STRATEGIC PLANNING
Strategic planning entails the evaluation of the critical factors that affect development, including environmental analysis, physical site analysis, real estate market overview, community socio-economic analysis and public policy analysis.
Planning at this level involves pragmatic approaches to financing, regulatory agencies and potential users. In essence, it is an integrated process involving Land Suitability Assessment which informs and encourages the appropriate type of future development in combination with the essential level of preservation at a local and regional scale. Land Suitability Assessments ensure a proactive approach to development and places focus on ecological responsiveness, in combination with the understanding of site- and region-specific socio-economic practices and requirements.
The primary goal of a Land Suitability Assessment, and therefore Strategic Planning, is to echo and reinforce contemporary discussion regarding humankind’s place in nature and nature’s place in humankind, therefore creating a planning process which focuses on Design (Planning) with Nature. This methodology ensures that a healthier relationship is formed between the built environment and the natural environment.