Land Use Control Strategies - Report Example

Public land use Public Land Use Land is defined as the naturally occurring solid part of the earth’s surface which can be a portion of earth distinguished by boundaries or ownership. Economically land is taken to be anon consumable major factor of production which without it, no possible production can take place. Land as a term includes all physical elements of a nation like climate, environment, fields, forests, minerals, mountains water bodies. Additionally, as an asset it includes crops, fences trees water area above and below the ground. Likewise, a policy is a deliberate plan of action to guide a decision and achieve rational outcomes. Policy makers are constantly faced with many challenges in their line of work. A third of the nation’s land is held and owned by the federal government this land is immune to taxation, and its use is mainly controlled by the state in which it lies. Challenges exist due to conflicts over competing users this public lands contain significant natural resources which are valuable in the nation’s welfare and economy, this importance’s include natural source of energy like oil natural gas and coal and also other renewable source of energy like wind, solar tidal and geothermal. Recreational facilities offered by the lands which are central to the quality of life of many of the residents. The act of protecting the open space, wilderness, functioning ecosystems, and a wide variety of flora and fauna which is threatened by the dangers of extinction need to be protected from the public which are using them (Nelson and Duncan, 1995). There are reasons why we need policy makers in the public land use. These people are given a responsibility of drawing up plans which are crucial in decision making on matters pertaining public land use. Secondly, to enhance community development, which can be done by harnessing the available land and start making profits with it? This ensures that the cost of developing and producing a product must be less than the amount it fetches. Lastly the decision on the suitability of a site for development is left on the hands of policy makers to determine the social and economic viability of a site. The determination is mainly done through zoning of the site, accessibility to the markets, the physical characters of the site infrastructure availability and compatibility with the surrounding land uses and regards to the ultimate longer planning for the area (Leitch, 2002). The government has widely stressed on the importance it places on using the best possible advice to develop its policies. This is mainly to develop its decision making and policies that have been seen by the continued efforts on evidence-based approach to policy making. Since the most dominant challenge to land use at global and local level is climatic change, respective government should come up with resolutions to challenges. However, given that the climate is changing, coping strategies should be formulated to avert this scenario. Land has more local users and values some of these users and values are competitive while others are complementary. It is evident that, temperatures are expected to increase by at least 3 C by 2100 if proper decisions are not taken. The developing countries mostly in African continent, which by 2050 will make up eight billion of a world population, will remain indispensable to any credible settlement. However the venture of trying to persuade them to commit to the same type of mandatory limits that the rich countries are all bound by the Kyoto protocol. Any successor agreement will be more challenging given that the main and only today’s global warming are two centuries of western industrialization (Leitch, 2002). The fiasco of the race to bio fuels that the market does not fail rather it should be very quick to point the consequences of the thought ill-considered planning to replace fossils fuel with bio and renewable fuels from land. In this case failure can be attributed to politics at the global level which is given the responsibility of ensuring that all carbon emitted is taxed as pollutants, with a carbon-trading system of the market, which considered as the only and best and effective practical action to ameliorate carbon emissions in industries (Weiss and Tschirhart, 1994). Policy makers should ensure that a working carbon tax trading system is in place as the only sensible way of examining and ensuring that potential result on land use on different prices of carbon emission is to the best of the whole globe. The historical background of a given land is a challenge to policy makers this can be explained given an example of where a land was a holy place and local went to seek asylum. When policy makers decide that the said piece of land should be used on other activities like recreation activities they tend to encounter a resistance from the locals who will stress that the land should stay as the found it (Department of Labor, 2000). Unwilling to change which is associated with uncertainty as to what the new will imply, The human nature has that notion of being scared to change. Policy makers should also have the ability to manage and to overcome the resistance to change this will always a direct influence on the success of the project. Though in some cases, officials deliberately ignore and undermine the principles and policies due to rejection of a nationally standardized plan and the unwilling heart to confront change (Nelson and Duncan, 1995). Lack of information on the part of these planners also negatively impact on their work, the physical, and social information on the nature of an area hinders the ability to come up with a suitable or sustainable solution on land use and also its management. However, this information is required to ensure one makes a decision on where to develop what to develop and when to do it. This principle is used where the developers want to find a suitable land use in regards with what the community around want and existing and proposed new systems, which the challenges facing the society can be overcome. It is economically unenviable when a developer decides to build a water reservoir like a dam beside a fresh water lake (Weiss and Tschirhart, 1994). To lack of capacity remains to be a serious issue facing the planning system, the policy maker’s officials can be very experienced with vast knowledge on their work. They may suggest a good project which should be undertaken in a given area with a working estimate of good prospects from the project. However due to the incapacity of the state, the government may be short of capacity to build the decided facility. Alternatively, lack of capacity in decision making is indicative in the quality of decisions taken; this could affect the financial feasibility of a project due to the time delays created by the backlogs, therefore, affecting the timeliness of the project and also the estimated time to finish the project to be taken. The bureaucratic nature of government with non-integrations authorities, which has sartorial orientations, and highly fragmented system across spheres of government across racial zones, ethnic lines, geographic area, provinces, jurisdictional boundaries and across sartorial uses. Additionally, fragmentation poses a great dilemma on land management and planning in the inter-governmental co-ordination. A government is made of many departments, which run independently these departments have their own policies and legislation that highly impacts on the spatial planning and development field (Weiss and Tschirhart, 1994). Since these policies are mainly done in isolation, they create a workload on local authorities and the officials who are already struggling with sufficient capacity relating specifically to its manpower. Alternatively, this has made different line of functions-especially at the local level to become sartorial oriented and have to consider issues independently from the other sector. The science technological perspective on understanding of the challenges of environment, through relevant reach works which has increased collaboration between ecological economists and civil society organization which is needed. Science and technology increase environmental knowledge by giving analytical foundation to activism and policy-making. Through dependence in science contributions, sustainable policies have been made worldwide due to the ability of having reliable information (Leitch, 2002). However these challenges can be resolved by involving the legislative framework, the constitution has an influence on the planning system due to the requirement of cooperative governance and promotion of social economic rights. Secondary the integrations of the development process, which is aimed to intensify and also diversify the focus land use and economic activity in, are where bulk infrastructure and mass movement are all available. The public will be able to draw the many required ways with which they want the land within the society to be put into use (Nelson and Duncan, 1995). Thirdly, the government should enact ways in which capacity building initiatives will be achieved this includes the review of technical training where students and member of society will be involved in teaching that will let them think creatively. Internship, which provide one with the real life experience of the job, is also encouraged while promotion of mid –career education and training courses can be introduced which will focus on the planning and development issues facing the united states today. When policy makers are making plans on a given community the first important strategy to begin with is community involvement, this will help them be able to access needs of the community and the economic feasibility the project shall have on them. Community participation through consultations and participation are mainly to ensure achieving diversity and providing the required projects to the community (Hanley and MacMillan, 2001). Provision of information access to planners and policy making firms helps the professionals to re-evaluate themselves to enable them to plan within a changing global economy. Tertiary institution of higher learning like colleges and universities should play a part by providing mud career education courses which are compatible with the basic planning and policy making on land use in the country. Lastly in implementation of the place through the community itself, this help raise the ownership ability inn that people feel the project is theirs since they were part of its planning, establishment and also its making. The most important advantage is community involvement strategy is that they are in the neighborhoods on a daily basis, and they have the required first hand information to engage in development (Hanley and MacMillan, 2001). A number of advantages exist which explains the advantages of policy making on land use as the saying goes that lack of planning is planning to fail, the act of planning in policy making helps to change from potential to practice. This means that a land that previously was lying bare without any economic advantage can be changed to be a productive land which later can be an income source to many and also offer employment opportunities and source of livelihood (Leitch, 2002). With policy making, more information is brought to have identifying and evaluating alternatives information diversification from varied cultures, age group and gender which provide varied perspectives and enhances the kind of ideas the group can come up with. Additionally, there is a high tendency of using varied experiences from professional of different fields of experience and amount of experience and their differences in the life experience and the kind of experience people have had even when it is the same problem matter. Improved outcomes are also experienced as the risk is easily manageable is it is predetermined this is achieved through quality decision making and synergy and shared information which rely on the power of minds undertaking a single decision. Greater acceptability of decisions since everyone made a suggestion which is evaluated by others who made or did not make recommendations (Hanley and MacMillan, 2001). Enhanced memory facts are in place since an individual may forget a particular piece of information, but due to the involvement of more than one person a combined memory of all members eliminate the chance of having a to forget any detail. Early error detection is high due to the number of people involved in the decision making; hence it is very hard for an error to pass either accidently or intentionally unnoticed (Hanley and MacMillan, 2001). The simplification of complex decisions, which an individual may not be able to take or handle this, is due to availability of alternatives generated from the group. Shared responsibilities make the work simpler, at the long run; it brings a motivation effect which every member feels nice working in the decision making program (Hwang and Byun, 2003). Better future utilization of public property is achieved where the land that previously was uneconomical viable is made to be productive any hence bring employment opportunities to the local people. Planning for the land enable for is the maximum utilization with no losses occurring to the intended use. Professional land surveyors and architectures are employed where the land is accessed of its potential economic viability and how economically the land may be put into action by determining the area for safe construction through analysis of soil and performance of geological structure (Nelson and Duncan, 1995). Alternatively, there are some drawbacks on policy making the first one is that it is very expensive to carry out an effective policy making. The process involves hiring of professions from different field who are extensively involved in the decision making process. These also involves the process of bringing the community in the picture where they are required to supply with information of the land and the most preferred use they would like the public land be used. Connectively there are conflict of proposals and wants where some on a school be established while others want a Sherriff station to be established for security purpose this actually means that the policy makers are left to make the ultimate decision which sometimes do not auger well with the locals (Leitch, 2002). Secondly the process is time consuming due to the time spent collecting information from different stakeholders in the community and society. Additionally the bureaucratic nature of government projects takes time before they are fully processed and sighed which is interpreted as a go-ahead sign (Weiss and Tschirhart, 1994). Conclusion The European Environmental Agency E.E.A and Eye on the Network that allows examination of climatic model prediction suggest that most urban cities receive higher and hotter days and tropical nights in the period of 2071-2100. It remains an important topic for professionals to work as a group and overcome the challenges facing public land use management this is to create and implement a system that would be advantageous to the community and more so to serve its allocated purpose. When these challenges are looked into and addressed efficiently, it will be possible for policy makers and developers to produce products which are more cost effective and affordable and still receive returns on investments. Additionally, land, which is not yet brought to full use shall be made economically productive for the benefit of the state the land is in thereby offering more employment opportunity hence raising the standards of living. Reference Department of Labor. (2000). An Introduction to the Skills Development Strategy, First Edition. Pretoria: Labor Market Skills Development Program. Hanley, N., and MacMillan, D. (2001) Improving Land Use Management through Economic Instrument. U.S.A, Environment and Regulation department. Hwang H.Y. and Byun, B. (2003). Land Use Control Strategies around Urban Growth Boundaries in Korea‟. International Review for Environmental Strategies, 4(2) 207-221. Nelson, A.C., and Duncan, J.B., (1995). Growth Management Principles and Practices. Chicago Planners Press, American Planning Association. Leitch, J. (2002). Common sense not yet common practice‟. The official journal of the Institution of Municipal Engineering of South Africa. 3(34)14-16. Weiss, J.A. and Tschirhart, M. (1994). Public information campaigns as policy instruments. J. Policy Anal. Manage. 13 (1), 82–119 Read More