Land Use Planning 101 Resources

• Public Health in Land Use Planning and Community Design Fact Sheet: An overview of the connection between land use planning and public health, including the role of NACCHO and local health officials.
• NACCHO and the American Planning Association (APA) compiled a fact sheet that highlights terms used by planners that local public health practitioners may be unfamiliar with, and vice versa. The jargon fact sheet facilitates communication between health officials and planners. The Working with Elected Officials to Promote Healthy Land Use Planning and Community Design Fact Sheet helps health and planning agencies to broaden their partnerships to include other city and county officials.

• APA's Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook provides tools to help local governments combat urban sprawl, protect farmland, promote affordable housing, and encourage redevelopment. 
• The Tri-County (CO) Health Department developed an environmental health checklist for planners and health officials, a comprehensive assessment tool for review of land use plans. The checklist can be modified for different jurisdictions. Click on the PDF version for links to health data or other related resources.
• The Land Use and Public Health Collaborations Flowchart details steps that local planning agencies may take when drafting a comprehensive plan and specific strategies and actions to involve themselves in the planning process.

• Living Healthy: Innovative Partnerships to Connect Public Health and the Built Environment Webcast May 2006 — This NACCHO and APA webcast focuses on the efforts of the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department and Riverside County Department of Public Health as they address the impact of the built environment on public health. Click here and enter the password wN9Wv3eP to view the webcast. 
• HIA Webcast May 2005 — This NACCHO and APA webcast focuses on HIA and provides examples of implementation. Click here to view the webcast.

The University of California at Berkeley offered a course on HIA to expose students to the practice and potential of HIA in the context of California's land use and transportation policy making. The UC Berkeley Health Impact Group conducted an HIA. Click here for the results. 

NACCHO Exchange, Spring 2003 

• This worksheet from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will determine if your community is walkable and suggest steps to take if it is not.
• The UNC Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center developed a Neighborhood Walkability Checklist to determine the level of walkability and offers tips and resources to improve walkability. Also available is a Bikeability Checklist. 
• The Community Health Research Unit's guide Active Independent Aging: A Community Guide for Falls Prevention and Active Living contains a number of resources related to active living, including a Walkability Checklist with a focus on walking for health aging. This checklist ranks the level of walkability and recommends immediate and longer-term steps to mitigate walkability problems.
• California's Walk to School program encourages students to fill out a worksheet that helps to determine the walkability of their particular route to school.
• Walkable Communities was organized to help communities, both large and small, to become more walkable and pedestrian friendly.

• A Public Health Professional's Guide to Key Land Use and Transportation Planning Policies and Processes introduces the major policies and processes in land use and transportation planning and how LHDs can get involved.
• EPA's Database on Smart Growth Policies provides information and examples of smart growth policies implemented by varying levels of government to advance smart growth efforts. The database can be searched by state, smart growth principle, or keyword.
• ICMA's consumer guide, Creating a Regulatory Blueprint for Healthy Community Design, is a road map for local government officials as they consider reforming zoning and development codes to encourage more physical activity. The guide is especially useful now that more jurisdictions focus on modernization of zoning and land development codes to encourage the design of more livable neighborhoods.
• Pedestrian Injury Prevention Web site from CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
• The Leadership for Active Living provides A Primer on Active Living for Government Officials.Promoting Active Living Communities, a marketing and communications guide from Active Living by Design, helps you "sell" the values of active living to your community.
• The report Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl: A National Analysis of Physical Activity, Obesity and Chronic Disease from Smart Growth America and Surface Transportation Policy Project, provides research and analysis on the connection between urban sprawl and chronic disease.
• The Addressing Water and Natural Resource Education (AWARE) program in Colorado is a statewide effort to educate local decision-makers about the effects of land use choices on water quality. AWARE's Web site provides tools and resources related to water quality, land use planning, and smart growth.
• Click here for resources from the Regional Plan Association, an independent nonprofit organization that improves the quality of life and the economic competitiveness in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region through research, planning, and advocacy. Resources include reports of the School and Healthy Communities Project, Stamford Westside Healthy Communities Project, Regional Assessment Project, RPA's Healthy Communities Initiative, and New Jersey Mayors' Institute on Community Design.
• HERS-ST v2.0 Highway Economic Requirements System—State Version is a technical report from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration on a computerized model designed to simulate improvement selection decisions based on benefit-cost merits of alternate improvement options.
• The Considerate Constructors Scheme is a nonprofit organization promoting a voluntary code of considerate practice for construction companies.
• The New Zealand Urban Design Protocol prepared by the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment in conjunction with an Urban Design Advisory Group. The Protocol is a key part of the Government's Sustainable Development Programme of Action and the Urban Affairs Portfolio.
• Publications from the London Health Commission.
• The Environmental Impact Assessment: Preliminary Index of Useful Internet Web Sites is a list of sites related to environmental assessment to be used as a guide to information on EIA.
• San Francisco's Program on Health, Equity, and Sustainability supports the integration of local government and community effort for advancements in urban health, social justice, and environmental justice.
• The Wales Center for Health funded 349 Healthy Living Centres (HLCs) in the United Kingdom.
• The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority serves the community through transportation and environmental challenges and through community and charitable efforts.
• Project for Public Spaces (PPS) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating and sustaining public places that build communities.
• The Shasta County Public Health department created an internal Public Health Development Checklist for LHDs to evaluate development proposals to share with the local land use planning staff.

• Susan Allan, MD, JD, MPH, Public Health Director, Oregon Department of Human Services
• Marya Morris, AICP, Senior Research Associate, American Planning Association
• Candace Rutt, PhD, Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity, CDC 

• Bob Glandon, Ingham County Health Department
• Andy Dannenberg, Emergency and Environmental Health Services Branch, National Center for Environmental Health, CDC
• Candace Rutt, Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity, CDC 

A planner's perspective on how planning takes place at the local level. Developed by Marya Morris, senior research associate with the American Planning Association (Download PowerPoint Presentation [2,562 KB]) 

(Presented at the Environmental and Energy Study Institute briefing on Oct. 2, 2003)

• Built Environment and Public Health. This PowerPoint explores the trends in obesity and physical activity and describes how the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) will address these issues (presented by Allen Dearry, Associate Director, NIEHS).
• A Compelling Case for Addressing Public Health in Transportation and Land Use Policy. This PowerPoint was presented by Reid Ewing, National Center for Smart Growth, University of Maryland; principal author of the study, "Relationship Between Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity, Obesity, and Morbidity."
• Designing the Physically Active Community. Presented by Jeffrey Soule, APA policy director, this PowerPoint addresses emerging policy regarding sprawl and health and APA's Planning and Designing the Physically Active Community Project. It includes a survey of local planners on the links between land use and health.

• Integrating Health into Planning and Community Design, Part II, presented by the APA, details strategic points where planning and public health overlap.
• Integrating Health into Community Design, presented by Safe and Healthy Communities Consulting, details efforts in California to create more active living environments through community design initiatives.
• Utilizing the PACE Methodology as a Tool for Improving the Quality of Life in Communities, presented by Julianne Renk of Indian River County (FL) Health Department, explores the use of a community assessment tool in addressing quality of life issues related to land use planning and community design.
• Building Bridges: Integrating the Work of Public Health and Urban Planning, presented by Rajiv Bhatia of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, looks at social equity concerns in San Francisco and explains the use of HIA currently underway by the health department.
• Current Efforts Related to Public Health and the Built Environment, presented by Federal Highway Administration, focuses on transportation planning and physical activity.