Services

Community &
Neighborhood Planning

Everyone desires a community they love to call home, and JSD is your partner to help you make it happen. Our planning team is part of a multi-disciplinary firm that takes pride in our abilities to assist you with defining your vision and setting things in motion to bring it to reality.

Our Approach


We approach this collaboration from a viewpoint that is framed by the “Seventh Generation Principle” – which reflects the philosophy and commitment that the decisions we make today should be based on how they impact the world seven generations into the future.

Keeping your planning current is critical for effective decision making. Planning must be routinely revisited and updated to reflect the interests, views, opportunities, and needs of the community. In some communities, things move faster, and initiatives, policies and maps need review and refinement more frequently. Depending on the plan element, this review can range from an annual review of the five-year capital improvements strategy, to an annual, biennial, or five-year refresh and refinement of land use and community development regulations and policies.

Additionally, a community plan needs to undergo a comprehensive review and update at least every 10 years.

Our Planning Team has done this before. We know how to engage with citizens and stakeholders, we understand the need to balance a variety of interests and goals, and we have experience with creating and advising about effective initiatives and strategies to achieve objectives.

We’d like to help. The first step is a conversation to talk about what you want, how well you’ve done, what’s changed, and if your planning efforts are reflecting the needs and interests of your community.

Services
  • Comprehensive Plans
  • Neighborhood Plans
  • Bike & Pedestrian Planning
  • Campus Planning
  • Park & Open Space Planning
  • Visioning & Consensus Building
  • Preliminary Market Analysis
  • Ordinance Creation & Revision
  • Development & Zoning Administration
  • Grant Writing & Administration
  • Environmental Resource Analysis

The Planning Process

Planning is a dynamic process. It is the management of change – and nothing stays still – it’s figuring out where and what you want to be, and what needs to happen to achieve that vision. Broadly, planning needs to be: 

  • Both aspirational and pragmatic
  • Creative, adaptive, and resilient in designing initiatives and programs
  • Attentive to and reflective of community decisions (and vice versa – community decisions must be consistent with the plan)

“The plan (itself) is of little importance, but planning is essential.”


Paraphrased from Winston Churchill & Dwight Eisenhower

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