Articles | Case Studies | Concept Tour

These are some of the ideas we hear about daily as we wrestle with the question of development in our communities. Ultimately, we hope to encourage the kind of growth that will help us prosper, but keep our rural character and community identity intact.

The hard part is knowing where to start. We are faced with a lot of questions, and we hope to find the answers:

• Why balance conservation and development?
• What tools are available to us for land conservation?
• How do balanced growth approaches fit in with our local real estate market?
• How can we improve the quality of commercial development in our community?
• How can a landowner balance financial needs and conservation desires?
• How does residential conservation development zoning work?
• What can we do within our township authority under Ohio Revised Code?
• What are the steps we need to take in our planning process?
• How does wastewater affect the options available to us? What projects and community plans are there that we can use as examples?

These are just some of the questions that the Community Planning Program addresses. Through research, education and technical assistance, we aim to provide communities, developers and landowners with the information they need to make good decisions about balancing conservation and development.

These web pages are to introduce you to our philosophy about balancing conservation and development, and to give you some background on our program and the services and resources we have available.

We believe in person-to-person contact. Give us a call.

The Community Planning Program publishes an occasional column in the quarterly Western Reserve RC&D Council Newsletter, Common Ground of the Western Reserve RC&D.

These columns address specific topics of interest to our readers. Please click on the topics below to read the articles of interest to you.

The Community Planning Program bases as much of its work as possible on existing projects that have succeeded. In particular, we have a lot of information about conservation development. This section of the Web site includes a closer look at some of the residential and landowner projects we have researched.

Please select any of the case studies below for information. In addition, there is more case study information at the Ohio Balanced Growth website.