Agenda - 10-12-1999 - 2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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EDWARD I KAISER AND DAVID R. GODSCHALK 1994). Typically, the size of an urban growth area is based on the amount ofland necessary to accommodate development over a period of ten or twenty years. Vuion 2005.• A Comprehensive Plan for Forsyth County, Nortfi Carolina exemplifies the contemporary approach to land classification plans. The plan, which won hon- orable mention from APA in 1989, employs a six- category system of districts, plus a category for activ- .ity centers. It identifies both short- .and long -range growth areas (4A and 4B in figure 5). and applica- ble to each district are detailed in the plan. The Verbal Policy Place: Shedding the Maps The verbal policy. plan focuses on written state- ments of goals and policy, without mapping specific, land use patterns or implementation strategy. Some- times called a policy framework plan, '-ace verbal policy plan is more easily prepared and flexible than other types of plans, particularly for incorporating nonphys- ical development policy (Perloff 1980, 233 -8). Some claim that such a plan helps the planner to avoid rely- ing too heavily on maps, which are difficult to keep up to date with the community's changes in policy (Hol- lander et al. 1988). The verbal policy plan also avoids falsely representing general policy as applying to spe- cific parcels of property. The skeptics, however, claim that verbal statements in the absence of maps provide too little spatial specificity to guide implementation decisions (Reichert 1976). The verbal policy plan may be used at any level of government, but is especially common at the state level, whose scale is unsuited to land use maps. The plan usually contains goals, facts and projections, and general policies corresponding to its purposes —to un- derstand current and emerging conditions and issues, to identify goals to be pursued and issues to be ad- dressed, and to formulate general principles of action.. Sometimes communities do a verbal policy plan as an interim plan or a first step in the-planning process. Thus, verbal policies are included in most land use de- sign plans, land classification plans, and development management plans. The Calvert County, MD Comprehensive Plan (Calvert County 1983), winner of a 1985 APA award, exempli- fies the verbal policy plan. Its policies are concise, easy to grasp, and grouped in sections corresponding to the FIGURE S. Example of a land dassQfication plan Source. Adapted from Forsyth County City- County Planning Board 1988 174 - APA JOURNAL -SUMMER 1995