Planning March 2017

In This Issue:

Planning March 2017

Planning homes in on the booming business of community-shared solar energy. "Community Solar" explores funding sources, tells how communities solve siting challenges, and reviews community benefits like lower energy costs for residents of affordable housing. Our Planning Practice article offers a detailed, practical guide to writing better staff reports that includes a handy downloadable template. Plus, take a ride in the wayback machine to a 1958 traffic safety story from Life magazine.

Featured Articles

Keeping Hoofs Off Hoods

Writer Allen Best investigates wildlife overpasses and how they are making highways safer — for both animals and humans.

Staff Report Template

Could your staff reports get better? Here's a place to start: Download a customizable staff report cover page.

Life and Death Every Quarter Hour

Jeffery Brubaker looks back at traffic safety trends since 1958 and finds that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Better Staff Report

Planners spend a lot of time writing them, but how effective are they? Bonnie Johnson reveals how to make the most of your staff reports in the first installment of an occasional series called The Business of Planning.

Here Comes the Sun

Community solar is offering communities more, and cleaner, energy options, writes Charles W. Thurston. Home ownership not required. With a sidebar by Tory Hanna.