The Community Planning Process: A Land Planning Primer

Our second pilot project involved compiling spatial data and other resources to support local units of government in citizen-based land use planning exercises. The objective of this exercise was to compile data and tools relevant to local-scale land use planning onto a CD-ROM for use by local units of government. The area covered by the pilot project consists of the four Wisconsin counties that border Lake Superior: Douglas, Bayfield, Ashland and Iron.  

There are two main sections to the CD.

Planning Primer
The land use planning primer is a guide for citizens on getting started with the planning process, the process itself, the definition and functions of a land use plan, planning strategies and planning resources. This portion also includes an example landscape/land use plan, an example land use survey, methods of conserving, preserving and creatively developing land, as well as protecting and conserving natural resources. 

The primer was developed under the direction of the Center for Rural Design of the University of Minnesota, and is distributed as a printable PDF file. 

To view the Primer click here. 

Geographic Information for Northern Wisconsin
The second portion of the CD includes various data layers of Ashland, Douglas, Bayfield and Iron counties in Wisconsin. These layers include landuse/land cover, geology, hydrology, surface waters, transportation networks, elevation, census, township boundaries, school districts, soils, EMS jurisdictions, original vegetation, land ownership, major watersheds, named geographic features and the scenic resources of Highway 13. Most of the data are available for viewing in ArcExplorer, which has been included on this CD.

To view the data in ArcExplorer:

First install ArcExplorer by installing the program AESETUP.EXE, located in the folder /ARCEXPLORER.  Detailed information on running ArcExplorer can be found at the ERSI web site:  http://www.esri.com/software/arcexplorer/index.html.

To speed up access time, copy the directory /PRIMERDATA to the C: drive in your computer. You can then browse to this directory to open up the individual project for each county. These files are located in the folder /ARCPROJECTS within the /PRIMERDATA directory. They are called; ashland.aep, bayfield.aep, douglas.aep, iron.aep. To open a project, click on File, then Open Project in ArcExplorer.

The data layers can be found in the data folder in this directory. The data are organized by county and type of data layer. Grids (land cover and elevation) can be found in the /GRIDS folder; all the rest of the data are in the /SHAPEFILES folder.

The GIS data included on the CD-ROM can also be access from the LSDSS web site. In order to view the data or query some of the information, click on one of the counties below. This will start an interactive GIS session that will display the information currently available for that county.
             

Click on the County of Interest to View Data Layers in ArcIMS.