Masters Theses

Date of Award

8-1981

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Planning

Major

Planning

Major Professor

George E. Bowen

Committee Members

A. J. Gray, Joe Prochaska

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the land use planning process currently practiced at the level of local government throughout the Appalachian Region of Virginia. The thesis determines the effectiveness of the land use planning that is being conducted; the effect that the Virginia mandate to plan has had on the local land use planning process; and the implications that the experience of the study area has for the remainder of Appalachia Virginia and perhaps all of Southern Appalachia.

The region chosen as a general study area included the 38 towns, 3 cities, and 13 counties included in the LENOWISCO, Cumberland Plateau, and Mount Rogers Planning District Commissions in Southwest Virginia. This represents more than one-half of the area in Virginia which is included in the Appalachian Regional Commission and nearly half of the area that constitutes the three physiographic subregions of Appalachia within the Commonwealth.

Means of gathering information for this thesis included literature review, questionnaires, interviews, and author observation. Findings of the thesis were weighted most heavily on the interviews, questionnaires, author observation, and literature review, in that order. A model of the traditional land use planning process was developed as a basis for comparison of the local land use planning process in Appalachia Virginia.

The major findings of the research reflected that in localities where land use planning is being carried on seriously it basically conforms to the traditional land use planning process model. However, in the vast majority of localities local land use planning is not being carried on in an effective manner despite the fact that in Appalachia the level of compliance to the state planning mandate exceeds that of the state as a whole. One problem has been the fact that the state mandate has no provisions for penalizing localities that choose not to comply with land use planning requirements. This has resulted in a large number of jurisdictions ignoring the planning mandates. More importantly, it suggests that in those communities where the mandate was met but local land use planning has not continued in an effective manner, forced-feeding of land use planning through mandating does not guarantee that local land use planning will take place effectively.

The research indicated that a high correlation exists between local land use planning efforts and the policies of the planning district commission in which local jurisdictions are members. However, this correlation is limited to the adoption of planning documents and not necessarily the implementation of effective local land use planning processes. Rather, this is dependent upon the local attitudes and opinions of local officials regarding the importance and need of land use planning in their respective jurisdictions.

Nevertheless, in Appalachia Virginia planning district commissions are a key element in the local land use planning process because they serve as a source of technical assistance in working with local jurisdictions in the development, adoption, and administration of local planning documents. For this reason, the continued existence of planning district commissions is a key element in the continued maintenance of effective local land use planning processes. This is because most Appalachian jurisdictions do not have the fiscal base and thus, the manpower and expertise, to maintain an effective land use planning process without the technical assistance provided by planning district commission staffs. Therefore, in light of impending cutbacks of staff and services provided by planning district commissions it would appear that the local land use planning processes in Appalachia Virginia, and perhaps all of Southern Appalachia, that will be occurring in future years will be limited to those jurisdictions that see the value and importance of maintaining a local land use planning effort and have the fiscal base to provide staff with the technical expertise necessary for such an effort to be effective.

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