Planning and Zoning

Both of these, zoning ordinances and comprehensive plans, lay out the type of structures or other things can or should have.

To restate: Ordinances are law. They set restrictions that people must follow. But the comprehensive plans, simply give suggestions on what people should or shouldn't do with their land.

Taking a walk outside your building and around the
neighborhood, going far enough to take in as much of the diversity of the surrounding community as possible.

This allows things to be built in certain places which in turn would affect roads, bridges, telecommunication lines or cable placement, residential and commercial development, even agriculture.

An ordinance is defined as a legal authority(a document) created by an executive or an executive council to limit or control actions within the borders of the county. So in laymen's terms it is a restriction on what can actually be built to prevent people from just doing anything they want,

With an ordinance this allows the municipality to update and keep records of what they have built in their community.

A guideline the county would like its local governments, residents, and business owners to follow, but it is not a legally binding document.

This is an additional thing that not all counties may have.