10.1177/0739456X05278984 Norton Local Commitment to State-Mandated Planning in Coastal North Carolina Local Commitment to State-Mandated Planning in Coastal North Carolina Richard K. Norton S cholars have recently turned considerable attention to evaluating planning out- comes. Much of this work has addressed state and local efforts to plan for and miti- gate natural hazards, improve environmental governance, and promote sustainability (see, e.g., May et al. 1996; Burby and May 1997; Burby 1998; Deyle and Smith 1998; Godschalk et al. 1999). A consistent finding from this work has been that local commit- ment to planning plays a vital role in explaining outcomes, especially when planning is promoted (or mandated) as a way to advance development management goals like haz- ard mitigation. It is not surprising that local commitment should play an important role, and much effort has been made to determine what mix of mandates, sanctions, incentives, capacity building, education, and other approaches might be used to enhance it (see, e.g., Dalton and Burby 1994; Burby and May 1997). Yet despite this attention, important questions remain, like what “local commitment” actually means (commitment by whom and to what?), what motivates and informs local commitment, and how it operates within the context of other important factors to affect local planning outcomes (see, e.g., Burby 1998, 288-90). This article presents results from a study of state-mandated local planning in coastal North Carolina during the mid-1990s. It is one of three through which I present find- ings from that study. The others provide an overview assessment of the local planning program (Norton 2005a) and an analysis of how localities were balancing environmen- tal protection and economic development through their planning efforts (Norton 2005b). The findings presented here focus on three concepts related to the procedural aspects of the local planning program: local elected officials’ commitment to planning as a function of government, the content and quality of the local plans produced, and elected officials’ use of their plans when making land use–related policy decisions. I analyzed factors that appear to explain observed variation in these attributes across the region. I also evaluated local planning efforts and outcomes taken altogether. In con- ducting this work, I gave particular attention to the motivations that appeared to under- lie local elected officials’ commitment to planning and to the role that their commit- ment played in determining plan making and plan implementation outcomes. This article first summarizes the institutional structure of North Carolina’s coastal area plan- ning program. It then presents the conceptual frameworks and research 149 Journal of Planning Education and Research 25:149-171 DOI: 10.1177/0739456X05278984 © 2005 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Abstract A consistent finding from recent work on the evaluation of planning outcomes has been that local commitment to planning plays a vital role in explaining those out- comes, especially when planning is pro- moted as a way to address regional development management concerns. While the importance of local commit- ment is not surprising, many questions re- main, such as what “local commitment” means, what motivates it, and how it oper- ates to affect local planning efforts and outcomes. This article presents results from a study of state-mandated local plan- ning in coastal North Carolina during the mid-1990s, focusing on the factors that ap- pear to motivate local elected officials’ commitment to planning and the influ- ence of their commitment on planning outcomes. Taken altogether, coastal locali- ties generally failed to address coastal re- source protection through their local planning beyond complying with mini- mum state resource protection rules. This was largely because of resistance to the im- position of state-level policies through lo- cal planning requirements. State mandates appeared to foster local com- mitment to planning but not the state’s de- velopment management goals. Within that context, local elected officials’ com- mitment to planning played an important role in enhancing both plan quality and plan implementation. Keywords: state-mandated local planning; regional growth management; plan implementation evaluation Richard K. Norton is an assistant professor in the Urban and Regional Planning Pro- gram at the University of Michigan. He teaches and conducts research on land use and environmental planning, sustainable development, intergovernmental growth management, and the legal aspects of planning.