Just What Is Your Planning Commission's Role?
by Elaine Cogan

Elaine Cogan considers three basic variations in the role planning commissions and commissioners can take.

Though planning processes vary among communities, the commonality we probably share is the belief that government has a role in planning and managing orderly growth. The difference is in the details. How do planning commissions and commissioners view their roles in the process?

This is more than an esoteric issue, for how you perceive yourselves individually and as a unit underlies how and why you make decisions. It also can be a basis for explaining your actions to elected officials and citizens.

One way of looking at the question is to ask whether you view your role primarily as that of: (1) a defender of the status quo; (2) a citizen voice in the planning process; or (3) an advocate for planning principles or a particular planning style? Assuming that most of you would answer you are "a little bit of this and a little bit of that," the question still is relevant: what are you most of the time? ...

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