Create and Implement Healthy General Plans

How can public health advocates and city planners work together to create healthy, sustainable communities? This toolkit provides a progression of steps focused on the general plan, the key land use policy document for California cities and counties. The toolkit details a wide range of strategies, from building relationships and assessing existing conditions to creating and ultimately implementing policy language. Model health language is included to provide specific ideas for how to address health concerns through general plan policies.

This toolkit was produced by Planning for Healthy Places and Raimi + Associates, in partnership with The California Endowment.

Download a copy:

How to Create and Implement Healthy General Plans

 

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Download selected chapters:

Title page and Table of Contents

Introduction

Section I: Laying the Groundwork for Healthy Planning

• Getting Started
• Roles for Health Officers and Planners

Section II: Assessing Existing Health Conditions

• Questions for a Baseline Community Health Assessment
• Walkability and Bikeability Audits
• Community Food Assessments

Section III: Writing a Healthy General Plan

• The General Plan as a Tool for Change
• A Separate Health Element?
• Using Standards to Implement Health Goals
  

Section IV: Model Health Language

Section V: Implementation Plans, Programs, Policies, and Standards

• Zoning, Neighborhood Plans, and Development Standards
• Road Designs and Standards
• Master Plans
• Project Review
• Taxes and Fees: Financing Healthy Infrastructure
• Conclusion

Appendix: Fact Sheets - Research on Land Use and Health from Two Different Perspectives

• The Health Perspective on Planning: Built Environments as Determinants of Health
• The Planning Perspective on Health: Community Health as a Goal of Good Design