Conflict between rural residential develop-ment and agricultural activities is the focusof the planning effort in Big Horn County,Wyoming.

Planning with rural valuesBy Lee Nellis

This case study of planningin Big Horn County,Wyoming, points out somebasic principles to follow inovercoming resistance toplanning in rural areas

March-April 1980

LOCALland use planning in ruralLOCAL

America is a rocky experience that sel-dom is successful in terms of plan imple-mentation. Yet the ultimate success of localplanning is necessary to a nation that wish-es to preserve alternative places and valuesfor living and to assure itself of adequatewater, food, and recreational resources.

A case study in Big Horn County, Wy-oming, illustrates one such rural planningeffort where initial local resistance to plan-ning gave way to support, resulting in suc-cessful implementation of a plan. The casestudy points out reasons for resistance toplanning in rural areas and how planningcan be designed not to overcome these rea-sons but to legitimize them.

The Big Horn County setting

Early in 1974 the Wyoming Conserva-tion and Land Use Study Commission ran-

Lee Nellis is a planner for Hot Springs Coun-ty, Wyoming, and a consultant on rural growthmanagement, Box 962, Thermopolis, Wyom-ing. 82443.

domly sampled state residents about theirattitudes on land use planning (17). Re-spondents in Big Horn County ranked first(of 23 counties) in labeling planning as un-necessary. These same Big Horn Countyrespondents fell among the top three coun-ties in favoring economic goals over envi-ronmental goals and in resisting protectivemeasures for unique natural areas.

Big Horn County covers 3,177 squaremiles in northwestern Wyoming's BigHorn Basin (5). The current population is12,000. An annual growth rate of abouttwo percent has prevailed since the early1970s.

The county's economy is based on agri-culture and minerals. The agricultural in-dustry consists of cattle, sheep, and irri-gated sugar beets, barley, beans, and hay.The minerals' segment of the local econ-omy includes oil and gas production, ben-tonite mining and processing, and gypsummining and wallboard manufacturing.

Lovell (population 2,600), Greybt tll(2,300), and Basin (1,200) are the principal

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Residential growth in the pastoral Shell Valley triggered the it decision to undertakeplanning in Big Horn County.

Contamination of wells in rural areas south of Lovell was an impetus to planning. One out-come of this planning has been the installation of sewage disposal beds.

towns in the county. Growth in recentyears has been in nearby rural areas ratherthan in the towns. Recreational demandsof workers and their families from the rap-idly growing coal and uranium miningcommunities in the Powder River Basin,east of the Big Horn Mountains, havecreated substantial impacts on mountainand foothill areas of the county.

The county's Board of Commissionersfirst appointed a county planning commis-sion in the spring of 1973. That commis-sion hired a professional planner in July1974, chiefly because of the "threat" offederal laud use legislation, the availabilityof federal planning grants, and the coun-ty's renewed growth. Two new subdivi-sions had just been platted in the ShellValley, east of Greybull.

Wyoming's legislature finished the taskof 'committing Big Horn County to somekirid of planning process when it acted torequire counties to adopt subdivision regu-lations by September 1975 and to developland use plans by January 1978 (18, 19). InJuly 1975 Big Horn County pooled its re-sources with Washakic and Hot SpringsCounties to fund the necessary professionalplanning effort. By October 1976 the coun-ty implemented the first element of itscomprehensive plan.

How did a rural, conservative countyproceed with planning that far, that fast,especially in light of the resistance to plan-ning reflected in the 1974 Land Use StudyCommission survey of Wyoming residents?

Reasons for resistance

Two warnings must precede considera-tion of resistance to planning. First, ruralresistance to planning cannot be laid out ina neat, analytic list. It is usually expressedas a general frustration, with slogans bor-rowed from newscasters, conservative in-terest groups, or other sources. The resis-tance also may be tangled and confusedwith other issues. The list offered here isfor use by professionals trying to reachbeyond slogans and general frustration tomanageable elements of the problem.

Second, Big Horn County's rural com-munities are relatively cohesive and stable.They have been subjected to little changecompared with rural communities subject-ed to the impacts of energy development ormigration from nearby metropolitanareas. The least cohesive communitieswithin the county were the most difficultto organize for planning action. This mayhold true in other locales as well.

Now for the list of reasons for rural resis-tance to planning. There are four: (a) astrong emphasis on private property rights,coupled with (h) distrust of outside priori-

ties for land use, aggravated by (c) the in-appropriateness of traditional urban plan-ning tools and attitudes, all resulting in (d)a feeling that planners have little empathywith rural values and needs.

Property rights. We are all heirs toThomas Jefferson's sentiment that "...it isnot too soon to provide by every possiblemeans that as few as possible shall be with-out a little portion of land. The small land-holders are the most precious part of astate" (8). Any community that imple-ments a land use plan must walk a thin linebetween the strong American attachmentto the rights of property ownership and thecommunity's collective concerns.

Rural landowners in Big Horn Countyand elsewhere have long recognized somemutual necessities where individual prop-erty rights must be subordinated to thecommunity's overall right to sustain itselfand all its members. Examples include ro-tation systems to make the most of limitedirrigation water or the control of noxiousweeds. But the recognition of limited pub-lic concerns about land use is balanced byland's private values. Land is a source ofincome. Land is a savings account, a hedgeagainst inflation or hard times. Land is apart of family history and pride as well aspart of the shared American heritage.Finally, land is living space, a value oftremendous importance to rural Western-

68 Journal of Soil and Water Conservation

ers. Resistance to planning that would af-fect any of these values is both predictableand understandable.

Outside priorities. When John Mc-Claughry (10) accuses "...lawyers andtheorists, allied with well-funded actionorganizations and political leaders..." ofusing land use controls to impose a newserfdom on rural landowners, he makes itplain that much of the rural apprehensionabout planning is based on who will be do-ing the planning. Rural people have reasonto worry about decisions based on nationalor statewide priorities. These basically ur-ban priorities often exploit rural land andpeople. Federal farm and energy policiesconsistently exemplify the promotion ofshort-term production and corporate inter-ests over the long-term interests of ruralcommunities. As Wendell Berry (4) put it,"Generation after generation, those whointended to remain and prosper where theywere, have been dispossessed and drivenout or subverted and exploited where theywere."

Suggestions that the attention of plan-ning agencies might be directed to federalor state, rather than local, levels is con-sistent with rural people's experience (6).The potential for planning to be an outsideimposition must have seemed high to resi-dents of Big Horn County. After all, onereason the county began planning was thethreat of federal land use legislation. Onereason it continued was mandatory state-wide planning legislation that came com-plete with "goals, policies, and guidelines"for local governments to follow (21). Whenprofessional planners arrived, they werelargely federally funded. There probablywas more than just cause to wonder whothe planner's clients would really be, localpeople or federal and state agencies?

Traditional planning tools. One BigHorn County commissioner liked to saythat land was just land to city people.Planners who try to zone 3,000 squaremiles of countryside are definitely city peo-ple. Rural awareness of potentials and lim-itations of slope, exposure, drainage, andsoil type is one reason why so many at-tempts to use urban planning techniques inrural areas have failed (11). The tradition-al future land use/zoning map approach toplanning tends to ignore landscape fea-tures. It also claims a predictive value noone will accord it where the local economyconstantly fluctuates in response to distantcommodity markets and uncontrollableweather.

In fact, zoning has come under heavycriticism in its native, urban habitat (2,

15). Zoning treats land use on an assump-tive basis, assuming that different parcelsof land and different land uses can belumped under a few simple labels, assum-ing that the impacts of particular uses onparticular sites can be predicted yearsahead of their actual development and as-suming that land use compatibility can beassured through a few mechanical mea-sures, such as lot size and coverage, set-backs, and building heights.

These assumptions may be acceptable inurban neighborhoods. Planning's chieffunction there has been to maintain thestatus quo. Growth is shunted off to thenext neighborhood or an adjoining suburb,and land is perceived as merely more spaceto use for buildings. But the extensive dis-cussion of alternatives to zoning that hasaccompanied the growth managementmovement suggests that zoning is not away to deal with change in the city, andrural communities would not be planningif they were not changing. Where land hasacknowledged, independent values andwhere growth is the central planning issue,traditional approaches may be found lack-ing.

Empathy. A recent text on rural plan-ning notes the urban bias of traditionalplanning approaches just before launchinginto a long discussion about the "inade-quacies" of local government and the "ob-solescence" of rural institutions (9). Thelack of empathy or identification with rur-al needs and values that rural people at-tribute to planners is a summation of sortsof differences in notions about propertyrights and in orientations to other levels ofgovernment and broader priorities. Thesedifferences are widened when inappropri-ate planning tools are applied and plannerstreat the rural community as if it were anincipient metropolis, a "micro-city" strug-gling toward the "cure" of Standard Met-ropolitan Statistical Area status (13).

Rural areas offer an alternative way ofliving, where attitudes and institutions arenot inadequate or obsolete, but different.Recognition of this difference and of thedistinctive roles and functions of both ruraland urban communities was fundamentalto the regional planning movement of the1920s. American planning seems to havelost this early understanding and beencaught up in the "bigger is better" syn-drome of "metropolitanization" (12, 14).But the value of rural communities as analternative to urban lifestyles has not beenlost on the American people, who are, inconsiderable numbers, moving out of met-ropolitan areas (3). In fact, the impactthese migrants have as they arrive is a prin-

cipal reason that Big Horn County andother rural areas must plan.

Responses to resistance

Big Horn County's planning effort rec-ognized each of the four reasons for resis-tance to planning and dealt with them, notas obstacles or unfortunate realities, but aspositive guidelines as to how the local plan-ning process should and could develop.

Property rights. Rural communities arecapable of making collective decisionsabout land use, at least in a limited way.In Big Horn County the sheriff may need awarrant to enter your property; the Weedand Pest District need only send you a no-tice; indeed, the district may enter yourland, spray it with herbicides, and sendyou the bill, all without permission. Notpaying in protest will result in a lien beingattached to your farm.

The ancient maxim sic utere tuo utalienum non laedas, use your property soas not to injure that of another, is recog-nized in the Wyoming countryside as wellas in the city. Coupled with the strongwestern sentiment that a man is responsi-ble for his own actions, this maxim wasfound to be a serviceable basis for com-munity decisions on land use in Big HornCounty. Where injury or responsibilitybegins and ends varies among the county'splanning units or subareas, but with en-couragement from the county planningcommission and its staff planner, appoint-ed advisory committees were able to agreeon the proper, if limited, bounds for com-munity planning.

Agreement invariably began with anarea of long-standing mutual concern—water (1). Possible impacts of land de-velopment activity on irrigation systems,agricultural water rights, and groundwa-ter got planning off the ground in Big HornCounty. Other traditional concerns; suchas soil conservation and public land man-agement, are also strongly reflected in thecomprehensive plan. In some parts of thecounty, planning went beyond traditional,mutual concerns; in other parts it did not;but in all subareas, traditional concernswere the basis for whatever planning wasdone.

Sic utere tuo and traditional values maynot be a satisfying basis for planners whowish to reform society's whole relationshipto the land. But in Big Horn County theyhave been enough to protect irrigated landin the scenic but rapidly developing ShellValley and to impose restrictions insuringbetter sewage treatment, harmony with lo-cal irrigation systems, and other practicallimits on development.

March-April 1980 69

Lovell ChronicleBig Horn County's planning commission met in every community in the county on arotating basis. This meeting of commission members and staff on rural land use problemstook place in the Lovell High School gymnasium.

External priorities. The Big Horn Coun-ty Planning Commission made a concen-trated, systematic effort to emphasize andassure local control of the planning effort.The county was divided into subareasbased on watershed boundaries as well ashistorical and social associations. Theplanning commission rotated its meetingsamong these areas, and local land use ad-visory committees were appointed to de-velop subarea plans that would serve as thebasis for the county's comprehensive plan.The advisory committees received profes-sional assistance as they developed plan-ning policies and held local hearings. Theyfound their recommendations generally ac-cepted by the planning commission and,eventually, by the county's elected govern-ing body, the Board of Commissioners.

The entire planning process in Big HornCounty was built around the idea of localcontrol. This approach was supplementedby an aggressive staff policy of represent-ing local interests in federal and state deci-sion-making proceedings. As local plansoften are a mandated consideration in fed-eral and state decisions, a strong planningprogram can help promote and protect lo-cal values.

Two examples of conflict between localand state or federal land use prioritiesdemonstrate the solid staff orientation tolocal clients in Big Horn County. PaintRock Canyon is a relatively wild foothillsarea that has still not suffered the adverseimpacts of rapidly growing recreationalactivity in the county. The Bureau of LandManagement's plans to increase access tothe canyon were hotly contested by localranchers and recreationists. The county'splanning staff provided an organizationalfocus for efforts to change BLM's plans.The staff maintained contact with the statecongressional delegation and sympatheticenvironmental groups and provided tech-nical analysis of BLM plans, along withphotocopying, meeting notice, and othersimple communication services. These ef-forts were not entirely successful, but addi-tional access to the canyon has been mini-mized.

Emblem Bench, one of Big Horn Coun-ty's most productive farming areas, wasthe point of contention in a second exampleof staff orientation to local clients. Theproposed widening of a major highwaythrough the Bench raised many questionsabout the loss of irrigated land, irrigationsystem disruption, and traffic safety. Theplanning staff critically analyzed highwaydepartment impact statements and helpedlocal farmers organize a landowner's asso-ciation and find an attorney who special-izes in working with rural landowner

groups. The result: widening of the high-way has been delayed until firm answers tolocal questions can be produced.

Traditional planning tools. The BigHorn County Planning Commission's em-phasis on local control of planning made itplain that the comprehensive plan wouldbe built from the people up or not at all.Any proposed plan implementation toolwas to be geared to high levels of public in-volvement. It would also have to be flexi-ble to accommodate the diversity of land-scapes and communities within the county,to account for the unpredictability of arural, resource-based economy, and to al-low for the individual attention to specialcases valued in small communities. At thesame time, local officials understood thatflexibility had to operate within thebounds of fairness. State law added one ad-ditional constraint—the only plan imple-mentation tool authorized was zoning (20).

Zoning that permitted substantial localpublic involvement in decisions, that ac-commodated geographic and social diver-sity, that recognized the unpredictabilityof future land use patterns, that allowedfor individual special cases, and that wasinherently fair proved to be a tall order.The county's staff planner groped his wayto a solution in the course of discussionswith the planning commission and localland use advisory committees and with agood bit of unconventional thinking.

The plan implementation approach fin-ally devised is known as a "permit system"(10). Its application in Big Horn Countybegan in September 1976 with adoption of

the Shell Valley portion of the county'scomprehensive plan. The remainder of theplan was adopted in July 1977.

Big Horn County is zoned, but not intraditional use categories, such as residen-tial or agricultural. The zones are natural,social, and environmental units—the ShellValley, the Paint Rock subarea embracingtwo related watersheds, or the West Coun-ty subarea covering a large, productivefarming area. Each zone includes agricul-tural, residential, and commercial uses in ahistorically functional mixture. Also, eachsubarea has unique attitudes about re-sources, land use, and its own future.

Within each zone a set of adopted, uni-form planning policies serves as a checklistfor evaluating land use changes and devel-opment. There is a one-to-one corres-pondence between this checklist and poli-cies in the county's comprehensive plan(the permit issued is called a plan com-pliance permit), eliminating, in theory atleast, the legally treacherous gap betweenzoning and the plan serving as its basis.

Public hearings are required for all butthe smallest developments. Large turnoutshave been common for controversial proj-ects, but decisions have been guided bypolicy, not emotional input; and planamendments reflect learning experiences inwhich policies were found to be inade-quate.

Empathy. The planning process in BigHorn County has been guided by local val-ues and needs. Planners discovered thesevalues through dialogue with county com-missioners, planning commissioners, land

70 Journal of Soil and Water Conservation

use advisory committee members, andcounty residents. It was a process of mu-tual learning, like that envisioned by JohnFriedmann in describing a "transactive"style of planning (7).

The planning commission's role in assur-ing that the county plan did indeed reflectlocal values deserves special attention. TheBig Horn County Board of Commissionersappointed a strong, well-respected, and ar-ticulate commission. The commission wasnot homogenous, as they tend to be in rural.areas, including, as appointments turnedover, farmers, farmers also involved inother businesses, a rancher, a schoolteach-er, a multi-faceted businessman, a truck-driver, and an artist. Not all commissionmembers have been long-time county resi-dents. Some have been involved in schoolboards, Farm Bureau, conservation dis-trict boards, and other community activi-ties. The commission was clearly set up toprovide leadership in getting a plan done,not to debate the appropriateness of plan-ning. Elected commissioners made the de-cision to plan, gave their appointees thejob of preparing a plan, and reserved forthemselves the ultimate decision ofwhether or not a particular plan was ap-propriate.

The ongoing planning process

The learning process that led to a plan'sadoption in Big Horn County has contin-ued. Vague, inadequate, or missing poli-cies have been identified, and several planamendments have been adopted. Clearly,the experience of administering a compre-hensive plan leads local officials and citi-zens to a more complete understanding ofgrowth and land development issues.

In Big Horn County almost every devel-opment review raised unanswered ques-tions: What interest do minerals lessorshave in surface subdivisions? Is the properapplicant the landowner or the builder?What is a fair way of evaluating lot sizes?Getting answers to such questions has keptthe planning process alive, active, and fair-ly visible.

Three persistent problems have arisen.The first and most vexing is record-keep-ing. The informal atmosphere of rural de-cision-making makes it difficult to keepprecise records of findings on which deci-sions are based. Automatic systems, likemore vigorous checklists or even pointsystems for development review, are cur-rently under consideration as remedies tothe record-keeping problem.

.The second problem is enforcement. Therural tendency to "work things out" is pro-nounced in Big Horn County. Violatorshave been given indefinite grace periods to

attain compliance rather than being prose-cuted. This has created a credibility prob-lem that may yet reach major proportions,

Finally, two of the county's subareas(both having poor public participation rec-ords) adopted plans that are not capable ofdealing with growth pressures being expe-rienced. The planning commission is nowworking to upgrade these plans and willprobably end up defining a bottom line ofcountywide policy against which subareaplans will be measured.

Basic rural planning principles

Some basic principles from Big HornCounty's successful rural planning effortsserve as both a summary and a conclusionto this case study. The seven principlesidentified below follow a logical progres-sion that begins with one fundamental as-sumption: Rural planning will he success-ful only if it is based firmly in rural values.

1. Be sensitive! Rural institutions andvalues evolve to fit their time and place.For many people, they represent a positivealternative to urban values. Rural plan-ning should be guided by rural values, notby urban values for rural areas.

2. Try to build planning efforts on tradi-tional areas of mutual concern. Water wasthe key in Big Horn County.

3. Demonstrate a strong, positive orien-tation to local clientele. Any appearance ofbeing an instrument of outside prioritieswill be fatal.

4. Use appropriate planning tools. Thisgets back to values-sensitivity to the land-scape, to differing communities and com-munity values, to the workings of the localeconomy, and to individual problems. Per-mit systems, where proposed developmentsare approved or rejected on the basis ofpreadopted policy checklists, would seemto be highly appropriate rural planningtools.

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5. From the beginning, try to get the lo-cal planning board or commission's taskclearly defined as providing leadership inplanning. A planning commission thatends up being a debating society will notget the jot) done.

6. Be patient. A sound, participatoryplan will make itself better as local officialsand citizens learn by administering it. Ac-cept planning as a community learningprocess.

7. Finally, keep an eye on the details ofplan enforcement and record-keeping andon the ultimate quality of local citizenplanning efforts.

REFERENCES CITED1. Ambler, Mariane. 1976. Shell says, "We'll

plan our way. - High Country News 8(16):1.

2. Babcock, Richard F. 1969. The zoninggame. Univ. Wisc. Press, Madison.

3. Beale, Calviii I,. 1975. The revival of popu-lation growth in nonmetropolitan America.El1S-605. Econ. lies. Serv., U.S. Dept.Agr., Washington, D.C.

4. Berry, Wendell. 1977. The unsettling ofAmerica: Culture and agriculture. SierraClub Books, San Francisco, Calif.

5. Big Horn County Planning Commission.1977. Big Horn County comprehensiveplan: Volume I. Basin, Wyo,

6. Clavel, Pierre. 1970. The politics of plan-ning: The case of nonmetropolitan regions.Center for Urban Devel. Res., CornellUniv., Ithaca, N.Y.

7. Friedman, John. 1973. Retracking Ameri-ca. Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City,N .Y.

8. Jefferson, Thomas. 1975. Letter to JamesMadison, In Merrill D, Peterson [ed.] ThePortable Thomas Jefferson. Viking Press,New York, N.Y.

9. Lassey, William II. 1977. Planning in ruralenvironments, McGraw-Hill Book Co.,New York, N.Y.

10. McClaughry, John. 1976. Farmers, free-dom, and feudalism, South Dakota LawRev. 21(3): 486-541.

1 1 . Sargent, Frederic 0. 1976. Rural environ-mental planning. Vervanna, Vt.

12. Sussman, Carl, 1978. Planning the fourthmigration: The neglected vision of the re-gional planning association of America.MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

13. Thayer, Ralph E. 1976. Planning away thefuture of small towns. Small Town 6(7):10-11.

14. Van Dresser, Peter. 1972. A landscape forhumans. Biotc..chnie Press, Alburquerque,N. Mex.

15. Wickersham, Kirk, Jr. 1978. Reform of dis-cretionary land use decision-making: Pointsystems and beyond. Zoning and PlanningLaw Report 1(9): 65-7L

16. Wickersham, Kirk, Jr. 1978. The permitsystem of managing land use and growth.Land Use Law and Zoning Digest 30(1).

17. Wyoming Conservation and Land UseStudy Commission. 1974. Statewide landuse planning program for Wyoming. Vol.II. Cheyenne.

18. Wyoming Session Laws. 1975. Real estatesubdivisions. Chap. 176. Cheyenne.

19. Wyoming Session Laws. 1975. State landuse planning. Chap. 131. Cheyenne.

20. Wyoming Statutes, Annotated, 1977. Plan-ning and zoning. Title 18, Chapter 5. Chey-enne.

21. Wyoming State Land Use Commission.1976. Statewide goals, policies, and guide-lines for local land use planning. CheEenne.

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