This step-by-step guidebook gets new commissioners off on the right foot and helps experienced commission members navigate their roles. The authors, all practicing planners, have worked extensively with planning commissions for decades. They have watched commissioners scramble up a steep learning curve, sit in the hot seat of controversy, and strive to make sound decisions for the places they call home. In this helpful handbook, the authors share ideas, insights, and information to help commissioners succeed. Eight detailed chapters cover everything from the nuts and bolts of development applications to the nuances of legal issues to the part commissioners play in long-range planning. Readers will learn how to prepare for their first commission meeting, review a development plan, invite productive public input, and steer clear of ethical dilemmas.

"Published in cooperation with the Association County Commissioners of Georgia."

Virtually all North Carolina cities and counties with zoning use special and conditional use permits to provide flexibility in zoning ordinances and to secure detailed reviews of individual applications. This publication first examines the law related to the standards applying to such permits and the process required to make decisions about applications. Based on a comprehensive survey of North Carolina cities and counties, it then discusses how cities and counties have exercised that power.

What does the future look like? Planners wrestle with this question daily as they strive to bring a community's vision of itself to life, in all its complexity. Here is an authoritative and accessible guide to a tool that combines 3-D visualization, data analysis and scenario building to let planners and citizens see the future impacts of a plan or development. The Planners Guide to CommunityViz is the first book to explain how to support planning projects with CommunityViz, GIS-based software that planners around the world are using to help decision-makers, professionals, and the public visualize, analyze, and communicate about development proposals, future growth patterns, and the outcome of particular plans or developments. It shows the planner which tools and techniques to use and how to use them for maximum effectiveness on planning projects large and small. Full of practical examples and case studies, the book shows how CommunityViz can enliven the comprehensive planning process from visioning, to public participation, to values mapping, to build-out analysis. Chapters show how to use CommunityViz to analyze zoning regulations, calculate the costs of community services, and evaluate development proposals requiring design review. In addition, it is applicable to transportation planning, natural-resource planning, land-development suitability assessment, and urban economic development analysis.