University of Washington Professor Richard Haag, the noted landscape architect and designer of Gas Works Park in Seattle, insists on seeing each site before starting any project, and often sleeps there overnight to understand its true dynamics. In full academic pursuit, I agree with him. But in twenty years of private practice, I have created significant master plans for many properties that I have never set foot upon. I’m not alone. Excuses are rationalized daily throughout the ranks of design firms worldwide:

- The fee is small and the owner doesn’t want to pay.
- We have enough base map information for now.
- The property is near the other site, no need to go again.
- This is exactly the same as the last project we did.
- The owners know what they want. We’re just drawing it up.
- The deadline is short, so we don’t have time to go.
- Let’s take a stab at it first and field check it later.
- We were there five years ago and remember it pretty well.
- The owner doesn’t speak English.
- There’s nothing really to see anyway.
- It’s not safe to travel there right now.
- The flight was cancelled.

Given all that, is it acceptable for professionals to bypass a site visit and prepare a salient master plan based on creativity, past experience, other resources and today’s incredible internet tools like Google Earth, flickr, blogs, local and regional websites and present a property owner with a viable concept vision for their land?

Frank Gehry refers to the critical second before a paint brush touches a pure white canvas. He calls this the artist’s ‘moment of truth’. It is a decisive time when the emotional and rational process coalesces to create a potential masterpiece. In most cases, the artist is not under contract and their work is sold later. Planners on the other hand are being paid from the start and often create their masterpieces in less dramatic fashion with simple road layouts and building patterns drawn to scale in an informed manner to invigorate a property owner and give them the sense of relief and confidence to begin a much anticipated dialogue about the initial results. So how off base are we without a site visit?

Our online land planning business actually discourages site visits. This is because many properties we study are in locations where planners never dwell. What would we learn that the property owner can’t tell us, especially if we ask the right questions? Context, as we normally understand it often does not exist. Test this out the next time you fly across the country. Look down and what do you see – mostly nothing for as far as the eye can see. Yet, these properties are subdivided and owned by thousands of private individuals that live outside the mainstream. They have no physical access to metropolitan planning firms and they are generally not familiar with traditional planning processes. There is usually no long term relationship to be forged. It’s usually a one time deal.

As professionals, should we turn our backs on this constituency and lift our noses or should we modify our approach and reach out to fulfill their needs? My answer is simple. Send your base maps and some photographs and let’s get on the phone. Site visits are overrated.

Rick Abelson,

Director
Online Land Planning, LLC
www.onlinelandplanning.com