Renew America Success Stories

LUFNET Land Planning Process

Description

The LUFNET Land Planning Process enables neighborhood groups to work with the developer, environmentalists, board members and prospective residents to create together the most beneficial configuration of improvements for a specific tract of land.  Working together in a Land Use Forum (LUF), participants discuss what aspects of their community they value and wish to retain, and what aspects they would be willing to see change or improve.  Then, using model buildings on an aerial photo that includes the existing neighborhood, participants find the plan that most enhances and sustains the health and vitality of the area.

The land use forum planning process was the idea of Karl Kehde, an experience planning board member, developer and environmentalist, who was frustrated by the limitations and often disappointing results of a typical planning process.  Such a process tends to be adversarial, is usually dominated by the land owner and often results in a plan that is approved by the planning board under the control of  local ordinances and engineering.  The desires and values of the community, including environmental values, are commonly left out of such a process.

In a land use forum planning process, everyone's views are solicited up front through a series of informal meetings to discuss local environmental, economic and social issues. The participants meet to design the master plan using aerial photographs, topographic maps and model buildings. LUF participants place necessary new construction where it improves the least attractive areas while preserving and enhancing the best places.

Because the LUFNET land planning process, after gaining a consensus of opinion, recommends a detailed master plan before the site plan review process begins, the costs of engineering, legal review and public hearings are generally greatly reduced for the municipality and the land owners.  Reduced costs can translate into more open space preserved, fewer units built, more affordable housing and more recreational facilities.

Because the process brings together everyone who is affected and makes them stakeholders in the resulting development, community members and developers alike have a vested interest in seeing the process succeed.

Peter Meyer, president of Professional Planning and Engineering and a participant in several land use forums says, "What greater reassurance can a planning board have than for the citizens and the neighbors and the landowner or developer to come to them together and say, 'This is what we want for this land!'"

Program Highlights

• Communities interested in developing a LUFNET Land Planning Process receive an instruction book, video and planning kit.
• Each land use forum identifies the natural resources in the area under planning review before any specific land use concepts are discussed.  Thus development is planned to conserve critical natural resources.
• The objective in the land use forum is to conceptualize and support a plan that does the most to improve character and community in the surrounding region.
• The participants at each land use forum are asked to consider and balance three interests: conservation, economic viability and sense of community.
• The process brings together people from all walks of life.  Low-income and upper-income people work side-by-side, and the informal atmosphere of the meetings encourages participants to see each other as individuals, which fosters respect and reduces adversity.

Vital Statistics

Program Management/Partnerships: LUFNET works with the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions, the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, the Fund for New Jersey, the Bunbury Foundation, the Burgdorff Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Kane Foundation, the Klipstein Foundation, the Monmouth Conservation Foundation, the Roxiticus Foundation, the Schumann Foundation, the Victoria Foundation, Chemical Bank of New Jersey, the Trust for Public Land and the Professional Planning and Engineering Corporation.

Budget: In review.

Community Served:  Residents of communities who wish to play a leading role in shaping local land use planning to protect the environment and preserve a sense of community.

Measures of Success:

Since its inception, more than 75 land use planning forums in 17 municipalities have been held.

The LUFNET process has been used successfully in six New Jersey communities.

 Published: May 1997

Success stories designed by Mark W. Nowak

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