Kane County planners have been honored for their work on the county’s 2020 Land Resource Management Plan, a guide to managing Kane’s development into the 21st Century.
Robert Piper, representing the American Planning Association’s Illinois chapter, presented the chapter’s award for Best Planning Product to Kane County Board Chairman Mike McCoy at this month’s County Board meeting.
The 2020 Plan, prepared by the Kane County Development Department and adopted last year by the County Board, seeks to encourage controlled growth while maintaining much of the county’s rural character, protect quality of life and the environment, preserve open space and water resources and emphasize cooperation between the county and its municipalities.
Piper said the awards jury was impressed with “the skill with which the plan was organized and written, and its approach to long-range land use policies, an approach founded upon the concept of resource management.”
The land resource plan, led by Development Director Phil Bus and Planning Director Sam Santell, was also a finalist for the 1997 Burnham Award for Excellence in Planning, given by the Chicago-based Metropolitan Planning Council.