Planning

Planning for a community involves the integration of a variety of differnt disciplines. It includes exploring a wide range of both physical and social elements. Plans can take many forms, and can focus on a variety of issues. They are usually categorized as either area plans, or functional plans. Area plans focus on a particular space within the community, such as a neighborhood, a stream coridor, or a main street. The most common area plan is one that encompasss an entire municipality – the comprehensive plan. Functional plans focus on one aspect of the community that may or may not cover the entire community. These would be recreation plans, agriculture preservation plans, transportation plans, etc.

Planning is a verb. As planners, we believe in being proactive. If you are not planning for your future, you are letting outside forces make decisions for you. Even if you want to stay what and where you are, you must plan to do so, or you will surely drift in an undesired direction.

We believe in order for progress to occur, a town, organization, or individual must understand three things:

  1. Where you are now
  2. Where you want to go
  3. How you want to get there

We provide the answers to these questions by applying the most up-to-date planning priciples and technologis. We make full use of modern public involvement techniques, geographic information systems (GIS), and the internet in our planning projects.

Blueprint or Contract

A community's plan is often equated with a blueprint, much like a plan for a house or commercial building, but on a much larger scale. However, no properly built building can be completed with just a plan. It needs a contract to go along with that plan. The contract lays out in detail who is going to do what, when they will do it, and how much it will cost. The contract is the action part of the plan, and all modern community plans should include an action plan.