iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 19h

How is your community preparing for its next energy development proposal? #Rural #Planning #LandUse #Renewables #RenewableEnergy #WindEnergy #Zoning

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 19h

I wanted to share this carousel to revisit these questions with updated figures: rural communities need more than a choice between automatic approval and a blanket ban. They need a comprehensive plan that informs the rules, and rules they can administer over a project's life.

110

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 19h

And just now, pay attention to the Senate's proposed bi-partisan permitting reform before it gets passed half-baked.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 19h

The practical work starts before the first application arrives. Bring the planner, road superintendent, fire chief, and the emergency manager to the same table. Understand the local landscape. Establish clear standards for siting, monitoring, and eventual decommissioning.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 19h

For a neighbor, it may mean a changed view, nighttime lighting, or questions about noise. Wildlife protection adds other ethical questions that cannot be settled by a setback line alone.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 19h

For a farmer, wind may mean harvesting another income stream. For a county government or school district, it may mean revenue for roads, services, or even a new gym.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 19h

The central question of rural development still matters: how do communities balance energy development with the interests of landowners, neighbors, and the landscape they share?

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 19h

A wind turbine on the horizon is a land use decision on somebody's private property. Wind energy, wildlife, and rural zoning are interconnected concerns. I wrote about this last year... and this year... and last week.

110

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 11/10/2026

Start the transportation chapter with where people need to go, not which roads to widen. Find the hard trips, fix the missing links, and carry them into the capital plan and development rules. The car stays. Access shouldn't depend on owning one.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 11/10/2026

Multimodal planning isn't anti-car. It's about access. Rural transit works only if its hours, booking rules, and return trip fit the rider. A trail becomes transportation when it connects. And each subdivision approved past the edge of town stretches the distance.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 11/10/2026

The grocery store is six blocks away. But without a car, the sidewalk ends two blocks from home and the highway crossing has no safe place to wait. Nearby isn't the same as within reach. Part 2 of my October series on transportation and the comprehensive plan.

120

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 08/10/2026

For your comprehensive plan: decide what each corridor is for. * Locate your gateways. * Manage access. * Plan a bypass and the old road together. * Review the street budget yearly. Then answer one question: where should the highway start acting like a town street?

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 08/10/2026

The edge of town is where movement gives way to access. A welcome sign isn't a gateway. A gateway is a sequence: rural highway, transition, town street. In Iowa, speed-feedback signs cut speeds by up to 7 mph. Billboards built to grab attention tend to succeed... as a distraction from safe driving.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 08/10/2026

A stroad isn't an engineering accident. It's what a corridor becomes when no one decides what it's for.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 08/10/2026

The sign says you're in town. The road says keep going. Roads connect places; streets serve them. Ask one piece of pavement to do both and you get a stroad: too fast to be a good street, too many driveways to be a good road.

110

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 07/10/2026

When I worked in Pagosa Springs, for Archuleta County, Colorado, the night sky was one of the community's most valued assets, and it stays dark on purpose. My new short read for Small Towns, Real Ideas newsletter looks at dark-sky lighting as a planning tool for small towns.

110

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 06/10/2026

Wayne, Nebraska, adopts Streetscape Master Plan, facilitated by JEO Consulting, to overhaul Main Street, fix sidewalks, and elevate the area's overall aesthetics. The plan calls for adding placemaking features to make the downtown core more welcoming for visitors and residents.

110

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 04/10/2026

Today's article—first in series on transportation & your comp plan—looks at streets vs. roads, the small-town “stroad” problem, gateways, bypasses, signage, and one practical planning question: Where should the highway begin to behave like a town street?

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 04/10/2026

A highway can cross the city-limit line without ever becoming a town street. When the speed limit drops but the pavement still says “65 mph,” drivers keep moving. That affects safety, local businesses, walkability, & the first impression a community makes.

120

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 04/10/2026

Stay tuned for October's posts: transportation in the comprehensive plan. Highways & local roads. Multimodal planning in places where that sounds like a punchline. Freight. And the infrastructure decisions that outlast every political cycle that made them.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 04/10/2026

I pulled September’s Land Use series into a practical checklist for planners and local officials. Does your land use framework actually work?

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 04/10/2026

A comprehensive plan is supposed to answer the hard questions before a development application arrives: * Where does growth belong? * What land and infrastructure should be protected? * Does zoning match the plan? * What will approval cost over time?

110

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 02/10/2026

The initial tax revenue is easy to see. The cost of maintaining a road 20 years later is not. So check out these highlights from the blog, then click thru to the weekend long-read.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 02/10/2026

The answer depends on what we're building, and where. New homes are a positive thing. Communities need housing, families need options, and landowners deserve reasonable opportunities to use or sell their property. But a new subdivision also creates public responsibilities that can last for decades.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 02/10/2026

Growth is not the problem. The question is whether a community has considered the full public cost of the growth pattern it is approving. Last weekend we asked an uncomfortable question: Who Pays When Development Sprawls? The answer isn't just to say "NO!"

110

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 02/10/2026

Fuel Prices Move Fast—Transportation Systems Do Not. A preview of our October theme of Transportation & your Comprehensive Plan, and a bit of a rant on the price of fuel and prolonged uncertainty in planning. The real question here: Can vehicles, infrastructure, and access develop together?

110

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 01/10/2026

Authenticity is the Key to Building Better Community. What makes the place you live different from every other place out there? Hint: It's not the Taco John's out on the strip. Short-read here: medium.com/small-towns-... #CommunityDevelopment #planning #econdev

011

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 30/09/2026

Week 4 asked whether anyone is running the full cost picture before approving development outside established service areas.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 30/09/2026

Week 3 asked whether the zoning code actually implements what the comprehensive plan says the community wants.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 30/09/2026

Week 2 asked whether agricultural land use policy is explicit enough to hold up under development pressure.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 30/09/2026

Week 1 asked whether the future land use map reflects current conditions and gets used when decisions arrive.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 30/09/2026

Is land use in your comprehensive plan working to build the place community engagement told us people want for the future? In September, we put four questions to that thesis: Is your land use framework doing the job it was designed to do — or is it just collecting dust?

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 27/09/2026

New rural development can add tax base—but it also creates long-term obligations: road maintenance, bus routes, fire/EMS, snow removal, drainage, eventual replacement costs. This isn’t an argument against growth. It's asking if growth is happening where we can afford to serve continued sprawl.

111

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 25/09/2026

The building owner on Main Street is not asking for special treatment. She is asking the planning commission to recognize that what she wants to do is exactly what the town’s comprehensive plan says the community values.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 25/09/2026

Align the Code With the Community’s Vision. Ask a straightforward question: “Do your Zoning districts actually permit the uses and development patterns the map is supposed to produce?”

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 25/09/2026

Zoning Makes Parcel-Level Decisions. The plan may call for upper-floor housing. Yet the zoning ordinance requires parking that cannot fit on a downtown lot. When the plan and the regulatory system point in different directions, the regulations usually win.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 25/09/2026

Zoning is often treated as if it is land use policy. It is not. The comprehensive plan establishes the community’s direction. The Tool and the Plan. The future land use map tells the community what development pattern the community intends to support over time.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 23/09/2026

Craft beverages are often discussed as lifestyle amenities-something pleasant to do on a Saturday afternoon. But in many small towns, a winery, brewery, cidery, or distillery can be a piece of rural economic development infrastructure.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 23/09/2026

Zoning is not land use policy. It is one tool for carrying land use policy into force, and like any tool it can be sharp, dull, or pointed at the wrong thing. So go ahead and ask the question: Does your zoning code make possible the community your comprehensive plan says you want?

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 20/09/2026

Checklist question for this week: Does your comprehensive plan identify the preservation of productive agricultural land as a central priority — and does your zoning code back that up?

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 20/09/2026

This newsletter article looks at how comprehensive plans can protect productive working ground, direct growth toward places already equipped to support it, and give local decision-makers something more durable than an on-the-spot argument when the next subdivision application arrives.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 20/09/2026

The question is not whether agricultural land can ever change. It is whether a proposal is the right development, in the right place, at the right time—and whether the community is prepared to accept the long-term infrastructure and service obligations that come with it.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 20/09/2026

Over time, repeated small approvals can reshape the land-use pattern and public obligations of an entire county. That is why “Ag First” is not an anti-development argument. It is a growth-management strategy.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 20/09/2026

12 new lots change how farms next door operate. It can add driveways, traffic, and service expectations to a rural road. It can create conflicts between new residents and the ordinary work of agriculture.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 20/09/2026

A field outside town can look like the easiest place to put new houses. But a dozen lots can affect much more than forty acres.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 13/09/2026

Today’s long-read asks a practical question: when agricultural land is ready to sell, how does a community decide whether this is the right development, in the right place, at the right time?

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 13/09/2026

A field outside town can look like the easiest place to put new houses. But every rural development decision reaches farther than the lot lines—to farm operations, roads, water, emergency services, public costs, and the future of the town itself.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 10/09/2026

It's not nostalgia either: a dozen houses on a gravel road buys you bus routes, ambulance runs, culverts, and snow removal that city streets already cover. Checklist question for this week: Does your future land use map still reflect current conditions, and when was the inventory last reviewed?

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 10/09/2026

That only works when the map carries numbers instead of adjectives. Thayer County, Nebraska, for example, allows 8 dwellings per quarter section, Clay County caps its Ag district at 4 with a three-acre minimum and a thousand-foot separation — same words, slightly different policies.

100

John C. Shepard, AICP @jcshepard.com · 10/09/2026

A Planning Commission deciding case by case is not applying policy, it is writing policy in public, under time pressure, with the applicant's family in the second row. The future land use map is where a community settles what goes where, and why, before it knows whose land is being asked about.

100