Factors Influencing Land Parcelization in Amenity Rich Rural Areas and the Potential Consequences of Planning and Policy Variables

Poster

Scattered rural development fragments large tracts of forest and agricultural land, removes land from productive uses, and has significant cumulative impacts on surface water and habitat. Ultimately, these types of community change degrade the resources that attracted residents and visitors in the first place. The actual process of land use change in amenity rich rural places remains poorly understood. From a regulatory perspective, attention has long been given to the creation of new parcels, their sizes, location, and impact on resources. However, there is little empirical evidence demonstrating that land division regulations have desirable impacts on the rate, extent, or nature of parcelization. This project utilizes GIS mapping and archival records to reconstruct historic patterns of parcelization in a sample of amenity rich, rural communities in Wisconsin. We are testing for the possible impact of statewide subdivision and shoreland protection regulations enacted in the 1950’s and 1970’s by comparing rates and patterns of parcelization across time. Similar regulations are fairly common in the United States and evidence of their effectiveness in the case study communities could have much wider applicability. In addition, we will assess various push and pull factors theorized to drive parcelization. Our goal is to demonstrate and communicate to rural communities the consequences of different policy and regulatory scenarios and help local communities to explore policy options and evaluation and monitoring scenarios for implementing their local land use plans. Funding for this project was provided by the Rural Development program of the National Research Initiative, CSREES, USDA.