Community Planning Month 2024

Join us Oct. 7th for the National Planning Month Proclamation!
What:	Mayor Ward will be proclaiming October 2024 as Community Planning Month in the City of Florence.
Who:	Members of the Planning Commission and Community Development staff will be present to accept the proclamation.
When:	5:30 pm on Mon. October 7, 2024
Where:	City Hall Located at 250 Hwy 101 at the beginning of the City Council Meeting.

Additional meeting details can be found HERE.

NATIONAL COMMUNITY PLANNING MONTH 2024

Planners work to improve the well-being of all people living in our communities by taking a comprehensive perspective. This approach leads to safer, resilient, more equitable, and more prosperous communities. We celebrate the role that planning plays in creating great communities each October with National Community Planning Month.

-American Planning Association

WHAT IS PLANNING?

Planning is elected leaders' most effective tool for managing growth, navigating change, and making tough decisions facing communities, like where to invest in transportation, housing, and parks.

Powered by community planners' data-driven insights, expertise, and sense of residents' needs, the planning process helps communities define their goals and a path to achieving them.

A plan is a roadmap that helps leaders make informed decisions about what residents — and the local economy — need to thrive.

- American Planning Association

WHAT ARE OREGON PLANNING GOALS?

Oregon's statewide planning goals are the foundation for land use planning in the state. There are 19 Statewide Land Use Planning Goals, 15 of which apply to the City of Florence. These goals guide the land use process in the City and every jurisdiction statewide. The Florence Realization 2020 Comprehensive Plan is organized by statewide planning goals and serves as the policy guide for how these goals are applied within the City.

More information of Oregon's Planning Goals can be found on the Department of Land Conservation Department (DLCD).

NATIONAL COMMUNITY PLANNING MONTH EVENTS & IDEAS

The events and ideas in this section are organized by the 15 Statewide Planning Goals that apply to Florence. Some of these items have dates and events associated with them, others provide links and additional information. Hopefully you can learn something new about how community planning looks in Florence and discover something new about our community. We'd love it if you shared selfies or pictures of the great places you enjoy during Community Planning Month 2024 by emailing them to planningdepartment@ci.florence.or.us

NATIONAL COMMUNITY PLANNING MONTH 2024
Various Dates	Celebrate Goal 1: Citizen Involvement by attending a public meeting See the City Calendar for dates, times, and information Visit the Boards & Commission page to explore opportunities for volunteering with the City. Volunteer recruitment opens May of each year.
On Your Own or with Friends	Celebrate Goal 2: Land Use Planning by learning more about Oregon's land use planning program; 2023 mark the 50 year anniversary. https://www.oregon.gov/lcd/OP/Pages/50-Years.aspx From the Ground Up: Land Use Planning in Oregon
On Your Own or with Friends	Celebrate Goal 5: Natural Resources, Scenic and Historical Areas, and Open Space by visiting the Munsel Greenway Park located at 24th and Willow St. 3 reasons to visit this park during National Community Planning Month: See where Florence's water comes from: Water Division Enjoy the nature trails through the Dunes & Goal 5 Wetlands This is one of the City's designated Open Space zoning areas
On Your Own or with Friends	Celetrate Goal 6: Air, Water, and Land Resources Quality by learning more about the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency (LRAPA). Planning isn't just local, it is regional as well. The weblink below is a great resource for checking air quality ratings in Lane County and looking for local burn advisories. https://www.lrapa.org/
Always!	Celebrate Goal 7: Area Subject to Natural Hazards by making sure you are prepared for natural hazardous events. Visit the City's Emergency Management Page for information and resources! While Florence is a beautiful place to live, there is the possibility for natural hazardous such as erosion, earthquakes, tsunamis, and flooding. Please make sure your emergency plans and emergency kits are up-to-date. Visit ShakeAlert® in Oregon for earthquake preparedness information!
On Your Own or with Friends	Celebrate Goal 8: Recreational Needs by discovering a new City park! A list of City parks can be found at: https://www.ci.florence.or.us/publicworks/parks Check out the City's Bike Map to triple the fun by including Goal 12 &13 in your park discovery adventure!
Thrs Oct. 17	Celebrate Goal 9: Economic Development by attending the Art Exposed: Public Art Walk hosted by the Economic Development Dept. and Public Art Committee. 10:00 am - 12:00 pm & 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm starts at Florence City Hall Or, participate in the We Walk Lane Coffee Shop Hop all month long. Check Out participating locations at: https://wewalklane.org/2024-coffee-shop-hop Florence locations coming soon!
On Your Own or with Friends	Celebrate Goal 10: Housing by learning more about what the City of Florence is doing to increase housing stock and housing variety in the City. Visit the City's Housing Efforts page to see what is happening including the 2023 Housing Implementation Plan, ADUs, housing rehabilitation programs, and temporary sheltering. https://www.ci.florence.or.us/council/housing-efforts-city-florence What do housing efforts look like in Florence? The 2018 Housing Needs Analysis forecasted a need for 354 multi-unit dwellings (apartments) over the next 20 years. In 2023/2024 over 90 units were completed. This is approximately 26% of the forecasted need!
Fri., Oct. 4 & Sat., Oct. 5	Celebrate Goal 11: Public Facilities and Services by disposing of household hazardous waste or volunteering at the Rural Collection Event. Email planningdepartment@ci.florence.or.us for more information
All Month Long	Celebrate Goal 12: Transportation by participating in Walktober Events! Walking is great for exercise, but can also be a great way to get around town. https://wewalklane.org/ Or consider a trip to Yachats on the Florence-Yachats Connector. This service is only $5 round trip! Let them do the driving and enjoy the views. The schedule and additional trip information can be found at: https://link-lane.org/florence-yachats-connector/
On Your Own or with Friends	Celebrate Goal 13: Energy Conservation by learning more about the City's exciting Class A Biosolids Composting Project, "FloGro" that save Florence over $80,000 per year in hauling waste and yard debris
On Your Own or with Friends	Celebrate Goal 14: Urbanization by learning more about how the City expands and develops in an orderly way and enjoying some of the great recreational areas in the Siuslaw National Forest that are preserved by orederly development. Comprehensive Plan: Chapter 14 Goal: To provide for an orderly and efficient transition from County/rural land uses to City/urban land uses. The two links below are for the Florence Zoning Map and the Florence Comprehensive Map. The zoning map includes all properties within City limits colored to indicate their zoning. The white properties, bordered by orange, are within the urban growth boundary (UGB), but not within City Limits. The comprehensive map has a zoning color designation for every property within the UGB. These colors indicate the planned zoning assignment for each lot once it is annexed into City limits. These two maps demonstrate the planned and orderly development plan for the City. Florence Zoning Map Florence Comprehensive Map
On Your Own or with Friends	Celebrate Goal 16: Estuarine Resources and Goal 17: Coastal Shorelands by visiting the Siuslaw Interpretive Site in Old Town or Exploding Whale Memorial Park
Sat., Oct. 12	Celebrate Goal 18: Beaches and Dunes by walking the labyrinth at Circles in the Sand located near Heceta Beach County Park

NATIONAL COMMUNITY PLANNING MONTH READING LIST

All the books listed below are available at the Siuslaw Public Library as either a book or an ebook. The descriptions, contents, and abstracts provided of the books are from the Siuslaw Public Library online catalog. All books are listed in alphabetical order by authors last name.

Rules for Radicals
by: Saul Alinsky (1971)

Description: "This country's leading hell-raiser" (The Nation) shares his impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.”First published in 1971 and written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition."

Silent Spring
by: Rachel Carson (1962)

Description: "Rachel Carson is a pivotal figure of the twentieth century...people who thought one way before her essential 1962 book Silent Spring thought another way after it."—Margaret AtwoodRarely does a single book alter the course of history, but Rachel Carson's Silent Spring did exactly that. The outcry that followed its publication in 1962 forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson's passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world. As Carson reminds us, "In nature, nothing exists alone." The introduction by the acclaimed biographer Linda Lear, author of Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, tells the story of Carson's courageous defense of her truths in the face of a ruthless assault form the chemical industry following the publication of Silent Spring and before her untimely death."Wonder and humility are just some of the gifts of Silent Spring. They remind us that we, like all other living creatures, are part of the vast ecosystems of the earth of the earth...this is a book to relish: not for the dark side of human nature, but for the promise of life's possibility."

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World
by: Henry Gragar (2023)

Abstract: "An entertaining, enlightening, and utterly original investigation into one of the most quietly influential forces in modern American life--the humble parking spot. In a beguiling and often absurdly hilarious mix of history, politics, and reportage, Grabar brilliantly surveys the pain points of the nation's parking crisis, from Los Angeles to Disney World to New York, stopping at every major American city in between. He reveals how the pathological compulsion for car storage has exacerbated some of our most acute problems--from housing affordability to the accelerating global climate disaster--ultimately, lighting the way for us to free our cities from parking's cruel yoke."

The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by: Jane Jacobs (1961)

Description: A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured.
In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity.

Oregon Plans: The Making of an Unquiet Land Use Revolution
by: Alder Sy (2012)

Contents: "The laws, 1961-1969 : the path to farmland preservation -- The laws : the path from SB 10 -- SB 100 in the 1973 legislative session -- The agency : starting up LCDC and DLCD -- Adopting statewide planning goals : the grassroots phase and a new approach -- Adopting statewide planning goals : LCDC, stakeholders, and the politics of conflict resolution -- Watchdog emerging : 1000 friends of Oregon -- Governor Straub, the 1975 legislature, and LCDC -- The agency, the watchdog, and the dynamics of local planning -- The coastal goals."

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do
by: Tom Vanderbilt (2008)

Description: "A New York Times Notable BookOne of the Best Books of the Year The Washington Post • The Cleveland Plain-Dealer • Rocky Mountain News In this brilliant, lively, and eye-opening investigation, Tom Vanderbilt examines the perceptual limits and cognitive underpinnings that make us worse drivers than we think we are. He demonstrates why plans to protect pedestrians from cars often lead to more accidents. He uncovers who is more likely to honk at whom, and why. He explains why traffic jams form, outlines the unintended consequences of our quest for safety, and even identifies the most common mistake drivers make in parking lots. Traffic is about more than driving: it's about human nature. It will change the way we see ourselves and the world around us, and it may even make us better drivers."