Community Planning Initiatives

The Farmland Protection and Community Planning Staff is working to enhance NRCS's capacity to deliver of technical assistance to communities by embarking on a community planning initiative designed to provide natural resource and socioeconomic data and assessments to communities engaged in comprehensive planning.

Issue:

The Loss of farmland, wildlife habitat, and open space has accelerated over the last two decades. National Resources Inventory data show that the annual rate of conversion of rural lands to developed areas increased from 1.2 million acres per year between 1982 and 1987 to 2.2 million acres per year between 1992 and 1997. The increase in the rate of conversion is due to a number of forces including increased income, the continuing increase in population, inadequate land-use planning, and zoning and land-use laws. The American Planning Association's Growing Smart project issued a report in late 1999 that summarized the status of State land-use law reform. At that time only 11 states had substantially updated planning statutes, another 9 had moderately updated statutes and the remainder had slightly or not updated planning statutes (statutes which date back to the 1920's).

Discussion:

Inadequate land use planning, in many cases, has contributed to the adverse economic, social, and environmental impacts associated with growth. In a National Survey on Growth and Land Development conducted by Belden, Russonello and Stewart for Smart Growth America, 78% of the respondents supported land-use planning to guide the place and size of development in their communities and an overwhelming 83% favored establishing zones to protect green space, farming, and forests outside of existing cities and suburbs.

In the United States, land-use decisions are primarily the responsibility of local governments. Many times these local governments do not have the funds, staff or expertise to develop comprehensive land-use plans to guide growth and development. Local land use decisions often rely on zoning and other land-use ordinances that may not adequately address inherent natural resource, economic or social conditions. These community representatives are increasingly asked to make important decisions about their community with little information. Since updated State legislation at least conditionally requires local jurisdictions to prepare growth and management plans or risk exclusion from some state funds, planning workloads in those states and for those communities has risen. As other states begin to substantially update their planning legislation, and require specific elements to be included in the plan like resource assessments and/or inventory and analyses, planning services nation-wide are expected to increase.

In a 2000 NACD National Report, on Conservation District Growth Management Activities, the number one priority for Tools Needed to Improve Urban Conservation Delivery was "an accepted long range plan for land use in the District, followed by "improved planning equipment" and "a digitized Geographic Information System."

The Natural Resources Conservation Service working in partnership with local conservation districts can provide local jurisdictions with natural resource and other assessments that can help communities develop comprehensive growth management plans.

In the fall of 2000, NRCS began two community planning pilots, one in Wisconsin and one in Ohio. Using the agency's soils data as the foundation, and other data as available, three suitability models were identified and built as part of a methodology for assessing natural and socioeconomic resources in a community. Displayed in several map layers, these assessments are done in an ArcGIS environment much like the Customer Tool Kit. This information along with other tools like the community attitude survey and the mental mapping tool (examples below) will help communities make more enduring land use decisions by basing planning decisions on inherent natural resource attributes and cultural and community attitudes. Communities can then target Federal, state and local financial and technical resources to achieve the plan's objectives and strengthen the local economy, conserve natural resources, and protect farmland and open space.

As a continuum to the initiative, a handbook defining the concept and methodology for resource assessment in community planning is being written. An implementation strategy to identify appropriate tools, training and staffing needs is being developed to integrate this kind of assistance into the agency's current operating systems.

Additional Information

These documents require Adobe Acrobat.

City and Town of Brillion, Wisconsin, Attitude Survey and Mental Mapping Tool

Town of Brillion Community Attitude Survey
Town of Brillion Mental Mapping Tool

Fulton County Ohio Community Planning Survey, 2002 New!

2002 Survey Report
Appendix A, Additional Comments by Township
Appendix B, Breakouts on Whether the Respondents Owned or Operated a Farm
Appendix C, Breakouts by Age
Appendix D, Township New Developments
Appendix E, Overall Crosstabulations by Township
Appendix F, Incorporated Crosstabulations by Township
Appendix G, Unincorporated Crosstabulations by Township
Appendix H, Example of the Community Survey Collection Document