As we've done with our legal notice summaries for several weeks now, LandWatch is now posting summaries of land use applications online.

Why? This is all part of our effort to get timely information on issues related to land use, planning, and the environment out to the Central Oregon community. Our hope is that you can use this information to stay up to date on who's proposing to do what and get involved in matters of interest to you.

For now, we're posting summaries from select land applications received by Deschutes County. (To see all applications that Deschutes County receives, go here) But as our internal capabilities expand, we'll start providing a more complete list of summaries from cities and neighboring counties as well.

Each application summary will have several useful live links: e-mail links to staff planners, links to Google maps to see where each property lies, links to each property's DIAL records, and links to the county's website for more detailed application information. Our summaries provide you with a simple but useful breakdown and put more detailed information right at your fingertips.

In the not-too-distant future, LandWatch will also be providing a digest of public hearings, meetings, worksessions, and other government sponsored events related to land use, planning, and the environment pulled from government calendars. Along with legal notices and land use summaries, our aim is to provide a one-stop-shop for getting and staying up to date on important issues.

We believe that our land use system works best when the public is involved. We hope that the tools we're providing help give you the information you need to play a role in how Central Oregon is shaped is it continues to grow.

As always, we welcome suggestions, tips, and your thoughts on how we can do a better job at what we do. If you have anything you'd like to say, you can reach us at info@centraloregonlandwatch.org.