Using public participatory mapping to inform general land use planning and zoning

Zoning is a ubiquitous land use planning and regulatory mechanism whose purpose is to provide for orderly community growth and development by segregating land uses that are deemed incompatible. The delineation of zones and related land use ordinances are traditional components of an expert-driven, local government process that produces a general or comprehensive land use plan as required by law. Public participation in the development of general land use plans has rarely used participatory mapping methods that engage the general public to explicitly inform zoning decisions. In this study, we demonstrate how participatory mapping methods can assess the consistency, compatibility, and potential conflict of zoning with public values and preferences in a general plan revision process using a coastal community in California as a case study. We describe the participatory mapping design, data collection, and data analyses in a workflow to illustrate the methods, and present the strengths and limitations of the approach for use in a general land use planning process. Future research should expand these methods to assess the potential effects of resident domicile and “NIMBYism” on the results, and importantly, assess the impact of public participatory mapping in land use decisions if actually implemented by local government authorities.