The Value of

GIS to
Wisconsin
Comprehensive
Planning

Kevin Pomeroy, AICP

kevin@1kfriends.org
(608) 663-9050

www.1kfriends.org
 Methods of Engagement

• Planning Analyst
• Information Delivery / Education Tools
• Interactive Meetings
• Citizen Surveys and Inventorying
• Web-Based Citizen Planning
• Allocating Future Land use & Assessing
Impacts
• 3d Visualization
Presentations and Map Displays at Public
Workshops and Town Hall Meetings

• People are attracted to colorful large-format displays

• Provide a starting point for conversation
• Compilation base for planning inventories and
allocations
• Means to convey information about areas that are the
focus of planning 
 Dane County Land-use Forum 
• In 1998 Dane County executive Kathleen
Falk created a land-use forum to engage
citizens in land-use planning
•Complex analyses combining
multiple layers and spatial
analyses (e.g. growth
management factors)

•Maps presented as Power

Point presentation to the 300-
plus participants.

•Maps were also displayed on

walls around the hall
 Dane County Land-use Forum 

100 large-scale free maps as an incentive to completing

the survey at Dane County’s first land-use forum 

• Boosted the survey participation rate

• Provided direct evidence about the types of information
products people found useful or interesting
• Provided us with a list of citizens interested in planning issues
• Most were depictions of multiple variables or various kinds of
analyses such as;
– effects of sprawl over time
– growth-management factors 
 Dane County Land-use Forum
Overall Conclusions
• Depictions of single themes such as
topography, land cover, and so forth were
considered useful but…..

• People were most interested in products

representing combinations of variables and
the results of analysis and,

• People were ready for and interested in these

more “sophisticated” products
 “Interactive” Town Hall Meetings
Townships of Verona and
Clover

We brought computers,
projection equipment, and
GIS technicians

Projection of information and

hands-on interaction with
the information.

Brief introduction to the

technology, the geospatial
data sets, and how all of that
might be used to support the
work of the land-use
planning task force
 Town Hall Meeting - Verona
Working through a facilitator who understood what could
be done interactively on the fly, as well as more involved
“we’ll-get-back-to-you-on-that” queries—we turned over
the session to the audience.

About fifteen town residents generated dozens of

questions such as:
• Where is agricultural land located in contiguous
tracts?
• What agricultural parcels intersect with soils classified
as high-quality soils?
• How much undeveloped, oak-forest ridge land
remains?
 Town Hall Meetings - Observations
Because the data was available and well-organized
beforehand, we were able to answer and depict most of
the queries on the fly, within minutes of the question
being posed.

The discussion moved beyond questions of fact and

focused on the values and interests behind land-use
planning

Citizens recognized the value of information to their

discussions and quickly moved to take full advantage of it
by asking more sophisticated questions
 Verona Electronic Town Hall Meeting
Take the town hall into people’s homes
The session explained the basic tenets of a land-use plan

• Internet access to the session

through CyberCivic

• Broadcast live on the local cable

television station and one radio
station

• Portable computers hooked to

the Internet to receive and
answer email questions

• Phone lines available for call-in

questions
 GIS Enhanced Citizen Surveys
GIS-enhanced citizen surveys link surveys to land
information and spatial analysis and offer three
distinct enhancements to the traditional low-tech
survey:
• We can ask spatially explicit questions
– Include maps
• Allows generic or specific identification of responses
by landowner type
– Permits hypothesis testing of differences between groups
• Allows the spatial depiction of survey results
– Can see the results in map form. Planners now have the
ability to map the spatial implications of land-use
preferences as expressed in surveys.

Part 5
 Results of Verona Surveys
Land-use committee found the results of the two surveys
very useful in two regards:
• Surveys kept them grounded in a broader view of public
sentiment
• Results revealed broad support for land-use allocations, such as
farmland protection
Surveys helped define the audience for citizen planning
• The success of the Shaping Dane’s Future project was enhanced
by being clear about who it was we were helping and what it was
we were helping them to do.
• Modern land-use information can be effectively used to filter the
results of public opinion surveys in order to produce more
specific and realistic land-use goals and objectives
Cognitive Mapping in Clover Township
Participants given many copies of a base map and an
atlas with many land information layers to take home
• Areas drawn on base maps
where selected types of
land use should or should
not occur
– separate maps used for each
land-use category
– participants had several
weeks to complete survey
• Base maps were digitally
traced and converted to
raster files back in the office
 Clover Township Results
• Results displayed at next town meeting to generate
discussion
– areas where a consensus on land use seemed to occur
– areas for which there appeared to be contention or dispute
about appropriate land uses
• Apparent differences forced the planning committee
to focus discussion on the harder issues
• Helped point out that for much of the landscape,
people shared common goals
• Cognitive mapping appears to be a very useful tool
for working out spatially explicit preferences
 Citizen-based Database Creation
• Township of Clover base maps were displayed on a
“citizen engagement table” (SMART Board™)
– used as a means to discuss and resolve differences among
the various citizen task force land-use interpretations
– new polygons are screen-digitized
 Web-Based Citizen Planning

• Internet mapping services (IMS)

– Offers a way of providing maps to users based on their
specifications
– Analogous to free maps
• Comprehensive planning support Web sites
– Providing citizen planners access to data, exploration &
analysis tools, planning concepts and issues, support
material and related links.
• Citizen participation over the Web
– Allows citizens to vote and provide feedback on planning
and related issues on a secure web site
 Verona Planning Resource Center

• Component of the “Shaping Dane” project

• Provided Town of Verona citizen planners with:
– on line atlas of maps and data
– planning resources
– planning facilitation
– existing plans & ordinances
– calendar and contacts
 Results Verona Planning Resource
Center

• Information technology and digital data availability have

matured to an extent to allow citizens to engage in the
planning process over the Web
• The Planning Resource Center was only used by a
small group of citizens perhaps because better
marketing was needed
• Some of the data originally available for download and
map making was pulled from the site by Dane County
due to license issues
Pop Dot - Manual Allocation Exercise
Pop Dot – an interactive, hands-on, manual allocation exercise
• Designed to help participants in Dane County’s Design Dane
land-planning workshops understand the issues and envision
potential solutions in allocating new residential growth
• Developed in cooperation with the Dane County Planning staff
and the county executive
 Case study – POP Dot for Dane County
Pop Dot Allocation - Results
Observations made through eavesdropping on
conversations and analysis of the maps with dots
afterward :
• Participants were quite comfortable with the GIS map
• Exercise helped citizens understand the challenge
and complexity of planning for future growth
• Exercise helped citizens understand how growth
management factors can be used to constrain or
guide development
• Different allocation patterns emerged from different
groups, i.e.
– one group placed almost all their dots in and near existing
urban areas or along rail corridors
– another group scattered dots in rural areas but away from
highly productive farms
 PlaceIt!
The next generation of free allocation
software
• Evolved from Pop Dot
• ArcView 3.x extension – all of Arcview’s
interactive functionality available
– growth management base map composed of
multiple themes including orthophotos –
turned on and off, zooming, etc.
• Uses parcels as the allocation unit
– More realistic – at the level of land
transactions
– Requires a digital parcel database
• Operated either by technical staff or
community members
 Case study – PlaceIt! In Verona and Clover Towns
PlaceIt! Results
The learning curve for this tool is short, and the
excitement it can generate is high and helps citizens
understand the land-use change implications and the
power of GIS to generate multiple, future land-use
scenarios
• Starting point for discussion of future land uses in the
Town of Verona
• Town of Clover community members quickly grasped
the basic operations and took the lead on the
allocation process
– an active committee member (a realtor) captured the
keyboard and mouse and proceeded to create a plan
– another member politely nudged aside our staff and, with her
group, took over the allocation process to prepare a plan
 SMART Board™ Visioning
A large format touch-sensitive display monitor allows users to use
fingers or stylus to directly interact with the screen and its
menus
• Used in vertical mode to visualize and present ideas to large
groups
• Used in horizontal mode for interactive, hands-on participation
within a small group
 Case study – Town of Verona
SMART Board™ & Town of Verona
In June 2001, we invited the Verona Land-Use Planning Task Force
and other public officials to comment on the utility of this display
table:
• Participants were given a PlaceIt!-based exercise to allocate
undeveloped parcels for future residential use
• Initially, there was considerable discussion
• Then, one task force member built a comprehensive
development scenario on the table in 30 minutes

• Display table provided a

visual, interactive, and
informative means for the
group to engage in the
planning process

Part 7
 What if? Planning Support System

• Conduct suitability analysis (uses

shapefiles)
• Project land use demand
• Allocate future land use patterns
• Support community decision making
• Stand alone program
• Requires ArcView or ArcGIS to pre-process
shapefiles
• What if? does not do impact assessment

Community Analysis and Planning Systems, Inc.

Part 7 http://www.what-if-pss.com
 CommunityViz Scenario 360

• Works as an extension to
ArcView 3.2 or ArcGIS
• Create scenarios representing
decision-making alternatives
• Experiment with assumptions,
view indicators and charts
• Measure and analyze the impacts
of each alternative
• Visualize results in reports, charts
or in realtime 3D
• Present your information to
others

Part 7 www.placeways.com
 Verona CommunityViz Scenario
• PlaceIt! was used by the citizen task force to allocate
future growth for Verona based on knowledge of a
large medical technology firm, EPIC, locating in the
town of Verona

• Shapefiles for development scenarios were brought

into CommunityViz to calculate impacts related to
projected residential and commercial growth

• With Place It! and CommunityViz displayed on the

SmartBoard citizens were able to interact with the
data layers, create development scenarios and
visualize the impacts in a relatively short period of
Part 7
time
 Black Earth Creek Watershed
• 80% decline in trout population in 2001
• “Outstanding and exceptional resource waters”
• Combination of What if? and CommunityViz
• 3 alternative land use scenarios

• UW Land Information and Computer Graphics

Facility (LICGF)
 Black Earth Creek Watershed –
Impressions of What if? and CommunityViz

• Allowed citizens to interact at various

stages
• Ability to change the underlying
assumptions
• Transparency of the system components
increased credibility
• The participants found the process useful
and engaging
• The setup process is time consuming
Part 7
 Black Earth Creek Watershed -
Conclusions
• Higher-density build-out scenarios
demonstrated the least impact on creek
waters in the near future
• New neighborhoods are built with deed
restrictions requiring each lot to contain a
rain garden to reduce water runoff
• New streets are built with a boulevard
median strip to help capture road water
runoff
Part 7
Cudahy 2020
Comprehensive Plan

• FLU Map created on the fly

• GIS technicians did not
need to interpret hand
drawn maps
• Less time consuming
• Quick and easy to make
changes
• Provided easy access to
parcel information, property
ownership, and the beach
• Able to zoom in to the high
resolution aerial imagery
Bay-Lake Regional Planning Commission

• GIS used for citizen input at most Comprehensive Plan

meetings
• Planner/GIS staff use the GIS to explore their
community, update land use, discuss natural resources,
located areas of economic development and even create
future land use scenarios
• Turn data layers on and off and draw graphics or
sketches using the data layers in the project
• Once back at the office the GIS staff converts the
graphics and sketches into features, which can then be
adjusted and allow for area calculations.

• “Once a community experiences a meeting with GIS it really opens their

eyes up to the beneficial uses of GIS and how it can make their community
a better place to live.” Tony D. Bellovary
 Village of Francis Creek
General Plan Design/Future Land Use activity
Sketch areas using land use, orthos and base map data
 Village of Francis Creek
2008 Land Use edits using orthos and base map data
Village of Francis Creek
plan determinants on Village base map
 St. Croix Falls
U.S. Highway 8 Corridor Plan
• Town and City of St. Croix Falls formed a
Joint Town-City Planning Committee
• Discussions on a potential Cooperative
Boundary Agreement
• Town placed a moratorium on any new
building in the Highway 8 commercial
corridor of the Town
 St. Croix Falls
U.S. Highway 8 Corridor Plan
 St. Croix Falls
U.S. Highway 8 Corridor Plan
 St. Croix Falls
U.S. Highway 8 Corridor Plan
 St. Croix Falls
U.S. Highway 8 Corridor Plan
Matthew Burczyk’s
Bike Rack Inventory
City of Monona Targeted Redevelopment Opportunities

• Aging commercial corridor

• Prioritize redevelopment opportunities
• Quantifiable data needed for support
• Variable weighting system included
• Structure Age
• Improvement Value per Acre
• Improvement Value to Land Value Ratio
• Percent Change in Improvement Value
• Comparison to Overall Monona Drive Value Change
• Floor Area Ratio
• Users can explore the impact of different
variables
City of Monona Targeted Redevelopment Opportunities
Washington County Multi-Jurisdictional
Comprehensive Planning Working Group
• 40 page Public Participation Plan
• 14 towns, cities and villages
• Washington County Planning and Parks
Department
• UW-Extension Washington County
• Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning
Commission

• “Citizens participating in government decision-

making are fundamental to our system of
governance.” Washington County Public Participation Plan
Washington County Comprehensive Plan
Interactive Visioning Workshops
• 12 workshops - July to Sept 2006
• 6 interactive hands-on stations
1. Inventory and Survey Results
2. Mapping Future Residential Growth
3. Development Preference Slideshows
4. Community Goals... Are We Still on Target?
5. Build a Visioning Statement for Your Community
6. Parting Words
 Mapping Future Growth
Town of Addison
• Medium or high density residential growth
inside planned Sewer Service Area’s
• Commercial along major transportation
corridors
• Increase rural residential densities
• Preserve lands best suited for agriculture
 Mapping Future Growth
Village of Kewaskum
• Promote higher density residential growth
inside planned Sewer Service Area
• Expand highway through Village or create
bypass to aid transportation flow
• Modern architectural design and
subdivisions are more appropriate than
rural housing
• Update goals concerning transportation,
library resources, and housing
 1000 Friends of Wisconsin
• Advocacy, education,
and lobbying
• State-wide
• 3000+ members
• Issues concerning
land-use, growth,
transportation, and
more
• Linking urban,
suburban, and rural