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Land Market Monitoring - Project Sites

What is it? Why is it important? National Demonstration Project Sponsors Project Partners
LMM Project Sites Relevant Publications

Minnapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota

Minneapolis-St. Paul is located at the northern edge of the slow growing upper midwest. In the Twin Cities area, the Metropolitan Council oversees local planning, and reviews local plans against its own plans. The Metropolitan Council, the planning entity for the seven-county Minneapolis-St. Paul (Twin Cities) region, is an appointed body. It is required to prepare a development guide, the "Blueprint." Among the components required by the Metropolitan Council legislation in a local comprehensive plan is a land use plan. That land use plan shall also include a housing element plans and programs for providing adequate housing opportunities to meet existing and projected local and regional housing needs.  The Metropolitan Council¡¯s work in land market monitoring can be found in their 2030 Regional Development Framework

Portland, Oregon

Portland lies at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia River, on the border between Oregon and Washington. Oregon¡¯s planning program has been in place for more than 30 years. Development is regulated at the state level, and is coordinated by a state agency, the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD). DLCD prepares the goals and guidelines for local government to follow as they undertake planning activities. Each county and city in Oregon must develop, adopt, and amend comprehensive plans that comply with state land use goals. The urban growth boundary (UGB), intended to identify and separate urbanizable land from rural land and ensure compact development, is a critical component of the land use planning system. Metro, a regional planning agency with a directly-elected council, oversees regional land-use issues in the Portland region. Metro has developed its 2040 Growth Concept that is based on an analysis of the Portland land market.                             (http://www.metro-region.org/article.cfm?articleID=231)

Sacramento, California

Sacramento is located east of San Francisco in central California. The State of California has no overall state planning system in which local plans and regulations are reviewed by a state planning agency or commission, nor must communities advance or comply with state goals and objectives. The California Government Code, however, does contain detailed requirements for the housing element of local plans, which must include: review of the previous housing element; existing and projected needs assessment; resource inventory; and identification of governmental and nongovernmental constraints on housing. Under the statute, the primary factor in the local government¡¯s housing needs assessment must be the allocation of regional housing needs prepared by regional councils of governments (COGs) under state supervision. Each COG must then determine the existing and projected need for its region. SACOG has performed this land market monitoring in its Sacramento Region Blueprint (http://www.sacregionblueprint.org/sacregionblueprint/home.cfm).

State of Maryland

Maryland has a state-level planning agency, the Maryland Department of Planning (MDP). MDP provides data, research assistance, and policy development and implementation support for local governments, communities, businesses, and organizations. The Department also provides technical assistance, local program review and planning design services for Maryland's counties and municipalities. The power to plan and zone is held by local governments, either counties or municipalities. A county or municipal corporation may create a planning and zoning commission to create and implement a plan. Unlike many other states, Maryland has few municipalities and the majority of urban development takes place in parts of the unincorporated counties. Thus, also unlike in many other states, counties play a major role in the urban development process and county zoning is potentially very influential.  To help assist counties in their planning, specifically their land market monitoring, MDP has created a guidebook to Estimating Residential Capacity.  (http://www.mdp.state.md.us/pdf/dev_cap/Final_Guidebook.pdf)

Orange County, Florida

Orange County is one of seven Central Florida counties. Florida's integrated planning and growth management system includes plans and regulations at three levels of government. The State Comprehensive Plan provides policy direction for all government levels. State agencies must adopt agency plans to implement pertinent portions of the State Comprehensive Plan. At the regional level, each regional planning council must adopt a regional plan that is consistent with the State Comprehensive Plan, but is shaped by the circumstances and conditions of the region. At the local level, each county and municipality must adopt a local comprehensive plan that is consistent with the state and regional plans. The state government reviews local plans for compliance with statutory criteria and administration rules. Orange County is a relative newcomer to land market monitoring as compared with the other participants in this study. However, they have made large strides towards developing a Residential Capacity Analysis and have been able to create a preliminary analysis with good results. (http://www.orangecountyfl.net/cms/dept/ growth/planning/researcheco/fiscalimpact.htm#land)


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