Even as we work to make each new building more energy-efficient and ecologically responsible, we must also take a larger perspective and pursue those same goals in the design of our communities. This is called land use planning.

For much of the late 1900s land use planning called for a strict segregation of land uses, producing our current sprawling, automobile-based cities. More recently, planning theory has evolved to an approach centered on mixed uses, compact development, pedestrian/transit-oriented styles, and form-based codes, variously called Smart Growth, Livable Communities, and the New Urbanism. The goals of these approaches are largely the same: to design our urban areas to be more human-scaled and less auto-centric, and to be more compact and resource-efficient.

Here we outline key aspects of current approaches to land use planning: compact development, mixed use, complete streets, and smart parking.

Compact Development

Compact development is the strategy of increasing the density of urban areas while adding amenities that make them more livable. For example, a key assumption of compact development is that by using less land area for buildings and roads, more open space can be set aside, such as for parkland or agricultural uses.

Compactly designed communities can provide more housing choices, support alternative modes of transportation, create walkable communities, and allow services to be located nearby. Compact building strategies include multistory buildings, use of parking garages instead of surface parking, and clustering buildings. This approach helps address the crucial problem of affordable housing.

By offering greater convenience, less need for driving, and pedestrian-friendly environments, compact developments are more human-centered and less car-centered. Compact developments achieve the population densities needed to support viable alternative transportation systems such as trains, buses and taxis, bike trails and foot paths.

Compact developments result in smaller areas of impact, make more efficient use of utilities and infrastructure such as roads, reduce consumption of land, and can result in significant energy savings, as well as tax savings due to reduced infrastructure construction and maintenance.

The city of Filmore is working on a mixed use redevelopment of it's historic downtown area.

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Mixed Use

Mixed use development refers to the combining of residential and commercial land uses—in the same neighborhood, on the same street, or in the same building. The idea is to design communities the way they used to be designed—where living, working, shopping, and playing were in close proximity, often within walking distance. In fact, these “new” planning approaches actually represent a return to traditional communities, which offered these amenities. Mixed use communities generally include a mix of housing types, residential and commercial uses in close proximity, pedestrian-friendly core areas, a multi-modal transportation network, and community service facilities like parks.

Mixed use is a central smart growth principle that can result in significant energy savings. Less distance between residents, their jobs, and the services they need makes it more practical to rely on forms of transportation (such as walking or biking) that are more fuel-efficient than the automobile. Mixed use development is an essential strategy for pedestrian-oriented development. In addition, mixed use developments can reduce parking demands by as much as 20-30% because parking can be shared between uses with different periods of peak demand. An important benefit of this approach to land use planning is that it fosters a sense of community, when residents meet and mingle as they go about their daily business.

Complete Streets

A complete street is defined as a street that works for all users—for motorists, bus riders, bicyclists, and pedestrians, including children, the elderly, and people with disabilities.

The complete streets movement is not targeting just a few designated corridors, such as downtown main streets; the goal is for diversity on most of the roadways in our communities.

The features of complete streets will be different for different streets—such as rural versus urban streets —but some key features include sidewalks, bike lanes, plenty of safe crossings, wide shoulders, medians, bus pullouts, special bus lanes, raised crosswalks, audible pedestrian signals, and sidewalk bulb-outs for calming traffic.

Streets that provide travel choices give people the option to avoid traffic jams and increase the overall capacity of the transportation network. Public health experts are advocates of complete streets because they encourage walking and bicycling, which could help combat the obesity epidemic in this country. Complete streets are also among the most important strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles.

Smart Parking

The availability of parking, and its location, influences a person’s decision to drive versus walk, bike or take transit.

Smarter parking strategies include:

• Placing commercial and office buildings right at the sidewalk, rather than behind acres of parking lot. The parking lot, in turn, is placed behind the building. With this design pedestrians are more likely to walk from one building to the next rather than drive because they do not have to compete with cars to get through the parking lots that normally separate buildings from the street.
• Encouraging curbside parking as a means of further buffering pedestrians from passing traffic. The result is that people find the experience of walking in these environments to be safer and more enjoyable.
• A focus on centralized parking that will create a “park once, then walk” environment.
• Shared parking, where uses that are active at different times can use the same parking. For example, theaters can share parking with offices since their peak activity times are different. While there might still need to be more parking than needed for each individual use, the shared parking would be significantly less than the sum of their parking requirements.
• Simply offering fewer parking opportunities, while providing alternative forms of transportation.