avoid mismanagement, such as paving a street one year and tearing it up the next to install a sewer line

purpose of Capital Improvements Program (CIP)

gray infrastructure

roads and bridges, mass transit, school buildings, sewer and water treatment plants and lines, municipal buildings, and solid waste disposal sites

Concurrency

policy that requires infrastructure to be in place before public or private development can begin

growth boundary

a limit of urban services, such as central sewer and water, agreed on by a city and its one or more surrounding counties.

Environmental Action Plan

used to implement goals and objectives from several parts of the comprehensive plan, especially the natural resources inventory, economic base, land use, and community facilities sections

Environmental Action Plan

can draw on planning strategies and tools in the functional and area plans that are connected to the comprehensive plan

Environmental Action Plan

can recommend regulations, financial incentives, infrastructure spending programs, and other actions toward promoting a sustainable environment

Environmental Action Plan

can list short-term, medium term, and long-term actions; funding sources; and who will be responsible for carrying out the actions and when

1. The public and elected officials recognize the need for environmental planning

2. Officials then commit people and funding to the environmental planning effort and appoint an environmental advisory committee to assist the planning commission.

3. The planning commission, staff, and the environmental advisory committee conduct an Environmental Needs Assessment Survey and solicit public input.

4. The planning commission, staff, and the environmental advisory committee develop a factual base of environmental conditions and analyze the information.

5. The planning commission, staff, and the environmental advisory committee review the community’s comprehensive plan to revise the vision statement, broad goals, and specific objectives to incorporate environmental data and needs over the next 20 years or more.

6. The planning commission, staff, and the environmental advisory committee draft an Environmental Action Plan to articulate a set of land-use controls, financial incentives, infrastructure spending, tax programs, and building design regulations that will put the environmental goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan into practice.

7. Elected officials solicit public input and adopt the Environmental Action Plan.

8. The planning commission and elected officials implement, monitor, and evaluate the performance of the Environmental Action Plan through an annual review of progress toward benchmarks and then make revisions and updates as needed.

Steps in Creating an Environmental Action Plan

(1) a natural resources inventory of air, land, water, and wildlife resources

(2) a built environment inventory of buildings and gray infrastructure

The factual base in a comprehensive plan should include:

Natural Resources Inventory

In this inventory, planners should identify the location, quantity, and quality of these resources as well as their suitability for development, development constraints such as steep slopes and floodplains, and vulnerability to pollution or natural hazards

Resource Maps

very useful, and a composite map of natural resource layers, generated by a Geographic Information System (GIS)

Topographic map

this map from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) display elevations, roads, water bodies, and settlements.

1. Soils, geology, and topography

2. Watersheds, streams, water bodies, floodplains, and wetlands

3. Aquifer recharge areas and delineated wellhead areas

4. Wildlife habitat

5. Vegetation (forest cover, cropland, pasture, prairie, etc.)

5 Natural Environmental Features

soils

include slope, erosion potential, wetness, strength, depth to bedrock, frost action, shrink- swell, prime agricultural soils, forest soils, and suitability for on- site septic systems

Geology

can help to identify areas likely to have productive groundwater aquifers and areas vulnerable to groundwater contamination

inventory of air quality

includes measurements of carbon monoxide, particulates, nitrogen dioxide, lead, ozone, and sulfur oxides, which are the main air pollutants identified by the federal government under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970

Built Environment Inventory

can show the location, number, age, and condition of the housing stock, commercial and industrial buildings, parks, and public buildings

Built Environment Inventory

can also include the location and condition of public infrastructure, including roads, sewer and water lines, schools, landfills, and police and fire stations.

• a land and water suitability analysis,

• an environmental quality analysis,

• a current trends analysis.

analysis of the natural resources inventory and the built environment inventory consists of three parts:

Land and Water Suitability Analysis

identifies those areas of the community that are appropriate for development, places that have moderate limitations for most developments, and areas that should be protected in their natural state because of severe environmental constraints and natural hazards.

Land and Water Suitability Analysis

can provide important information on the carrying capacity of the community— that is, how many people and how much development the community can sustainably support before serious negative environmental impacts occur.

Environmental Quality Analysis

compare state and federal environmental standards with actual conditions in the community

Current Trends Analysis

Recent trends in population growth, acreage developed, acreage in public parks, vehicle miles traveled, waste recycling, loss of threatened or endangered plant and animal species, air and water quality, and water use give indications of the direction of environmental quality

• Zoning

• Subdivision Regulation

• CIP

• Other Regulations

Innovative Techniques to Implement an Environmental Action Plan

Forecast

is made of future emission levels based on current trends

Green infrastructure

covers a range of open space and stormwater management investment projects.

infrastructure

“a strategically planned and managed network of wilderness, parks, greenways, conservation easements, and working lands with conservation value that supports native species, maintains natural ecological processes, sustains air and water resources, and contributes to the health and quality of life for America’s communities and people.”

• Provisioning services (farms and forests),

• Regulating services (forest and wildlife preserves)

• Cultural services (parks and greenways)

• Supporting services (open space)

four general categories of ecosystem services

Provisioning services

produce food, fiber, and energy for humans, plants, and animals.

Regulating services

affect climate, air quality, waste treatment, and water quality and supplies

Cultural services

refer to opportunities for recreation, education, and spiritual or aesthetic enjoyment from contact with nature

Supporting services

underlie the others with basic natural processes such as photosynthesis and nutrient cycling

1. Multifunctionality

2. Connectivity

3. Habitability

4. Resiliency

5. Identity

6. Return on investment

Green infrastructure plans embody six design characteristics

Policy Plan

a set of desired outcomes and recommendations to achieve those outcomes

Policy Plan

lacks the detailed facts and careful analysis found in a comprehensive plan or a future land- use map on which to base the zoning map.

Sustainability Plan

must address the long- term durability of the natural and built environments, the local economy, and social equity.

Economic Sustainability

1. A strong economy

2. Diverse supplier base

3. Employment and workforce training

4. Financial management/sustainability

5. Enhanced customer service

6. Vital business districts

Social Sustainability

1. Great neighborhoods

2. Strong education, arts, and community

3. Civic engagement

4. Healthy lifestyles and healthy environments

5. Public safety

Environmental Sustainability

1. Energy and climate protection

2. Environmental quality and natural systems

3. Land use and development

elements of the sustainability plan