Land Ownership: New Demographics, New Information System (Application Of Land Ownership Studies To Kent County, Michigan)

Land use policy unquestionably requires information about land ownership. During the Congressional debate on the Land Use Policy and Planning Assistance Act of 1972, Senator Henry Jackson of Washington recognized the need for land ownership information when he said: "Rational land use planning would be impossible without knowledge of patterns of land ownership within a given area." (1) Yet this information is not generally available for the planning process. Senator Jackson also said: "It seems not only probable, but inevitable that, among the many other benefits of this legislation, the country may expect to obtain fairly soon a system of identifying and classifying the ownership and control of land..." (2) His prediction has not come to pass. This report is essentially a paper on rural land ownership information. It describes the need for land ownership information, specifies the elements of land ownership that are essential to a land ownership study, and proposes a land ownership information system for Kent County, Michigan as a example of its application. The objectives of this report are: (1) To provide the rationale for studies of land ownership; and (2) To provide a systematic approach for gathering data on land ownership.