Welcome to The Midwest Planning BLUZ: Iowa State University Extension’s Blog on Land Use and Zoning. The blog is designed to keep readers current on court cases, legislation and other current topics in land use planning and zoning across the Midwest. How do we define the Midwest? To be honest, we’ll need to wait and see. The original idea behind the BLUZ was to keep Iowa planners, attorneys and local officials current on events in Iowa in a timely manner, rather than through my planning law session at the Annual Iowa APA conference, quarterly posts on my website or in Iowa APA and Iowa County Zoning Officials newsletters. That is still the primary purpose, but my hope is to make the BLUZ a forum for the discussion of current cases, laws and issues in surrounding states, as well. The Upper Midwest and High Plains states have much in common when it comes to how land is used, attitudes about land use regulation, planning and zoning enabling legislation and how this legislation is interpreted by state courts. Hopefully the BLUZ will bring people together to share ideas about these topics.
The BLUZ will be maintained by Gary Taylor, AICP, Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in the Department of Community and Regional Planning at Iowa State University. This academic year (2009-10) I am being ably assisted by Allison Ahrends, a student in the Department of Political Science at Iowa State University (more about us under “contributors”). We will probably post to the BLUZ 1 -2 times weekly. You may subscribe to the BLUZ via the RSS feed. You may also search this site by using the categories to the right to find postings relating to a particular topic. The category list will be expanded as cases, legislation and other issues are addressed.
Please comment! This is meant to be a discussion forum. If you know of any events, decisions, etc. that you think others may be interested in please share.
