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The information need Planned Land Use was identified as one of thirteen original
priority business information needs of the MetroGIS community.
Click here to view the Business Object Framing Model Fragment for this information
need. Click here for further information about MetroGIS's Business Information
Needs initiative.
Development of an efficient and effective means to compare independent and locally adopted land use plans
across community boundaries for the entire seven-county Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area is unprecedented. The
regional coding scheme and resultant regional dataset in effect represents one level of abstraction above the 191
locally adopted official land use plans.
The Minnesota Chapter of the American Planning Association (MnAPA) awarded MetroGIS, the North I-35W Corridor
Coalition, and the Metropolitan Council a Planning Merit Award for an Outstanding Planning Tool for their participation
in developing the (Twin Cities) Regional Planned Land Use Dataset. The award was presented at the annual MnAPA
conference held in Minneapolis on September 12, 2002. See the Awards
section for more information.
Please note: The regional coding scheme and resulting regional dataset are intended only to
provide a means to compare, in a like manner, land use designations officially adopted by each community. They are in
no way intended to replace or in any way affect locally adopted designations.
Activities to address the Planned Land Use Information Need fall into the following
phases:
August 1997 to April 1998 - Prototype Development:
The first phase of addressing this information need began in August 1997. At that time
MetroGIS approached the North Metro I-35W Corridor Coalition and provided the
Coalition with $20,000 in financial assistance to develop a regional aggregation scheme for planned and existing land
use categories as a pilot project for MetroGIS. The goal of this pilot project was to create a single coding scheme
that could be used to aggregate community-level existing and planned land use data for like comparisons with other
communities throughout the seven-county, Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area and for direct comparisons between
planned and existing land use. The Coalition completed is work on the prototype in April 1998.
MetroGIS approached the Coalition to conduct this pilot project because:
- The Coalition was just beginning development of a "backbone GIS" to support its
cluster community development planning effort.
- The Coalition's community development leadership was well respected in the
professional planning community. MetroGIS staff believed the success of the proposed regional aggregation scheme was
highly dependent upon the broad city planning community "connecting" with the initiative. That is, the process could
not be dominated by any single interest and the resulting product must have value to local and regional users
alike.
- The seven-city area encompassed by the Coalition's partners contained a diversity
of land uses representative of much of the seven-county area. From the outset of the pilot it was recognized that
adjustments would need to be made to accommodate the two core urban downtown areas and rural areas dominated by active
agricultural activities.
Spring 1999 to May 2000 - Enhance Prototype
The second phase involved enhancing the prototype coding scheme developed by the Coalition to accommodate the
St. Paul and Minneapolis downtown areas, active agricultural areas, and land uses, such as gravel mining, that were not
germane to the Coalition's needs. Concepts recommended by the American Planning Association's (APA) "Land-Based
Classification Standards Project" were also incorporated into the modified scheme, including a color scheme for mapping
of the resulting regional land use designations, and the Metropolitan Council was identified as a candidate to assume
the regional custodian responsibilities for MetroGIS's Planned Land Use Dataset. This enhancement process was
accomplished by the MetroGIS Land Use Workgroup, which began it work spring 1999. The workgroup was comprised of
community development professionals who represented urban core, suburban, rural, and freestanding communities. The
workgroup completed its recommendation in May 2000. Click here to view the enhanced
prototype coding scheme. Click here for background information on the workgroup's
decision.
September 2000 to April 2001 - Test Enhanced Prototype
The third phase involved testing of the modified prototype coding scheme that had been recommended by the
MetroGIS Land Use Workgroup. In June 2000, the MetroGIS Coordinating Committee accepted: 1) the modified regional
prototype coding scheme for testing and 2) the Metropolitan Council's offer to test the modified prototype coding
scheme via the development of regional planned and existing land use datasets that it needed to support its Smart
Growth Twin Cities initiative.
From October 2000 to April 2001, the Metropolitan Council's GIS Unit tested the prototype scheme by actually
building a regional planned land use dataset. Simultaneously, the North Metro I-35W Corridor Coalition retained the
Design Center at the University of Minnesota to test and refine the prototype as part of its Build Out Study. (See the
history section of the regional planned land use
dataset for information about error checking and maintenance processes.) MetroGIS and Coalition officials remained in
contact during this testing phase, which began around July 2000 and was substantially complete by April 2001. The two
groups met on two occasions during the testing phase for 3-4 hours each time.
Click here for information about the testing that occurred
concerning the Existing Land Use Information Need.
May 15, 2001 Data Users Forum
The Metropolitan Council and the I-35W Corridor Coalition co-hosted a Planned Land Use Data Users Forum on May
15, 2001. Over 30 individuals, who both utilize land use plans on a daily basis to carry out their job
responsibilities, and who represent the many types of organizations that comprise the MetroGIS community, were invited
to attend. The results of the testing of the prototype regional coding scheme by both organizations, related to planned
land use needs, were shared with the participants. The purpose of the forum was to obtain feedback from a broad
community perspective regarding several coding modifications proposed as a result of the testing. The general
conclusions of the participants were that: 1) a regional dataset that provided a means to make like comparisons across
diverse locally adopted land use planning schemes would be a valuable planning tool, 2) significant progress had been
made to achieve this goal, and 3) MetroGIS should continue its efforts to make this regional dataset operational. The
program, participants, comments, and conclusions are summarized in the Forum Summary.
See the history section of the regional
planned land use dataset for information about the evolution of the dataset following the mandate to proceed that was
received at the May 15, 2001 Data Users Forum.
A central part of MetroGIS's work is to identify common information needs of GIS users in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Area and facilitate the policy and data specifications needed to address each of these common information needs.
An investigation to understand these common needs was conducted by MetroGIS from September 1996 to March 1997. The result of this study was the identification of thirteen priority common information needs of the MetroGIS community. Since that time, a priority function of MetroGIS has been to facilitate the development and/or assembly of regional datasets needed to address each of these common information needs.
Each information need is addressed through a replicable process. In general, the process begins by assembling a team of content experts and through a facilitated group process (Peer Review Forum), the team begins with the business object framing model fragment to identify dataset(s) required to meet the information need. In some cases, this process takes place in a forum of content experts and in other cases it is not such a formalized process because the dataset(s) that meet the information need are intuitively recognized.
Once the dataset(s) required to meet an information need is identified, a working group of content experts is created to:
- Refine the desired specifications identified at the Peer Review Forum,
- Identify desired data standards and guidelines,
- Identify desired roles and responsibilities for the custodian organization(s) - organizations responsible for data creation, maintenance, documentation, and distribution; and,
- Identify candidate custodial organizations that have a business need and appropriate expertise to carry out the desired roles and responsibilities.
The process is complete when the Policy Board has adopted, as policy for the MetroGIS community, parameters defined through the stated tasks. The parameters are posted on a Web page for each “MetroGIS endorsed regional dataset”. Once an endorsed dataset is operational, MetroGIS monitors user satisfaction to continually enhance it.
To learn more, please see the About Information Needs page and the pages for each endorsed regional dataset.
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