Tips for a Planner job interview

[vivid falcon]

I have a bachelors in Urban Planning (earned in 2014) and an interview for a local Planner position in a week.
What should I know?
What are common Planning/Zoning interview questions?
What did you wish you knew before your Planning job interview?

[vivid falcon]

Any insights <@&787910105185124392> ?

[finite sage]

Ooooooooo I have things

I would look into whatever jurisdiction you were planning on applying to and reading over their zoning code, zoning ordinance, and comprehensive plan. I would look into their long range projects and just have a general idea of what is going on in that jurisdiction.

Depending on what the job description says, I would ask what difficult cases they had in terms of public engagement, or cases they were most proud about

I’m not sure what state or country you’re in, but my state passed a middle housing ordinance, and so learning how jurisdictions handled that was really important to me, like tiny homes, or cottage clusters, or infill development

[elfin prairie]

I would also look at the projects they have recently been approving so you can incorporate comments about those in a response.

[finite sage]

I would also say that looking at if you’re in the US, any state directions that they give like senate bills or house bills and seeing how those affect Planning. like I mentioned middle housing was recent so when I interviewed, I asked how that affected them and how they’re handling it

[elfin prairie]

I concur. I'm a California based planner and we have a lot of state housing bills that jurisdictions are trying to implement still.

[finite sage]

Oregon here HB 2001 has been very interesting in my smaller jurisdiction

[elfin prairie]

We have similar laws through SB9 and SB 10. Plus we also have SB330 and 8 that make it difficult to deny housing and sets timeframes for reviewing them.

[elfin prairie]

Which country are you in? If in the US, which state?

[elfin prairie]

Has there been a lot of push back?

[finite sage]

To be fair, my jurisdiction already had some middle housing laws that they passed which allowed cottage clusters, but the whole duplex townhouse multi family up to four Plex thing has them all in a tizzy

Where i am is small, and there’s a lot of infill development, which makes it even harder for the residents to be OK with this

[elfin prairie]

Ahh, yes. My area complains about infill but they they don't want the agricultural or open space lands to be developed as well.

[finite sage]

Sorry voice to text butchered most of that 😂

[elfin prairie]

🤣🤣 I understood what you were trying to say

[midnight valve]

Yeah I think the things @finite sage are very important. Also from what I understood it’s important to tell whats your personal motivation that inspires you to get the specific job.

[vivid falcon]

Thank you all! <@&787910105185124392>.
As asked above, I’m In Arizona, BA in Planning from MN.

[fervent kraken]

Oh cool I’m about to visit four corners in like 1 hour

[elfin prairie]

Enjoy! Beautiful landscapes up there. Be careful of horses on the highway though, we experienced them

[elfin prairie]

Definitely would suggest reviewing their local political climate as well when it comes to planning. AZ is not known to have a lot of progressive planning practices outside of the major cities. There are always exceptions, but just best to be mindful and gage the panel. I would also avoid using examples of good planning from the coastal states (try and couch examples from the midwest or from professional examples if you need to use them).