Town and Country Planning Association

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Town and Country Planning Association is England's oldest environmental charity. It was founded as the Garden Cities Association in 1899 by Ebenezer Howard, initially to promote the development of Garden Cities.

Today the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) is an independent charity working to improve the art and science of planning. The TCPA puts social justice and the environment at the heart of policy debate and inspires government, industry and campaigners to take a fresh perspective on major issues, including planning policy, housing, regeneration and climate change.

The TCPA objectives are to:

· Secure decent, well designed homes for everyone, in a human scale environment combining the best features of town and country · Empower people and communities to influence decisions that affect them · Improve the planning system in accordance with the principles of sustainable development

The TCPA "is working to improve the quality of people's lives and the environments in which they live." (op cit)

Polcies adopted to further these objectives cover a wide range of major national and regional issues, including, sustainable development, improved strategic planning, inner city regeneration and the provision of affordable housing, building new and extended settlements to reduce development pressures on existing towns and villages and to achieve a more sustainable pattern of development throughout England.

[edit] Other jurisdictions

The acronym TCPA is also used by a group of townships in Olmsted County, Minnesota who do there own planning and zoning independent of and sometime in conflict with Olmsted County. In 2004 the TCPA lost a lawsuit with Olmsted county, clarifying with statewide implications in the State of Minnesota of how far it's authority reaches.