Summary
You'll Improve Proposed Projects! Enhance proposed projects to get better neighborhoods, less sprawl, and fewer lawsuits – a new book, Collaborative Land Use Planning, offers relief from the frequent frustration and disappointment around land development decisions. This 190 page guidebook offers something for everyone – neighbors of proposed projects, planning boards, environmental groups, planners, realtors, and attorneys – as it describes an effective collaborative process for designing projects specifically to improve existing neighborhoods. The principle researcher for the Smarter Land Use Project, Karl Kehde, has written Collaborative Land Use Planning to teach lessons he learned during twelve years of research. The project was funded by philanthropic organizations with the goal of fighting sprawl and achieving smart growth. Tests were conducted in more than 500 collaborative stakeholder meetings in forty-eight developments in five states. "We discovered a stop-by-step, trust-building process that makes better projects and better communities," Kehde reports. "And when you make existing communities better, you reduce the pressure for sprawl."
Real life examples in Collaborative Land Use Planning show that even when neighbors and developers are suing each other, all stakeholders can learn to trust one another and work as a team. "Working as a team is the key," Kehde says. "When neighbors, developer, planners, and environmentalist see a viable process for working together, they realize the potential and create amazing community-enhancing land development decisions." The book describes how the strategies for teambuilding and for designing community-enhancing features can be used effectively at both the project level and for master planning. Replacing controversy with cooperation also makes the approval process much easier. Testimonials in the book document how the collaborative design procedures have avoided lawsuits, improved local property values, reduced traffic congestion, enhanced natural and historic resources, and improved community spirit. "No change in the current legal framework for land use planning and permitting is needed to use this collaborative process," Kehde points out. "It was important to find ways to make things easier, not more complicated." Collaborative Land Use Planning comes with a CD that includes sample meeting agendas, invitations, letters, and guidelines for succeeding with the collaborative process. They are in Microsoft Word and are ready to customize and print. The CD also includes a presentation that can help communities having particular difficulty with controversial projects.
About the Author
Karl Kehde was a member of New Jersey Governor Byrne's original Pinelands Review Committee to initiate policy on one million acres of Pinelands. He also served five years on an Advisory Committee working on New Jersey's State Department Plan, and eight years as a member of his town planning board. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the American Clean Water Association and, as a developer, received a Special Award of Merit from the United States Environmental Protection Agency and was awarded the Distinguished Planning Citation by the American Planning Association. Karl personally designed, developed, and marketed three major residential real estate projects. He has built active and passive solar homes, implemented energy and wildlife conservation deed restrictions, and donated land to conservation organizations.
For the last twelve years Karl has worked independently -- being funded philanthropically -- with neighborhood groups, developers, and environmentalists involved in forty-eight separate proposed land developments to research the Project Integration Procedure detailed in Collaborative Land Use Planning. He has written the guidebook and invented the Project Modeling Kit so that you can succeed with this process on your own with no outside assistance. Karl Kehde has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts from Lehigh University. He also holds a Masters in Business Administration from Rutgers University. Additionally, he served three years as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marines.
Reviews
“Collaborative Land Use Planning is both practical and visionary. More than once, I’ve seen this book bring people in adversarial positions to successful collaboration instead of litigation. We now have several examples right here in the Hudson Valley in which this process was used by divergent stakeholders to plan a project that turned out to be far superior to plans that generally come from people who are getting along.”
Manna Jo Greene, Environmental Director, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, founding board member of the Hudson Valley Sustainable Communities Network, Select Board, Rosendale, NY
“The process set forth in Collaborative Land Use Planning is the only model that I have seen which fosters true planning. Today, the land development design and permitting process is not a “planning” process, but rather an adversarial struggle over special interests. As a result, litigation-type strategies drive the result. All the stakeholders in land development will benefit from reading this book. Planning boards should seriously consider adopting the Collaborative Planning Guidelines that are included on the CD.”
Francis Gavin, Attorney, Mayor, Allamuchy, NJ
Ordering Information
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 Collaborative 
Land Use Planning
KARL KEHDE
Land Use Forum Network, Inc.
Your Price: $29.00 US orders
$45.00 International
*MA & OH residents add sales tax*
190 pages
Softcover
ISBN: 9780970506900 |
