SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT DECISION
SUPPORT TOOLS

Land Use Planning

Last updated: February 3, 2004

CITYgreen
Developer: American Forests
Phone: (800) 368-5748
Website: http://www.amfor.org
Email: cgreen@amfor.org
Description: A Geographic Information System (GIS) software program for mapping, measuring, and analyzing urban ecosystems. The program considers trees and other natural resources in the community development process. It allows users to create ecological maps, conduct technical analysis of the ecology, summarize results, and create graphic presentation materials. CITYgreen allows users to analyze storm water, summer energy savings, carbon storage and sequestration, air quality, and urban wildlife.

Community 2020
Developer: U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Phone: (800) 998-9999
Website: http://www.hud.gov
Email: richard_burk@HUD.gov
Description: HUD's Community 2020 software Version 2.0 is a computer program packaged with geographic and demographic data. It is a full-featured desktop Geographic Information System (GIS) for Windows, the result of a joint venture between HUD and Caliper Corporation. It offers the full functionality of Caliper's Maptitude.

With Community 2020, HUD not only has made its huge program data sets available to the public, but also has packaged the data with an easy-to-use, high quality GIS tool for understanding, using and communicating place-based information to others.

The Community Image Survey
Developer: Center for Livable Communities
Phone: (800) 290-8202
Website: http://www.lgc.org/
Description: Based on the Visual Preference Survey developed by architect Anton Nelessen, the Community Image Survey is a very effective tool for educating and involving community members in land use planning. The Survey consists of 40 slides of design characteristics that are presented for review at a public meeting or workshop organized to discuss some aspect of the land use and transportation planning process.

CommunityViz: Community Planning and Simulation Software
Developer: The Orton Family Foundation
Contacts: Western Office, Townsend H. Anderson, rockymt@orton.org (970) 879-2126. Eastern Office, Helen Whyte, northeast@orton.org (802) 773-6336
Description: CommunityViz™ is a suite of software tools developed by The Orton Family Foundation designed to assist communities with spatial decision-making and analysis of land-use scenarios. This suite of integrated ArcView extensions helps users view, project, analyze and understand potential changes to their community by offering three-dimensional exploration, alternative scenario-building and analysis, as well as regional forecasting for community land-use planning.

Ecological Assessment of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region
Developers: EPA, TVA, Univ. of TN, DOE (ORNL), USGS
Description: A Landscape Atlas that uses advanced technologies to assess environmental conditions and better understand how pieces fit together in communities and regions. The study was syndicated with staff and tools from IPA (Las Vegas), TVA (Norris, TN), University of Tennessee (Knoxville), DOE (Oak Ridge National Lab), USGS (Knoxville)

The Environmental Simulation Center  
Phone: (212) 279-1851
Website: http://www.simcenter.org/
Description: The Center assists architects, community planners, government agencies, and preservationists in employing computer modeling techniques to analyze the physical and visual impact of proposed projects. The Environmental Simulation Center was established at the New School for Social Research in 1991. Since 1997, the ESC is an independent not-for-profit laboratory, and is the only facility of its kind in New York, and one of only several worldwide.

Green Developments 2.0 CD-ROM
Developers: U.S. Department of Energy, Rocky Mountain Institute, and the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology
Phone: (303) 275-4826
Description: Green Developments is an interactive CD-ROM that fully describes an exciting new field in which environmental considerations are viewed as opportunities to create better buildings and communities by working with the environmental instead of against it.

It features 400 visuals; resource details, including financial details; and web links to key related sites. You hear the architects talking about their designs, see how the buildings have taken shape, and listen to residents talking about their neighborhoods while viewing them.

INDEX
Developer: Criterion Planners/Engineers Inc.
Phone: (503) 224-8606
Website: http://www.crit.com
Email: eliot@crit.com
Description: INDEX is a GIS-based software package for measuring community indicators. It can be customized according to indicators and functions selected by local stakeholders. Main functions include data management, public information, scenario analysis, and indicator tracking.

Indicator measurements normally include land-use, housing, employment, transportation, infrastructure, and the natural environment. Customizations utilize either ArcView or MapObjects.

InfraCycle Fiscal Impact Software
Developer: Ray Essiambre, President, Founder
Phone: (888) 836-1618 toll-free
Website: http://www.infracycle.com
Email: ray@infracycle.com
Description: InfraCycle software is a fiscal impact tool that calculates the life cycle cost of municipal infrastructure (fire, police, roadways, sidewalks, street light, park land, recreation facilities, storm water, sanitary sewers, garbage collection, transit, schools, school busing).

Municipal revenues can be calculated from sources such as taxes, levies, development charges, application fees, etc. Revenues are compared to costs to determine if revenues will support costs. The software can be used for large or small projects. Silver City, New Mexico, for example, has acquired the software to assess the impact of a proposed 6,000-acre annexation.

Land Use and Community Allliance Service (LUCAS)
Developer: Pace University School of Law
Website: http://www.pace.edu/lawschool/landuse/index.html
Description: Provides more than 4,000 pages of material produced by the Land Use Law Center to help both community leaders and experienced land-use practitioners balance the needs for economic development with environmental protection.

Land Use Forum Network (LUFNET) Community Development Process
Developer: Karl Kehde
Phone: 908-625-0638
Website: http://www.landuse.org/
Email: brendan@lufnet.org
Description: LUFNET offers a community building, collaborative process for planning each land development to be sustainable, preserve the environment, and vitalize the existing neighborhood.

Land Use Planning Information Network (LUPIN)  
Developer: California Resources Agency
Website: http://ceres.ca.gov/
Description: California’s on-line tool available for planners, local and regional governments, conservationists, developers, landowners, and others involved in planning. LUPIN provides an aggregate view of information relevant to land use and environmental planning.

Location Efficient Mortgage (LEM) 
Developer: Center for Neighborhood Technology
Phone: (312) 278-4800 ext.115
Website: http://www.cnt.org/
Email: hoeveler@cnt.org
Description: The Location Efficient Mortgage (LEM) is an innovative mortgage product that is being offered in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles to low- and moderate- income borrowers who are interested in living in urban areas served by public transportation systems.

Modernizing State Planning Statutues:The Growing Smart Working Papers. Volume 1 (PAS Report No. 462/463)
Developer: American Planning Association
Website: http://www.planning.org
Email: growingsmart@planning.org
Description: APA's Growing Smart project has resulted in a collection of useful information on growth and the management of change in U.S. communities. Included is some of the finest and most advanced thinking on legislative reform in the U.S. Topics include:

• Regional tax-base sharing
• The role of the governor in state land-use reform
• State and regional roles in transportation and land use
• Judicial review of land-use decisions
• Interstate compacts and affordable housing
• State and regional fair-share housing planning
• Developments of regional impact
• Areas of critical state concern
• Accommodating home rule in state land-use reform

National Center for Environmental Decision-Making Research
Developer: National Center for Environmental Decision-Making Research
Website: http://www.ncedr.org/
Description: Has developed tools to aid environmental decisions, such as: identifying environmental values; characterizing the environmental setting; characterizing the social, political and economic setting; characterizing the legal setting; integrating information; forecasting; assessing options; and conducting post-decision assessments.

PLACE3S
Developers: California Energy Commission, State Energy Office in Oregon, and the Washington Dept. of Energy
Phone: (303) 275-4819
Email: ken_snyder@nrel.gov
Description: PLACE3S (PLAnning for Community Energy, Economic and Environmental Sustainability) is an urban design and land-use planning process created to help communities understand how growth and development decisions can contribute to improved sustainability.

Planners Guide to Sustainable Development (PAS Report No. 467)
Developer: American Planning Association
Website: http://www.planning.org
Email: pasreports@planning.org
Description: Planning Advisory Service Report for Professional Community Planners. This report reviews sustainable development literature in a planning context. It examines sustainable community processes in their entirety--their origins, structure, progress, and benefits.

Five case studies are included--Seattle; Santa Monica, California; Olympia, Washington; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

$mart Growth Network  
Website: http://www.smartgrowth.org/
Description: An information network coordinated by US EPA to assist private sector, public sector, and NGO partners in creating smart growth in neighborhoods, communities, and regions throughout the country. The network facilitates information sharing on financing for infill and brownfields redevelopment, tools for evaluating development options, and pilot money-saving investments which reap economic and environmental benefits.

SmartPlaces
Developer: Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
Phone: (650) 855-2720
Website: http://www.epri.com
Email: pradclif@epri.com
Description: SmartPlaces is a tool for geographic decision-making. SmartPlaces enhances decision-making insight in target marketing, economic development, land-use planning, transportation systems, facilities management, environmental remediation and protection, energy forecasting, water allocation, and resource control.

SmartPlaces is used to evaluate the implications and opportunities of alternative plans. It offers innovation in the planning process through interactive design, evaluation, and illustration of proposed activities. The system runs on a PC using ESRI's ArcView software. Smart Places provides a user approachable set of tools for the exploration, design, modification, illustration and evaluation of alternative planning scenarios.

Social Cost of Alternative Land Development Scenarios (SCALDS)
Developers: The Federal Highway Administration and Parsons Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas Inc.
Phone: (503) 417-1362
Website: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/scalds/scalds.html
Email: conradl@pbworld.com
Description: A prototyping model that estimates the full cost of alternative land-use patterns. SCALDS estimates monetary and non-monetary costs associated with urban land development. It builds on three areas of research--least-cost planning, which has been used by utilities for a number of years; full cost of travel studies; and cost of service/cost of sprawl research.

Sustainable City
Website: http://www.global-vision.org/
Email: moc@global-vision.org
Description: A collaborative research endeavor to create a computer simulation program for any town or city to see itself - and its surrounding environment - as a whole system.  

3-D GIS /Kit of Parts
Developer: The Environmental Simulation Center
Phone: (212) 564-9601
Website: http://www.simcenter.org/
Email: kwartler@simcenter.org
Description: Using sophisticated computer graphics and simulation technologies, the Environmental Simulation Center can simulate realistic images and experiences of hypothetical situations and projects, such as alterations to historic districts, proposed skyscrapers, new parklands, neighborhood plans, zoning amendments, and proposed transportation schemes.

An interactive three-dimensional "kit of parts" aids large cities and small townships alike in visualizing their communities and making informed assessments of regulatory approaches. Viewers can "walk" or even "drive" through simulated cities and towns and experience projects as if it they were built, allowing a close assessment of the project's merits and failings.

All of the findings are made available to the public. This allows all parties to participate equally in the decision-making process, and enhances the level of public debate in the planning and design of the built environment.

Visual Preference Surveys
Developer: A. Nelessen Associates
Phone: (609) 497-0104
Website: http://www.nelessen.org/
Email: vps@nelessen.org
Description: Visual Preference Surveys are a tool to help communities establish a common vision of what their localities should look like. This site highlights the results of what images of communities people prefer and dislike. Visitors can take the test themselves as well.