Guide to Community Planning in Wisconsin by Brian W. Ohm

Chapter 1:  Introduction to Community Planning
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2.2.8  Implementation: Using the Plan for Continuing Decisions

Once a plan is adopted, no decisions related to development, public facility development and budgeting should be made without considering whether the decisions are consistent with the plan. Implementation tools also need to be developed and adopted as outlined in the plan to ensure that the day-to-day decisions of the local government carry out the plan’s goals. Plans that acknowledge the ways in which local decisions are made and which provide real guidance for local decision-making will be the most meaningful.

The most familiar implementation tools are zoning, subdivision regulations, sanitary codes, official maps, and capital budget and improvement programming. A total community planning and development strategy may use all of these devices plus taxation and, acquisition measures, measures involving investment of public funds, service delivery policies, boundary agreements, etc.

Effective plans will guide decisions at three levels.

q First, they will guide day-to-day decisions on things like development proposals, regulation changes and the ongoing financing of local facilities.

q Second, they will guide major decisions such as building a new city hall or developing a five-year capital improvement program.

q Third, they will guide decisions which involve comprehensive changes to a community’s long-term development policy; for example, decisions about opening up land for development.

All three types of decisions go on at the same time. Good plans will provide a link between them so that decisions of one type can be understood in terms their affects on the others. For example, a rezoning decision could affect decisions on financing needed for new public facilities to serve the rezoned area.