Whipporwill planning brings
electricity, water

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

WHIPPOORWILL SPRINGS — When a chapter does its community-based land use planning, it oftentimes comes up with a vision statement that guides the planning. When Whippoorwill Springs chapter presented its land use plan to the Transportation and Community Development Committee for certification, its statement was simple: “The whole land is sacred.”

The result of the chapter’s land use plan was dramatic: 95 percent of the community housing units have electricity and 87 percent have water and wastewater services.

According to the plan, the statement evokes the social relations between mortals and the immortal Holy People whose outer forms are landscape features, animals, plants, the atmosphere and celestial bodies.

As a result of the statement, the approach that was taken by the CLUP committee was a holistic view of planning for the land and community, which Local Governance Support Center staffer Dorothy Denetclaw called a “one-of-a-kind approach.” In planning holistically, the CLUP committee looked at the natural, human, economic and man-made environments within the chapter. 

On Sept. 18, the Transportation and Community Development Committee approved the community-based land use plan, which Whippoorwill chapter stated will be a “living document,” by a vote of 6-0.

The land use planning allows the chapter to look at places to develop for housing business, recreation and other uses, Denetclaw said.

“They get together and they strategize ... They prioritize projects,” she said.

Denetclaw noted that many people of the chapter are very close to and had a lot of respect for Mother Earth. One of the planning committee members was even a medicine man, she said.

The Whippoorwill Springs Chapter was formerly part of the Piñon Chapter, but became its own chapter in 1979. In its early years, the area only had a preschool and a meeting hall, but the chapter house was built in 1964 and a new pre-school was built in 1987.

Stanley Yazzie from the Division of Community Development presented certificates of appreciation to the CLUP members, chapter officers and Council delegates during the ceremony to recognize the certification.

Ben Silversmith, acting executive director of the Office of Navajo Government Development, said that chapters with land use plan certification have advantages especially in making short- and long-range plans for the land.

“Before their land use planning certification, they never maintained land status within their community area,” he said. “They start thinking about boundaries and they are maintaining the trash control and animal control and so forth.”

Once the plan is certified, Denetclaw said, the chapter must then work on implementation.

Whippoorwill’s plan was prepared by Julia Takahashi and associates from Santa Fe.

Chapters have two types of certification to obtain under Navajo Nation law, including five management system and the community-based land use plan.

Silversmith said that so far 69 out of 110 chapters have had their land use plans certified by the Transportation and Community Development Committee. In the Central Agency, there have been 12 that had their plans certified now.

Denetclaw said that four chapters in the Central Agency are now preparing to present their land use plans to the Transportation and Community Development Committee, including Blue Gap-Tachee, Tselani-Cottonwood, Nazlini and Tsaile-Wheatfields.