Intervening in the land use process to increase active living infrastructure in Columbus, Ohio

Columbus Public Health’s Healthy Places Program enhances healthy and active living by establishing development policies and practices that reduce negative health impacts and by creating places that foster physical activity through daily life.  In order to foster physical activity as part of everyday life, the built environment must include infrastructure for walking and biking such as bike racks, wide sidewalks and sidewalk connections from the sidewalk at the street to the front door or to the building next door.  

The Healthy Places program is staffed by an urban planner who acts as a staff reviewer for proposed rezonings, which is one of the primary ways land use change occurs in our community. In this capacity, the health places program makes educational recommendations monthly to encourage private developers to voluntarily go above and beyond our zoning and building code requirements to strengthen their projects' impact on health by increasing active living features.

Since 2008, the Healthy Places program has reviewed 573 zoning applications. Of those, 341 (60%) applications received comments and recommendations from Healthy Places staff, and 108 (32%) applications were voluntarily revised to include those recommendations. In addition, many of the recommended active design elements are now required due to policy changes to the zoning code.

The rezoning process is an environmental change process that presents significant opportunity for public health professionals to advocate for active living infrastructure and achieve policy change to increase physical activity.