Wed 24 Feb, 2010
Are You Interested in Wetland Science, Policy and Stewardship?
Sat 30 Jan, 2010
Thank you to everyone who attended our recent session on regulating small wind turbines at the recent Michigan Townships Association conference in Grand Rapids. Click here to view our PowerPoint presentation, and to download the handout materials. Click here to contact Mr. Nanney directly with any additional questions.
Wed 13 Jan, 2010
By Josh Mitchell of Dow Jones Newswires (excerpted)
The Obama administration said Wednesday it would begin steering more funds toward…
Tue 29 Dec, 2009
Paul Zucker, FAICP of Zucker Systems, Inc. just sent out an excellent “Management Doctor” message (excerpt below):
Dear Management Doctor,
I attended your 2-day seminar for Planning Directors a couple of years ago and found it to be quite informative. Some of the staff I now directly or indirectly supervise are not planners but are trained building inspectors or maintenance staff. I imagine that many Community Development Directors find themselves now having supervisory responsibilities over … engineers, inspectors, operations/maintenance, information technologies or administrative support to name a few.
Their respective skill-sets can be widely varying and can pose interesting supervisory challenges, particularly if the Director is not an expert in “their field.” I believe there would be a significant amount of interest in future sessions on specifically supervising or directing non-planner municipal staffs.
- “Non-Planner Challenged”
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About Zucker Systems, Inc.
“Zucker Systems takes its lead from the Japanese word ‘kaizen‘ (’a constant search for a better way’). We continually search for a more effective and efficient way to do things. These better ways produce greater service to our clients, as well as helping to create better communities. … We see ourselves as agents of change.
“To our knowledge, Zucker Systems is the only consulting firm in the United States that specializes in the analysis of planning, building and community development functions and related departments. Organization, management and process consultation is primarily completed for city and county government and non-profit clients.”
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Dear Non-Planner Challenged,
Mon 2 Nov, 2009
“What do Planners do?”
The Zoning Guru has been asked variations of this same question many times.
Urban Designer… Developer… Zoning Officer… Master Planner… Planning Commissioner… Elected Official… Grant Administrator… Advocate the public interest… Department Manager… Consultant… Teacher… Coordinator… Downtown Redevelopment Specialist… etc., etc.
Planners wear many hats, and specialize in many areas of community building. Here is The Zoning Guru’s first attempt at…
Mon 26 Oct, 2009
Unfortunately, the art and creativity side of community planning tends to too often be lost under a sea of legalities, zoning administration, and other more mundane, day-to-day tasks. This is especially evident in the area of planning literature, where the vast majority of articles deal primarily with the technical side of planning.
The author of the following piece, Rodney C. Nanney, AICP, is pleased to make better use of the right side of his brain by publishing another in our “planning fiction” series:
What you need to know: It’s 2027. Automobiles have been gradually outlawed, except for emergency use, after an Islamist/neo-fascist terrorist group detonated a 100-megaton nuclear device in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia five years earlier. The bomb caused a series of chain reaction explosions and firestorms within the country’s oil producing infrastructure, culminating in an unanticipated but titanic detonation of the country’s underground reserves which obliterated most of the Arabian peninsula and destroyed or contaminated 90% of the world’s remaining oil reserves.
Mon 19 Oct, 2009
In his book What Your Planning Professor Forgot to Tell You, Paul Zucker, FAICP offers practical advice for new professional planners. Reading it inspired me to reflect on the experiences that have helped me to be successful in this field, both before and after receiving my degree.
I’d like to offer some “words of wisdom” to new urban and regional planning students, which are based upon my experience and the collective wisdom of the many professional planners and others I’ve come into contact with since I started down this career path:
Fri 9 Oct, 2009
The Michigan Association of Planning (MAP) has several excellent educational opportunities coming up:
November 4, 2009 (8:30 a.m. - 5:45 p.m.)
Lansing, MI - Radisson Hotel
6.5 or 8 AICP CM credits (pending approval)
MAP is bringing together state and national experts to showcase how successful communities link health, land use, and innovative transportation solutions, such as:
Tue 15 Sep, 2009
The following case summary was adapted from one prepared by Kurt Schindler at MSU-Extension; excerpts reprinted with permission from the author. The Zoning Guru chose this case because it answers the $Million question elected officials face when confronted with a development-related lawsuit:
Tue 8 Sep, 2009
Earlier this year President Obama’s federal “stimulus program” swept across the country offering federal funding to jump start “shovel-ready” capital improvement projects. 
This highlighted the ongoing need for local governments to be more nimble and able to respond without delay to new economic development and community building opportunities. For long-term success, local governments must do more than simply respond and react.
An up-to-date capital improvements program (CIP) is a tool local governments can use to plan for major expenditures, to ensure that public funds are used wisely and as efficiently as possible, and most importantly - to be prepared with “shovel-ready” projects when unexpected sources of funding appear!
Mon 31 Aug, 2009
Apparently we should designate August as the “Planners in Literature Month” here at the Building Place Notebook.
It is true that the dog days of summer are a great time to enjoy a quiet evening with a little light reading. We have a great “light” book to recommend today as part of the Building Place “planning fiction” series of short stories or vignettes.
Today’s posting is an excerpt from the Tom Bodett book, The End of the Road - a collection of light-hearted short stories about the people of the town of “End of the Road, Alaska.” This book is a rarety in that it includes a couple of stories involving a professional land use planner (Mr. Emmitt Frank) as a major character.
It’s a small Alaska town where people leave their pretensions back where they came from, and urban planners push more snow than pencils. Where New Age missionaries make appearances at the bowling alley, and the police chief weeps over the plight of Bambi. And where the Mayor stays in office mostly because folks don’t want the bother of trainin’ up a new one….
Fri 7 Aug, 2009
Here is an example of how ONE PERSON can make a difference: Senate Bill 726 (substitute S-1) to remove the option for youth under 18-years-old to have a place on local planning commissions has been approved by the Michigan Senate and sent over to the state House with something more than…
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Mon 6 Jul, 2009
Contact Building Place today to arrange for Mr. Nanney to speak to your group on this or other planning and economic development topics.
“What’s all the fuss about alternative energy production these days?”
That’s a question heard far less often now that we have experienced gasoline prices above $4 per gallon (and creeping up again), and huge increases in home heating and electricity costs this past winter.
Alternative and renewable energy facilities are “in” these days, especially in the halls of state government in Lansing. Governor Granholm has put the spotlight on new, Michigan-based wind turbine and solar energy manufacturing plants, and the state and federal governments are pushing for more “green” energy production through incentives and mandates.
Today’s renewable energy technology is a vast improvement over 1970s Do-It-Yourself passive solar installations and high-maintenance windmills. Most importantly, the cost of solar cells, wind turbines, and geo-thermal heating/cooling systems have come down significantly as technology improves and production increases.
PLANNING FOR OUR ENERGY FUTURE:
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholn recently signed into law the Clean, Renewable, and Efficient Energy Act (see below after the break for more information), which is intended to make Michigan a far more attractive place for investments into alternative and renewable energy projects and manufacturing operations. Coupled with the state’s economic development efforts to move beyond an automobile manufacturing economic base, it is important for local communities to “plan for our energy future.”
Here are five things local communities can do to be ready for an alternative and renewable energy future in Michigan:
Mon 1 Jun, 2009
The Zoning Guru follows a number of planning-related blogs across the U.S. One of my favorites is Urban Review STL, a blog authored by Steve Patterson that covers St. Louis, Missouri architecture, planning, design, and re-development topics. Steve’s writing style is engaging, he has a photographer’s eye, and his posts often cover topics that apply equally well to other urban communities.
Mon 25 May, 2009
The enclosed shopping mall, an uniquely American retail innovation, was the “future of retail” in the 1950s and 60s. Shopping centers became an icon of suburban living in the 1970s and 80s, before beginning their slowly accelerating decline in the 1990s. Today, the growing number of dead or dying shopping malls and centers are seen as symbols of the downside of “suburban sprawl.”
One example of this pattern is the Plaza Pasadena shopping center, an enclosed mall established originally as the cornerstone of an urban revitalization effort in Pasadena, California. See “A Case Study in Successful Failure” for more on the birth, life, death, and future of this mall.
From a planning perspective, local communities can no longer assume that shopping centers will…
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Thu 7 May, 2009
In his book What Your Planning Professor Forgot to Tell You, Paul Zucker, FAICP offers practical advice for new professional planners. Reading it inspired me to reflect on the experiences that have helped me to be successful in this field, both before and after receiving my degree.
I’d like to offer some “words of wisdom” to new urban and regional planning students, which are based upon my experience and the collective wisdom of the many professional planners and others I’ve come into contact with since I started down this career path:
Mon 6 Apr, 2009
Planners by nature tend to love what they do (more often than not anyway), but sometimes things can get tough:
Now those are just some hypothetical examples of events that could upset a planner’s day. Here is the story of a real-life circumstance of one Charlotte, NC area planner “ripped from the headlines“…
Tue 31 Mar, 2009
Rodney C. Nanney, AICP, principal planner for Building Place, is an innovative provider of solutions to community planning, zoning, and local economic development challenges. As a writer, public speaker, and community planning consultant, Mr. Nanney consistently strives to translate the tangled legalisms and technical jargon of zoning and land development into everyday language.
Mr. Nanney currently has several openings available to speak on these and related topics before your local business or community group. Possible topics include:
(more…)
Wed 25 Mar, 2009
Community planning tends to be an odd mix of science and technical know-how with art and creativity. Unfortunately, the art and creativity side can too often be lost under a sea of legalities, zoning administration, and other more mundane, day-to-day tasks. This is especially evident in the area of planning literature, where the vast majority of articles deal primarily with the technical side of planning.
(including many posted here in the Building Place Notebook!)
We at Building Place are pleased to have the opportunity to make better use of the right side of our brains by occasionally publishing a different sort of “planning literature” than you will find in the Planning and Zoning News or Michigan Planner magazines…
Fri 6 Mar, 2009
For many living in Michigan, Thursday, August 14, 2003 was the day we truly experienced the “inky blackness” of a night without artificial outdoor lighting - as the Great Northeast Power Blackout of 2003 left parts of the northeastern United States in the dark for a day or more.
The Zoning Guru was one of those people who learned that week how much we rely on artificial light at night. We also got a brief glimpse of many stars that we no longer see in the night sky due to light pollution from parking lot lighting and other exterior light sources.
Exterior lighting serves a wide variety of purposes, including:
When overused or poorly shielded, however, such lighting dominates the night sky, blotting out the starts and leaving the characteristically orange glow of light pollution over urban areas.
Can we do anything about light pollution? …absolutely. Do we need to cut the power again? No, but we do need to make smarter and more efficient decisions with regards to our exterior lighting choices if we want to restore the night sky in our urban and suburban neighborhoods… (more on this and an upcoming free lighting presentation on March 10th below)
