Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Americana
The development application is straightforward on paper. Twelve residential lots on forty acres of prime ag land, five miles outside of town. The heirs of the family that farmed it want to sell. A developer has found buyers. The parcel is accessible from a county road. No wetlands. No floodplain. Nothing obviously wrong. The planning […]
Part 4 of 4 in our July series on Natural Resources and the Comprehensive Plan. Every year, somewhere in rural America, a family farm changes hands. Sometimes it stays a farm or ranch. Sometimes it becomes fifty or five hundred new houses. Most comprehensive plans never influence that decision — not because they lack good […]
Most comprehensive plans have a natural resources or environment chapter. Most of them say roughly the same things: protect prime farmland, preserve water quality, support conservation. But knowing what to protect is only half the job. The harder question — and the one most plans struggle with — is how. This July, we’re spending four […]