Dale Wyngarden: Planning necessary to a sustainable future
By Dale Wyngarden
In the beginning, there was no zoning. At least not as we know it today. There were no cars nor MAX buses. People moved throughout the community on foot or in carriages. Holland reflected that reality in its early decades. Industry was within walking distance of homes. Churches peppered corner lots throughout the neighborhoods. Kids walked to neighborhood schools. Ma and Pa grocery stores, often affiliated with IGA (Independent Grocers Association) were interspersed among homes, and seldom more than a few blocks apart.
Then came the car. Mobility meant the activities of community life could be compartmentalized and separated spatially. The great impetus for doing so came from a Standardized Zoning Act issued by the Federal Department of Commerce in 1922. The Act specified that zoning be founded on a master plan, so cities across the country jumped into the business of planning and zoning.
10 February 2021
Plans to build a massive 400MW wind farm on a ridge outside the former gold-mining town of Nundle, 50km south of Tamworth, have hit rocky ground after they failed to win the support of the local council and even inspired a new anti-renewables acronym: NINE, or “Not in Nundle, Ever!”
The Hills of Gold wind farm is being proposed for development by Engie, which bought the project from Wind Energy Partners in September of last year and submitted an Environmental Impact Statement to the state planning department a month later, in November.
According to the DPIE planning portal, the department is currently in the process of collating submissions on the state significant development, which, as of this week, will include a nine-pager from the Tamworth Regional Council, detailing why it “finds itself unable to support” the wind farm in its current form.
BBC News
By Cherry Wilson
image copyrightSupplied
image captionBethany and her two children have been on a waiting list for more than a year
There is a shocking lack of places for traveller families to live in England, according to a charity.
Only 18 out of 251 registered traveller sites have any spaces available, research from Friends, Families and Travellers (FFT) suggests.
It says the government must do more to identify land for the community to live on.
The government says councils are best placed to assess the local need for permanent traveller sites.
In October, FFT wrote to all local authorities and private registered site providers in England to ask how many pitches they had available.
Letter: Solar project a great opportunity
More than a few community members have joined local Facebook groups and started organizing against a proposed solar project in Shawnee slated to begin in 2021, as detailed in The Lima News story, Nov. 9, 2020: “Solar Farm Opposed: Not In My Back Yard.” While I understand the concerns, I would like to offer a different perspective and approach.
The Birch Solar team has been working extensively with Shawnee landowners and farmers to develop a clean energy facility on their land. They have put an enormous amount of time and effort into talking with community members and listening to our concerns. They intend to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into our community’s future, which will significantly boost tax revenue to local schools. All in all, this project will create local jobs, clean up our energy grid, and bring exciting new technologies to Northwest Ohio.
When you see a headline about Chicago having a consistent grid of rapid transit lines that connect all parts the city, you know it’s got to be from a satirical publication. After all, there’s no way that could be a reality here anytime soon, at least with the current, sluggish state of express bus and train line expansion.
The Chicago Genius Herald comedy website recently ran a clever article titled, “Left Unchecked, Red Line Expansions Could Spread All Over City By Mid-2040s, Providing Dangerous Levels Of Interconnectedness And Convenience.” It was illustrated by the above map indicating new ‘L’ lines spaced in a grid every couple of miles basically everywhere you’d want them to be if you could wave a magic wand and create a coherent rapid transit system.