Why:

Providing direct municipal planning assistance is a highly effective means of implementing policies and regulations that meet local and county resource protection goals and for guiding growth away from environmentally sensitive areas.

How:

This effort should be kicked off with a countywide inventory of municipal resource protection policies and standards that presents findings in both map and text format. Such an analysis should identify standards and regulations in need of improvement and those that could serve as high quality examples for other municipalities. Implementation should be undertaken with a priority on critical resources depicted on the Natural Resource Priority Protection Areas Map, as well as consideration of regional or watershed-based efforts. The county would lead this effort; however, it could be advanced more quickly with assistance from conservation organizations and other planning partners.