The Land Use Plan & Growth

How Does the Comprehensive Land Use Plan
Determine Where Growth Happens?

A tree-covered parcel of land sits across the street from your neighborhood. Will it be developed for housing, a school, or a church? Ten years from now will that parcel of land be a neighborhood park or a strip mall? The future that your community has envisioned for each parcel of land is found in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan.

A Comprehensive Land Use Plan is the way communities plan for the future. It makes recommendations for parks, land use, zoning, economic development, transportation, and other public facilities. Through the development of the Comprehensive Plan a community makes projections and recommends plans for future projects that will improve streets, change land use, and protect natural resources. Zoning labels identify the range of uses that are permitted on each land parcel. Towns, cities, and counties all may have Comprehensive Land Use Plans, but they are not required by Indiana law.

These plans are available through your local planning group. Most libraries also have copies of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. By studying the maps in the Land Use Plan, citizens can quickly learn the kinds of development and uses that are permitted on parcels of land in the Plan area.

Land Use plans are updated periodically. The plans are developed through a process that includes citizen input at public meetings. At these meetings planners listen as residents, business owners and other citizens try to define the strengths and weaknesses of their community. Are more libraries needed? Is more land needed for parks? Is there enough affordable housing? Is shopping convenient? In these public meetings, the community tries to set goals for the future.

The planners take information from the public meetings and develop a Comprehensive Land Use Plan. This document is a series of maps showing each parcel of land in the county and the zoning that has been attached to each parcel. The plan is then reviewed and officially adopted by the planning body for that area. That body may be the county commissioners or a city council. In Marion County, the planning body is the Department of Metropolitan Development (DMD).

Once adopted, the Plan is to guide the land use decisions of all government officials and public bodies in the area covered by the Plan. If closely observed, the Comprehensive Land Use Plan will help towns and counties achieve the long-term land use goals and avoid the foreseeable problems that were articulated by citizens during the public meetings that launched the planning process.

How can you get involved?

• Check with your local plan board to see when your Land Use Plan was last adopted and when they plan to update it. Attend public meetings to help shape the content of the new Plan. Volunteer to serve on a committee to ensure that smart growth and liveable communities are a part of the Plan.
• Check the current Land Use plan to determine the designation for the land parcel where new development is proposed. If the proposed development does not meet those designations, you have the right to submit comments opposing the development on the grounds that it does not reflect the will of the community as expressed in the Land Use Plan.
• If the plan board grants a variance and approves the development, even though it does not meet the guidelines of the Land Use Plan, ask the board what the appeal process is. Work with other citizens and discuss whether to file an appeal.

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