Agenda - Planning Commission - 02/04/2016

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Digital Graphics in Staff Reports By Nicola Mammes and. Stuart Meck, FAICP In the early 197os, when the older of the two authors (Meck) began working as a planner in a large Southern city for a city/county planning commission, the preparation of staff reports on land -use matters was a complicated and lengthy logistical affair. All reports had to be typed at least twice, once by the planner and again by a secretary on a correcting IBM Selectric typewriter, with plenty of liquid correction fluid also at hand. Maps of zoning districts and existing land use obtained from site visits and other graphics had to be shrunk on a photocopier and then pasted to blank sheets of paper. Applicants for preliminary and final subdivisions were required to submit some 20 copies of their plans in large cumber- some rolls that smelled of blueprint chemicals. These documents had to be hand -carried to the various city and county departments and mailed Question to the planning commission. Finally there was the reproduction of the report itself, always a risky enterprise because the giant Xerox photocopier would often jam at critical times. Large agendas required the planning and secretarial staff members to hand assemble and hand staple elements of the agenda packet with a heavy-duty stapler, a ritual dance that involved circling the planning commission's conference table to pull together the materials which had been laid out in indi- vidual piles. Things have, of course, changed over the past 45 -plus years. The computer, word pro- cessing programs, portable document formats that can be posted for viewing on websites, and digital graphics have all affected planning practice, but to what degree? This article focuses on the use of digital Yes No Do your staff reports ever contain pictures of the site? 35 5 Do your staff reports ever contain satellite photography from Google Earth or other sources? 35 5 Do your staff reports ever contain drawings exported from Sketch - Up, AutoCAD, or other computer-aided design programs? 21 19 Do your staff reports ever contain maps from the local govern- ment's geographic information system showing relevant com- prehensive plan or zoning designations, existing land use in the vicinity, and utilities (e.g., water lines and sanitary sewer and stormwater lines)? 36 4 Do your staff reports ever contain photographs or video stills from. unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e., drones)? 3 37 Do your staff reports ever contain other graphics of information obtained through site visits? 27 13 Do your staff reports ever contain graphics submitted by an appli- cant (e.g., a preliminary plan or a planned unit development)? 37 3 QQ Results of a survey conducted by the authors through the American Planning Association in August 2015. graphics in staff reports. When we speak of digital graphics, we are referring to photo- graphs—including aerial photos—from digital cameras, scans, outputs from geographic infor- mation systems, satellite imagery from Google Earth, maps from Google Maps, drawings pro- duced on programs like SketchUp, AutoCAD, and CommunityViz, and images downloaded or screen -captured from webpages. The first part describes our research methodology and a summary of what we found. The second part describes the result of interviews with planners and others who sent in examples of reports. The third part shows the kind of digital graphics that planners are using in staff reports. We conclude with some observations and conclusions from what we found from our survey and interviews. METHODOLOGY AND WHAT WE FOUND For the first round of research, the authors drafted a questionnaire. Then American Planning Association (APA) staff translated this questionnaire into an online survey hosted by Survey Monkey and sent the survey link to APA members and Zoning Practice subscribers. Responses were voluntary. We asked seven yes -or -no questions (see below) and also asked for the name of the respondent, title, af- filiation (i.e., what department or division the respondent was from), city, state, telephone number, and email. In connection with each of the questions, we asked for links to staff reports that showed what issue the question addressed. We received 40 responses from local governments and from three planning consultants. The responses to the questions are shown below. Where the respondent provided a link to a staff report or planning commission agenda, we looked at the report and identified the reports that we thought were especially high quality, innovative, or illustrative of the issues posed in this article. We then contacted the respondents and interviewed them about the evolution of the use of digital graphics. The results of those interviews appear below. White the survey did not pick up respon- dents from all regions of the United States (nor was it intended to do so), the responses ZONINGPRACTICE 1.16 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION I page 2