Public invited to Linn County rural land use plan visioning sessions

The Linn County Planning & Development Department, along with CR Planning, Inc. of Minneapolis, invites residents to any of three public visioning sessions as part of the update to Linn County's Rural Land Use Plan. Two sessions will be held on Monday, December 5 at the Wickiup Hill Outdoor Learning Center, Toddville. The first session will be from 3 – 5 p.m., and the second session will be from 6 – 8 p.m. A third session will be held on Tuesday, December 6 from 6 – 8 p.m. in the Prairie Oak Lodge at Squaw Creek Park, Marion.

The sessions will be highly interactive, with discussions of current planning trends at the national, state and regional levels. Participants will also engage in visioning exercises to help develop a set of guiding principles regarding the preferred role of the county in promoting, enabling or accomplishing key land use goals.

The plan update process, dubbed “A Smarter Course: Building on the Past, Embracing the Future of Rural Linn County,” will bring Linn County's current Rural Land Use Plan more fully into compliance with the recently adopted Iowa Smart Planning Principles. The Iowa Smart Planning Principles were adopted during the 2010 legislative session in response to the devastating disasters of 2008, resulting in 85 of Iowa's 99 counties receiving presidential disaster declarations. Linn County received a grant from the Iowa Department of Economic Development to perform the Rural Land Use Plan update.

Les Beck, Linn County's Planning and Development Director, says goals of the plan update are to “identify a widely supported vision for Linn County that balances rural and urban interests, promotes cooperation, and closely aligns the plan with the state's smart planning principles. These sessions will be a tremendous opportunity for our residents to contribute to that vision.” Beck co-chairs the Iowa Smart Planning Task Force.

A steering committee of local residents representing various stakeholder groups has been formed and several working groups will develop plan elements on such topics as agriculture and natural resource protection; economic development and employment opportunities; heritage and quality of life; housing supply and diversity; joint planning and intergovernmental cooperation; renewable energy; hazard mitigation; stormwater and erosion control; and transportation. The Rural Land Use Plan update is expected to be complete in 2013.

Contact Les Beck at (319) 892-5130 or by email at les.beck@linncounty.org for more information.

The plan update is being managed by the staff of the Linn County Planning & Development Department.