Policy

The Role of Land Use Policy

How each community uses land and constructs buildings on that land is shaped, in part, by local land use policy.  If property owners, or a community, want to implement a nature based or engineered solution to carbon sequestration, or construct buildings in such a way as to reduce emissions or sequester carbon, the local community’s land use regulation and land use policy must first allow for the relevant technology or support building practices that reduce carbon emissions or sequester carbon.

We explored the land use policy of nine communities across Virginia, six rural and three urban, to better understand whether current local regulation, planning, and policy priorities were conducive to deploying negative emissions technologies or changing building practices to reduce or sequester carbon emissions. Although current regulation in some places would allow for a few of the nature-based technologies, even those technologies may not be compatible with current community priorities. Many engineering-based technologies would require communities regulate their land differently than they do now, as well.

During this research, we observed that few communities were familiar with the nature based or engineering-based technologies that would reduce emissions or sequester carbon. Changing local policy likely requires first increasing community awareness of how these potential solutions to emissions might support existing land use policies or might offer potential co-benefits.