Comprehensive Planning 101

South Berwick has been going through a comprehensive planning process for the last few years and on February 25 will hold a public hearing on the draft plan. You can find our current plan (from 1990) and the draft of the next comprehensive plan on the town website.

In preparation for the public hearing, I will be posting summaries of the draft comprehensive plan at the236diner.com over the next few weeks. However, before I can do an informed reading of the plan, I realized that I needed to learn more about what a comprehensive plan is, why towns do them, and what makes a good comprehensive plan. Fortunately the State of Maine provides many internet resources to help understand comprehensive planning so here’s my version of Comprehensive Planning 101.

What is a comprehensive plan?

A comprehensive plan is the legal underpinning of zoning ordinances and is intended to assure that zoning decisions are not made arbitrarily, unfairly, or without attention to documented needs.

Maine communities have been doing comprehensive plans since the early 1900’s. Auburn adopted the first in 1918 to help direct growth and protect neighborhoods. Maine first enacted a requirement for comprehensive planning as the basis for zoning in 1948. In 1988, when Maine adopted the Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Act, including the Growth Management Program, it was building on long established law but was also responding to radically changed growth and development patterns in Maine. Rural towns began to see growth they couldn’t handle. Taxes rose, natural resources deteriorated, traffic mounted and their rural character slipped away to what we now know as “sprawl.” As a result, many small towns responded with stop-gap measures and reactive plans and ordinances that in some cases made problems worse.

The Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Act brought an explicit goal to comprehensive plans: prevent development sprawl. Under the Act, comprehensive plans must direct most of the anticipated growth to areas of town designated as “growth” areas, and away from “rural” areas. The law compels communities to find ways to continue to build neighborhoods and commercial centers where they make the most sense in order to accommodate and stimulate economic growth and to conserve large rural territories as working landscapes and natural gems.

A comprehensive plan created by a town must be reviewed by the state planning office to be deemed “consistent” with the Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Act and the Growth Management Program.

What are the benefits for a town to have a “consistent” comprehensive plan?

A “consistent” comprehensive plan provides legal protection for ordinances. For example, a town must have a “consistent” plan in order to legally create an impact fee ordinance or to create a rate of growth or building cap ordinance. Having a “consistent” comprehensive plan helps a town qualify for certain state and federal grant and loan programs. A strong, high quality plan helps to retain rural character and village centers and balances economic prosperity with quality of life. A strong plan also guides decision making for town management.

What is in a Comprehensive Plan?

A comprehensive plan must include an inventory and analysis, a discussion of issues and implications, and proposed policies and implementation strategies that address the following aspects of a town:

• Topography, Soils and Water
• Habitats and Other Critical Natural Resources
• Hazard Mitigation
• Historic and Archaeological Resources
• Agriculture and Forestry
• Marine Resources
• The Economy
• Population and Demographics
• Land Use Patterns
• Housing
• Transportation
• Recreation and Open Space
• Public Facilities and Services
• Government and Fiscal Capacity

In addition, a comprehensive plan must include a future land use plan that includes a land use sectors map and “rural” and “growth” areas map. The comprehensive plan must also address how the town will participate in regional approaches in its implementation strategies.

What makes a strong comprehensive plan?

Under the intent of the Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Act, including the Growth Management Program, a plan is strong if it prevents sprawl and balances property rights, economic growth, environment, and equity.

Since the enactment of the Act in 1988, the State Planning Office has had the opportunity to observe how comprehensive plans have played out in communities and have identified some of the pitfalls that have prevented towns from achieving the goals of their comprehensive plans. They include:

• Lack of follow-through—with high property tax burdens and limited state assistance, investments in utilities and other facilities in designated growth areas are not being made
• Policies on land use identified in the comprehensive plan are not being translated into ordinances
• The short-term need for property tax base trumps land use policies that could save tax dollars over the long run
• Far-sighted policies in comprehensive plans did not truly gain the endorsement of townspeople during the planning process so they face insurmountable political opposition when they are proposed for implementation
• Inventories of conditions and analysis of issues are strong but policies aimed at solving the issues are weaker; strategies to implement the policies are weaker still; and taking action to implement the strategies is weakest of all.

Adapted from Comprehensive Planning: A manual for Maine communities by Evan Richert, AICP and Sylvia Most, Maine State Planning Office, Augusta, Maine, 2005
and
Land Use Planning, Maine State Planning Office web site

Coming soon: Where is South Berwick in the Comprehensive Planning process?