Pinal County JLUS Background Report | Page 28

  The Pinal County JLUS advocates a proactive approach to encourage increased communication about decisions relating to land use regulation and airspace operations, AZARNG activities in Pinal County, conservation, and natural resource management issues affecting both the community and the military. This JLUS seeks to avoid land use and airspace operations conflicts by engaging the military and local decision-makers in a proactive, collaborative and multi-agency planning process. 1.1 Encroachment refers to the development of resource uses that conflict with others’ needs and uses and that may individually or cumulatively impact the military’s ability to carry out its testing and training mission. 1-4 What Is a Joint Land Use Study? A Joint Land Use Study (JLUS) is a planning tool that is developed through the  collaborative efforts of a set of stakeholders from a defined project area in order to  identify incompatible uses, operations and activities on the land, in the airspace, and on  bodies of water within and adjacent to active military installations.  This helps facilitate a  mutual effort to protect and preserve military readiness and defense capabilities while  supporting continued community growth and economic development.  The goal is to  develop a set of strategies for mitigating the identified incompatibilities that can be  implemented by the appropriate stakeholders.  These stakeholders include local, state,  and federal government officials, tribal government representatives, government and  non‐governmental agencies and organizations, local property and business owners, and  the military. The general public also plays a vital role in the development and review of a  JLUS.  The intent of the JLUS program is to establish working relationships between military  installations and nearby stakeholders and to encourage them to work as a team to  prevent and / or reduce encroachment issues that are associated with current and future  military missions and neighboring community growth.  To do this, the JLUS process  culminates in an agreed‐upon set of recommended strategies that can be implemented  by the military and stakeholders to ensure compatible development, improved  communication, and positive relationships between the installations and neighboring  communities, now and into the future.   This JLUS effort was funded through a grant from the Department of Defense (DoD),  Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA). As part of the grant funding match, Pinal County  provided 10 percent of the project funding in the form of in‐kind staff time.  While the  OEA was the primary source of funding, the content of the JLUS was produced by and for  the local stakeholders.   Pinal County served as the managing agency for the project.  Introduction