Planning boards are often blamed for bad outcomes. But after years of working as a designer — and now sitting on the board side of the table — I’ve come to believe they’re not the root problem at all. The real issue is what happens when communities fail to make good design the easiest choice.
Planning Boards Aren’t the Problem. Bad Defaults Are.
Planning boards get a bad rap. Sometimes deserved. Often misplaced.
I’ve sat on both sides of the table — as a homeowner navigating approvals, and now as someone serving on the board itself. I can confirm this much: planning board meetings are rarely joyful, no matter where you sit.
Right now, I’m on the board side, watching a familiar pattern play out. A project arrives that ignores the intent of the guidelines entirely, operating on the assumption that if it’s presented confidently enough, resistance will soften. The design is treated as inevitable. The review process becomes theater. And the question quietly shifts from Should this be done? to How do we make it slightly less bad?
This isn’t just exhausting. It’s a design failure.
The Real Issue Isn’t Oversight — It’s the Lack of Good Defaults
I recently came across a story — possibly apocryphal, but still instructive — about Paris. The claim is that at one point, the city made high-quality building plans freely available. Use the plans, and you avoided most of the approval process. Skip them, and you entered bureaucratic purgatory.
Whether or not the story is fully true, the logic is compelling.
When good design is easy, accessible, and clearly aligned with local character, people use it. The city benefits. Builders save time and money. Review boards focus on real exceptions instead of endless mediations over mediocrity.
Which raises an obvious question.
Why don’t we do this with landscapes?
This is a question about design as civic infrastructure — not taste, not trends, but the systems that quietly shape how communities function.
What If Good Garden Design Were Easier Than Bad Design?
We already see early versions of this idea. Pollinator kits. Native plant palettes. Pre-designed garden plans offered by nurseries and conservation groups. These are steps in the right direction — but they barely scratch the surface.
What if we stopped organizing gardens around vague aesthetic labels like “cottage,” “modern,” or “Zen,” and instead developed place-based landscape defaults?
Not styles.
Vernaculars.
Imagine regionally specific garden frameworks that reflect:
- Local architecture and settlement patterns
- Predominantly native and well-adapted plants
- Climate realities, not aspirational imagery
- Readily available materials from nearby sources
- Cultural habits and how people actually use outdoor space
Think “New England Modern.” “Southern California Casual.” “Pacific Northwest Rockery.” Not as trends, but as practical, tested starting points. Not as marketing labels, but as practical toolkits — clear layouts, proven plant palettes, and material choices that already work in those places.
Now take the idea one step further.
What if it were easier for a builder to install one of these landscape templates than to pour a patio pad, spray foam a lawn, and scatter foundation shrubs like punctuation marks?
That’s the real opportunity.
Design as Civic Infrastructure
Haussmann’s renovation of Paris didn’t succeed because every decision was debated endlessly. It worked because there was a clear, shared design logic — one that balanced beauty, function, and long-term public value.
Landscapes deserve the same seriousness.
If we made regionally appropriate landscape design the default — not the exception — we could dramatically improve ecological outcomes, neighborhood character, and climate resilience without increasing friction or cost.
Planning boards wouldn’t have to fight bad projects one by one.
They could simply point to better options.
This isn’t about control. It’s about care.
When design is clear, decisions get easier. When decisions get easier, outcomes improve.
And yes, I believe this approach could materially improve climate adaptation — not through sweeping mandates, but by changing thousands of ordinary decisions about soil, water, shade, and plant life.
I’m still thinking through how this becomes action. If you are too — especially if you work in planning, design, policy, or horticulture — I’d genuinely love to hear from you.
In the meantime, for those of us in the northern hemisphere, there’s something fitting about considering all this during the quiet of the winter solstice. And for those in the south — I hope you’re enjoying the light.
— Rochelle
Great post – I’m starting to listen to your Dr. Jared interview, and was distracted by your growing up in Aurora CO, like my 8th grade thru HS.
This – “Can we make it so builders could more easily install … a lawn, and plop down some mindless foundation shrubs?” I think so.
Years ago seeing mostly weak city median templates in my then-home of ABQ NM, a better “Truly Tucson” template, and recently doing a Wild Ones home garden template for/of Las Cruces NM, has me thinking on this topic. Raising the landscape bar up may lie in builder front yards, not high-end home gardens or well-endowed, legacy-type public projects.