Alabama Planning Institute   

This workshop will provide local officials and the citizens who serve on local planning commissions and boards of adjustment with a basic understanding of the constitutional and statutory framework for comprehensive and regulatory planning in Alabama. Although a number of constitutional issues and landmark cases will be included in the material presented, they will be discussed from a layman’s point of view and not from a legalistic view point.

TOPICS INCLUDE: (1) The evolution of legal principles relating to the public regulation of private property; (2) The origins of the cur rent Alabama planning enabling legislation and recent efforts to amend it; the landmark decisions of the US Supreme Court relating to the regulatory and planning powers of local governments; (3) The major constitutional issues being raised in current land use litigation; (4) The procedural and strategic aspects of land use litigation; (5) Alternative approaches to the resolution of regulatory issues and developmental conflicts.

This workshop is designed for local officials, staff, and others who want a more thorough understanding of the powers, duties, and responsibilities of planning commissions and boards of adjustment. What you will learn: (1) the legal authority and responsibility under Alabama law for planning commission and board of adjustment members – what each can do and cannot do; (2) Where the planning commission’s authority ends and the board of adjustment’s authority begins; the relationship between the city council and the planning commission; (3) how the law says an aggrieved party can appeal a determination by boards of adjustment, building inspector, etc.

TOPICS INCLUDE: (1) How Chapter 52 of the Code of Alabama assign responsibility for local planning among four governmental entities; (2) How the comprehensive or master plan is implemented in part through various regulatory devices. (The role of zoning in land use planning); (3) How the board of adjustment serves as a “safety valve” to minimize hardships; (4) Proper and improper uses of variances; (5) Administrative and legal issues in local planning: The test of “hardship,” “takings,” and other topics. A number of case studies and examples are used throughout the workshop to maintain the program’s focus on practical day-to-day issues faced by the typical Alabama municipality.

When your city decides to create a planning commission, enabling legislation in Alabama states that your commission must prepare a master or comprehensive plan. Therefore, preparing and adopting a master plan is a mandatory requirement, not an option. When the comprehensive plan is adopted, it must serve as the foundation for the city’s planning program and, as such, must be continually reviewed and periodically updated. The purpose of this workshop is to discuss ways your city can fulfill these responsibilities.

TOPICS INCLUDE: (1) The basic surveys and studies which form the foundation of the plan; (2) Successful approaches to involving the community in formulating goals and evaluating alternatives; (3) The statutory requirements to adopting and updating the plan; (4) The implementation of the plan through regulatory and functional planning; (5) The political and institutional implications of the plan as a public statement of the city’s development policies.

This workshop provides a practical orientation and guide to those citizens who serve as appointed members of local planning commissions or as elected members of city councils. Local officials, staff, engineers, consultants, and others also benefit from a better understanding of the key role comprehensive planning plays in the development of their community.

Your zoning ordinance is arguably the most important device you have to implement your comprehensive plan. It provides you with the means to define the type and intensity of uses permitted on any piece of property. Your city’s subdivision regulations govern the manner in which vacant land is platted into streets, blocks, and lots in preparation for development. They are, therefore, very important in that they establish the street pattern and the type of improvements that must be made as land is brought into urban use.

In this work shop you’ll learn the legal basis in Alabama law for regulating the use of land and its subdivision. This workshop also brings you up-to-date on how Alabama courts have been viewing land use issues.

What you will learn in this workshop: (1) You will get samples of effective commission and board by-laws, and also learn what they should minimally contain. Participants will learn appropriate rules of procedures, how to keep a meeting flowing and well-organized in a way that gives your meeting that “stamp of professionalism;” (2) You will learn some practical and proven means to manage meetings, how to defuse unruly or disruptive attendees, and how to best manage large crowds. You will also learn how to deal with the media on politically charges issues; (3) You will learn more about, and practice some of the latest techniques to resolve conflict amicably; (4) You will learn some simple and proven mediation techniques for dealing with contentious disputes – with developers and others.

When you register for the Home Study program you will receive a copy of The Citizen’s Guide to Planning (Fourth Edition). This book contains eight chapters which have been grouped into five assignments, as follows:

Assignment 1
Chapter 1: Why Plan?
Chapter 2: Navigating the Planning Landscape
Assignment 2
Chapter 3: The Comprehensive Plan
Chapter 4: What Are We Trying to Achieve?
Assignment 3
Chapter 5: Putting the Plan to Work – Implementation
Assignment 4
Chapter 6: The Plan in Action – The Application Review Process
Assignment 5
Chapter 7: The Law of Planning
Chapter 8: Behaving Yourself – The Ethics of Planning
Each of these assignments features a numbered list of quotations from the text book. For the purpose of this program, quotations are taken from Chapters 1 through 8; there are no quotations taken from the “Introduction,” or the conclusion “Being a Leader.” The quotations are listed sequentially, just as they appear in the book. Occasionally you will find two quotations from the same page. Chapters 1 through 8 of the book cover 206 pages of text. There are 134 pages from which one quotation has been selected, eleven pages with two quotations, for a total of 145 quotations. There are 61 pages from which no quotation was selected.

Since 1993 when the Third Edition was published, urban planning has been subjected and responded to many changes, especially to the more difficult and critical approaches to implementation of plans. The 2009 Fourth Edition addresses these changes and covers a much wider range of topics and more complicated techniques of analyses than those discussed in the Third Edition. The current version of the book still deals with basic procedures and issues, but it also addresses the new techniques and procedures which are now a part of contemporary planning. The quotations listed in the five assignments of the course have been selected in an effort to emphasize the new material presented in the course book.