Master Plans: Guiding Development with Precision

Cities and towns across the world never stop building, and while doing so have to juggle various needs — housing, commercial spaces, agricultural and manufacturing areas — while factoring in issues like traffic and environmental impacts. As they navigate further development, one thing is becoming increasingly clear. A good plan makes a big difference. 

As a result, teams ranging from private developers to government bodies turn to master plans. With this comprehensive, strategic approach to creating new spaces, what is built should better align with local needs. 

Defining Master Planning

Generally speaking, master plans are documents that frame how work will be put into place and how that work is designed for maximal benefit and minimal disruption. As a result, master plans will often outline means and methods of construction. 

They don’t stop there, though. They extend way past typical contract documents to encompass the project’s impacts on traffic patterns, nearby neighbors, the surrounding environment, and the community’s needs. For example, a private developer might create a master plan for their upcoming development. This lays out how the project will be built, what it will bring to the surrounding area, and how the developer will mitigate any potentially unwelcome side effects.

Master plans don’t have to be limited to specific parcels. They can scale up to cover much larger areas. City, county, state, and federal government bodies might implement master plans. The U.S. Department of State developed a master plan for its Foreign Missions Center (FMC), for example. This plan outlines where construction should be placed and optimal pedestrian and vehicular traffic patterns throughout the FMC. Cities also often create master plans that guide the City Council, the city’s planning commission and building department and other decision-making authorities. 

Because master plans vary widely depending on what the plan covers and who creates the plan, succinctly explaining everything master planning entails is fairly tricky — but defining master plans isn’t. A master plan is a document that lays out an overall vision for a defined area, backed by specifications, guidelines, and steps to achieve named milestones. 

When To Create a Master Plan

Not every project needs a master plan. In fact, many of the processes used on most construction projects tick a lot of the same boxes as master planning. 

The owner might conduct a feasibility study, for example, that analyzes the neighborhood and environmental impacts of the project. What’s needed to offset any potential issues often gets built into the design and captured in the contract documents. 

Generally, private entities create master plans when the project is either large in scope or highly visible (either physically, politically or both). Creating a master plan can help to capture the overarching goals and priorities of the project in one place that everyone can access. 

Say a developer is working on a project that spans five parcels: two zoned for residential, two for commercial and one mixed-use parcel. The master plan may give them a way to capture project goals across all those parcels, along with specific requirements for each zoning category.  

On the public side, master plans might be living documents that stay in place throughout the jurisdiction’s history. They are usually used to set an overarching vision for a specific area, like a city or county. The City Council might, for example, set up a master planning committee to update the city’s master plan every five or ten years. 

Public master plans often have a broader scope than private ones. They might capture goals for education, community programs and public safety.

The Process To Develop Master Plans

Because master plans vary so broadly, the process to develop them is also inconsistent. Usually, when a public entity is developing a master plan, a committee is established and a consultant is brought in to help write the plan. That plan generally goes out to the public with a review and comment period before it’s finalized.

Public master plans — like general plans for cities — often get updated on a predefined schedule (such as every ten years). 

On the private side, master planning usually involves a smaller number of stakeholders. The plan often doesn’t get updated once it’s created. 

Generally, the development of a private project’s master plan begins along with the project’s schematic design. At that point, the owner should involve someone with experience on similar projects. If the owner is creating a master plan for a new stadium, for example, they should create a master planning committee that includes someone who has built venues before.  

The people developing the master plan should collaborate with the design team to answer questions like:

• Where is the projected site layout? 
• What type of property can be purchased with the necessary zoning?
• What kind of research, surveys, and testing needs to be conducted to confirm the feasibility of the project?
• What is the order of magnitude or projected cost for the project?
• From which authorities having jurisdiction (AHJs) will the project need buy-in?
• What is the estimated construction schedule?
• What milestones are required to complete the project?
• What steps need to be taken to achieve those milestones?

Key Components in Master Planning

What master plans should include depends on the area or project the plan covers. Further-reaching plans — namely, public ones spearheaded by a government body — might include:

• Overarching goals
• Zoning maps
• Transportation plans
• Protections for natural resources
• Infrastructure requirements
• Economic development strategies
• Policies and action items

These public master plans are often broad in their scope but include specific actionable items. They might outline, for example, the city’s transportation goals over the next decade while also breaking out granular to-dos like scheduled road maintenance. 

On private projects, master plans are more focused in their scope. One of these might include:

• A local zoning map
• Existing utility infrastructure
• Descriptors for the desired parcel(s), e.g., size, zoning, requirements like egress
• A demographic study of the area
• An environmental impact report (EIR)
• A traffic study
• A site analysis
• A soils report
• Budget requirements and funding sources, including any applicable subsidies
• Permitting requirements
• Program requirements (i.e., how the building will function)
• Construction methods, potentially broken out by CSI MasterFormat divisions
• Project phasing (the stages and milestones through which it must move)
• Safety measures

In short, what the plan needs to cover depends on the area the plan encompasses and that area’s requirements. As a result, the spearheading entity — whether that’s a government body or a project owner — needs to thoroughly assess the current situation, their desired outcome, and what is required to move between them.  

Pros and Cons of Master Planning

Understanding the advantages and potential drawbacks of master plans can help inform decision-making and project success:

Pros:

• Provides a clear vision to guide the planned area
• Delivers a baseline proof of concept for the vision
• Helps stakeholders determine how things will get funded and paid for
• Clarifies the best parties to do the required work
• Analyzes community impacts and outlines steps to offset undesirable ones
• Helps with forward-thinking (e.g., adding a playground to help sell potentially hesitate neighbors)
• Identifies and develops a plan to mitigate risks

Cons:

• Time and money spent on plan development
• The possibility of calling potential issues (e.g., environmental impacts, traffic) to public attention

To maximize the upside of master planning while offsetting these cons, it helps to employ best practices when creating the master plan. 

Best Practices for Master Plans

While master plans vary widely, there are some guidelines that can be applied to all master planning processes. To develop a plan that clearly outlines what needs to be covered and drives the planned area toward its desired outcomes, stakeholders should:

Get the right team together.

People with insight into what will make the project successful are a valuable part of any master planning committee. A consultant with experience developing city master plans, for example, can provide structure in the plan’s development. 

They can spearhead soliciting feedback from the public or outline federal and state guidelines that require compliance, for example. Or an architect with experience on similar private projects can point out areas the owner should prioritize. If the architect knows a nearby group required a similar project to comply with dark sky guidelines, for example, the owner can avoid hassle by including those provisions from the outset. 

Do the required research.

It might be tempting to rush through studies and surveys, particularly because they cost both time and money. However, due diligence on the front end drives better outcomes from master planning. Stakeholders should do as much as they can in the beginning. This way, they can feel confident when they have to put the plan in front of the people at any AHJs who will be looking at it with a fine-toothed comb. 

Be specific wherever possible.

A good master plan delivers a concrete strategy to move toward defined objectives. It should outline specific steps and prohibit practices that could cause problems. The more clarity the plan can provide, the more useful it becomes to anyone who reads it. 

Cover hot-button topics carefully.

There are some instances in which thoughtful language is particularly helpful to avoid pushback from the public or rejection from AHJs. If increased traffic is a known concern for the surrounding neighbors, for example, the plan might use strategic language about the impact. Rather than saying it will add X number of cars a day, for example, the plan might outline that the developer will add a stoplight and widen the road to mitigate impacts. 

Driving Project Momentum with Master Planning

Master planning can be a highly useful tool to drive the project forward. It can foster goodwill in the community. For example, it can enable better pull planning and the use of the critical path method for involved project managers. At their best, master plans deliver areas that are optimized to meet the needs of the people living and working there. That helps private projects see greater success once the structures become operational. And it helps government bodies shape their jurisdictions in ways that serve the constituents. 

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