Kaid Benfield's Blog: Saving Wildlife and Wild Places

Why we do this: a musical tribute to the Irish landscape

2010-03-17T13:32:16Z

Lovers of music and the landscape, this is for you. Well, and for myself, since I truly love what I'm about to share.

I originally came to environmentalism, and eventually to smart growth and urbanism, from the conservation side. I grew up in the North Carolina mountains and would not, and will not, abide their destruction. Now I'm a dedicated city boy, and wouldn't have it otherwise, but for me there is no dissonance: the survival of the natural and rural landscape in the face of growth is utterly dependant on smart, livable urbanism.

The science and the law and the transportation data and the emissions and all that came later. Much later. Without the spiritual underpinning, the raison d'etre, there's no way I could suffer all the policy details.

Which brings me to today, Saint Paddy's. I have enjoyed beautiful landscapes far and wide, but none moves me more than that of western Ireland. Here, to the accompaniment of some of my very favorite Irish musicians, is a sampling of some of the best.

First up are the mighty Saw Doctors, from Tuam, County Galway. They may be my favorite band from anywhere. The song is about County Mayo, next door to Galway:

If you prefer things a bit more traditional and folkie, here's Mary Black, who comes from a great family of Irish musicians. The music is "Song for Ireland," written by Phil and June Colclough:

Finally, and musically a bit in between the first two, is the majestic "Homes of Donegal," written by Sean MacBride and performed by the great Paul Brady. The visual sequence shows the County's traditional, walkable towns and villages:

For me, this is pure inspiration, and not just for environmentalism.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Small town changes: “I watched the growth – it’s become ‘Paradise Lost’ for me”

2010-03-16T13:31:48Z

Today’s title comes from Jeff Holm, chair of the Board of Supervisors for Baldwin Township, Minnesota. Baldwin is a rural community struggling with its identity in the face of change. Holm, who grew up in the unincorporated township of around 6,500 residents, was participating in a discussion about Baldwin’s future hosted by Minnesota Public Radio.

As you can see in the first satellite image, Baldwin is north of the Twin Cities, about 40 miles from Minneapolis and in between the small towns of Princeton and Zimmerman. Its story is like that of many rural and once-rural places in America: First, a small community is populated with independent souls (very independent: even though Baldwin’s average household income is somewhat above the state average, only ten percent of eligible residents vote) who are drawn to the easy-going, peaceful lifestyle. In Baldwin, most have worked service jobs, although there are also some small farms. But, over time, others become attracted to the same lifestyle. And, if the town is located within driving distance of a job center, some of the newcomers are commuters, reaping the rewards of a city or suburban job on weekdays while coming home in the evenings and on the weekends to a more bucolic environment.

This, essentially, was the promise of the great suburban migration of the 1950s and 1960s. As readers of this blog know, that migration exacted an environmental, economic, and social price.

But what we now also know is that, unless managed very carefully, the pattern becomes a self-defeating cycle that fails even to deliver on the basic promise: the more people come, the less the community holds the appeal that attracted them. In the second satellite image, you can see the locations of some of the relatively new, suburban-style development now sprinkled around Baldwin. The township’s population has doubled as a result of the more than 100 subdivisions built in Baldwin since 1990.

Today Baldwin is experiencing a different kind of change, as new development has essentially come to a halt with the recession. More than 200 homes have been foreclosed in the last three years. But forecasters and Baldwin’s residents expect the growth to resume at some point.

And so, for the very first time, the community is thinking about planning for growth. Should the township incorporate as a city? Should it be annexed into nearby Princeton? (It is clear from the recording of the town meeting, below, that “becoming Princeton” is not a popular option with many residents.) Should it remain an unincorporated township?

What should happen with services and taxes? What are the residents willing to pay for? How will the streets and roads built with new development be maintained over time? Should house numbers be required in front of each home? What provisions should be made for an aging population? Is it time for a comprehensive plan? Is attracting new development essentially a “Ponzi scheme” that requires never-ending additional development to pay for the cost of each new increment? Is the development coming anyway?

For now, Baldwin is still the kind of place that has a bounty on gophers (“$2.00 per pair of feet. The pairs of feet should be mounted to a cardboard with your name and address listed”). But only barely. The population is expected to double again in the next two decades. Perhaps it will be helpful to planning that the township recently received a grant from the Initiative Foundation’s Healthy Communities Partnership to assist with citizen engagement.

I first read about Baldwin and its issues on the Strong Towns Blog, whose Chuck Marohn was one of the panelists at the growth forum. Marohn posted a terrific, fascinating video about Baldwin and its challenges that “in a very real, yet charming and respectful way . . . captures many of the value clashes” confronting the township and other communities like it across the American landscape. I highly recommend the video, and I also recommend the longer audio clip just below the video, which contains the discussion at the very well-moderated town meeting. In both, you will see and hear Baldwin's residents voice their concerns, which are not always what you might expect. Enjoy and learn:

Audio recording of MPR News' Ground Level forum on the future of Baldwin Township (55 min.)

Photos by Curtis Gilbert, Minnesota Public Radio News (excellent full, narrated slideshow here.)

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

How to save save half a million acres in Maryland and set an example for elsewhere

2010-01-21T13:24:56Z

Take a look at this series of maps. All are of the state of Maryland. In the first, ignore the blue and green streaks and concentrate on the gray-shaded portions. Those are designated growth areas, called “priority funding areas” in Maryland because they qualify for state infrastructure funding to support development. They are designated by local government and mostly comprise cities, suburbs, towns and immediately adjacent areas.

Ideally, this is where all new growth in the state would occur but, in reality, development is not prohibited outside the PFAs. Sprawl is allowed to occur outside those zones if the infrastructure is developer-funded and, although there has been quite a bit of concentrated development within PFAs, subdivisions have continued to spread across the Maryland landscape with very little restraint.

The second map shows this vividly. The areas in red are the parts of the state that will be covered with development in 20 years under current trends:

The third map shows the areas that would be covered if the state implemented a modest set of smart growth controls:

80% of future growth is directed to Priority Funding Areas (PFAs).
Allowable density inside PFAs is at least 4 dwelling units per acre.
Allowable density outside PFAs is 1 dwelling unit per 20 acres or less dense.

Under current trends, 650,000 new acres of currently rural land will be converted to development by 2030. Under the smart growth scenario, only 150,000 new acres would be developed by 2030, for a net saving of 500,000 acres.

In the final map, I have circled the areas where the benefits of the smart growth scenario would be particularly dramatic:

Maryland has a decent (and, at the time of its enactment, innovative) framework of smart growth laws that has facilitated a lot of good development and conservation. But the laws need to be strengthened. All of the maps and projections are from the Maryland Department of Planning’s Growth and Land Use Trends, where you can read more about them and their context. There is also a nice discussion of all of the above by David Daddio on the blog TheCityFixDC.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Lancaster County has a stellar comprehensive plan: now to implementation

2009-12-07T13:28:26Z

This is one of a series of posts on the winners of EPA’s 2009 National Awards for Smart Growth Achievement.

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is a place of immense cultural importance, agricultural production and scenic beauty. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has described it eloquently:

“Famed as a center of ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’ culture because of its population of Amish, Mennonites and other plain religious sects, Lancaster County is a place where farming is still a way of life, where small-town America still thrives, and where residents cherish a strong sense of community. Long known as the ‘Garden Spot of America’ for its lushly productive farmland, the county also boasts a stable industrial base and a strong traditional character largely defined by the early settlers, predominantly of German, Scots-Irish and Welsh ancestry, who flocked here in the 18th and 19th centuries.”

National Geographic Traveler named Lancaster one of the 109 most important historic places on the planet.

The County is also, however, a place much threatened by sprawl. Listed as one of the nation’s most endangered historic places in 1999 and still considered endangered by the Trust, Lancaster’s picturesque character is quickly being overrun by “strip malls, fast-food restaurants [and] suburban housing developments.” According to a member of National Geographic Traveler’s jury, the county has already “ceased to be a distinctive cultural landscape. The Amish are lost amid the sprawl and schlock." (For a very good, relatively recent article on Lancaster sprawl, see Jennifer Vogelsong’s story in the York (PA) Daily Record.) This is an important place sorely in need of good, effective planning.

Fortunately, EPA’s smart growth office believes that effective planning is exactly what the county is getting from Envision Lancaster County, its comprehensive plan and the agency’s 2009 national award winner for “overall excellence” in smart growth. EPA’s citation notes that the plan directs new development to 47 urban and village growth areas in existing communities in order to spare the farmland, rural areas, and natural landscapes that define the county's character. The plan also, says EPA, promotes reinvestment in the county’s cities and towns and encourages more compact, interconnected neighborhoods while preserving open space, protecting water resources, and providing for greater housing and transportation choices. EPA reports that, in the city of Lancaster alone, 62 development projects have so far been completed or planned for development in designated growth areas.

The planning process surveyed the county’s residents and found that, while they were pleased with progress in open space and farmland conservation, and with reconstruction of the county’s main highway, they also had significant concerns, some directly concerned with sprawl and growth:

Traffic congestion and lack of road improvements – “A continuing trend of steadily decreasing transit ridership and an increase in the daily vehicle miles traveled has contributed to road congestion — a problem that is likely to worsen with increases in population and suburban sprawl.”
Loss of farmland and overdevelopment – “Many commented that the construction of big-box retailers has increased traffic congestion and has caused the loss of small businesses.”
Deterioration of Lancaster City – “A declining tax base, closing of downtown businesses, loss of historic resources, and crime were uppermost in the minds of respondents.”

Envision Lancaster County’s “growth management element” projects that the county will need to accommodate some 53,000 new homes between 2005 and 2030, but that the designated growth areas (see map above) are sufficient to do so “if the plan is fully implemented.” It specifically directs that a minimum of 85 percent of new growth be directed to the designated areas, and that the urban areas achieve a density of 7.5 units per acre, while the village areas achieve a density of 2.5 units per acre. I did not delve sufficiently deep into the 248-page growth management element to see how these targets were selected or how they compare with current trends. The village target seems low to me if it is intended to describe the net density of new residential growth; but, if it is intended to describe the density of areas as a whole after new growth is accommodated, it could represent significant achievement.

These are laudable goals. But the “if” noted above could turn out to be a biggie, because adherence to the plan by the county’s patchwork of 60 (!) municipalities (see map below) is entirely voluntary. There is certainly reason to be concerned, given not-too-distant history in the county. Two years ago, for example, the voters in East Hempfield Township forced their municipal supervisors to rescind an attempt to curb sprawl through a traditional neighborhood development ordinance promoting compact development.

Unfortunately, the history of land use in the US is largely one of good plans being overridden by bad ad hoc development, approved by bad ad hoc decisionmaking. This is a major reason why the work in Ontario for the area around Toronto, backed by legal authority, remains the gold standard for planning on the continent, and why the process mandated by California’s smart growth law (SB375), which also has compliance mechanisms, is particularly promising in this country.

Notwithstanding East Hempfield, a positive sign in Lancaster’s case may be the county’s impressive track record in preserving farmland through easements, transfer of development rights, and agricultural zoning. The University of Pennsylvania’s Tom Daniels, former director of the county’s agriculture preserve board, reports in the August/September (2009) issue of Planning that the county has preserved over 80,000 acres, which would move Lancaster ahead of Montgomery County, Maryland, as the country’s largest farm preservation effort.

(There are some discrepancies in the reported acreage: EPA’s citation also reports over 80,000 acres saved in Lancaster, but Envision Lancaster County says that “approximately 30,000 acres of prime farmland have been permanently preserved.” The county’s Agricultural Preserve Board says, “as of November 18, 2009, the Agricultural Preserve Board has preserved 64,506 acres of farmland on 745 Lancaster County family farms.” Whatever the precise facts, this is a large and commendable effort. More on Lancaster’s agricultural preservation in a future post.)

We can also take some encouragement from all the work that the planning commission has done along the way in fashioning the comprehensive plan. Says EPA, “throughout the process, the commission actively engaged the public and local governments. The county's good working relationship with municipalities encouraged them to buy into the plan's principles.”

While we await the results on the ground, Envision Lancaster County gives us some excellent, thorough, principled planning, and a terrific vision to applaud and root for.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Florida county links density & conservation to restrict mining, protect water supply

2009-11-03T13:23:16Z

Lee County, Florida (Fort Myers) is moving forward with an innovative plan to use clustered, dense development instead of large-lot zoning to protect its water supply. Under current zoning the southeastern portion of the Gulf coast county has been threatened by the spread of both limerock mining and large-lot "ranchettes" in an 83,000-acre "groundwater resource area" that supplies 80 percent of the county's potable water. Over time the new plan will allow the restoration of a substantial portion of the area's wetlands, while still allowing mining in a restricted zone for 20 years and allowing the same amount of housing development in a more clustered form.

Currently the area features isolated wetlands surrounded by citrus groves, with mining in the northwest corner just beyond this image:

In 1990, the county designated the region a "density reduction/groundwater resource area." Seemed like a good idea at the time, no doubt, when prevailing environmental thinking was that restricting density was good for watersheds. That theory has been debunked, of course, since we now know that for a given number of households more concentrated development actually does a much better job of protecting water. Moreover, under the 5- and 10-acre lots permitted by the old plan, development could occupy all of the currently agricultural land in the area, precluding recovery of the wetlands:

The area was once 86% covered by wetlands, about half of which have since been lost. The new plan, which still must pass state review, will allow the same number of homes to be built but restrict them to a concentrated area, preserving the rest for agriculture and wetland restoration:

Mining interests and other landowners in the conservation area will be compensated by selling their development rights to builders who want to pursue compact development in the development zone. The new plan was given the go-ahead by county commissioners last week.

The plan has been opposed by the mining interests, but they are not shut out of the new scheme. While their rights will be restricted to a designated zone, there is room for limited expansion and enough rock in the zone to supply the companies for 20 years. The accommodation "strikes the right balance," as noted by the Fort Myers News-Press in an editorial.

On the left below is a rendering of the area as it exists now, with mines shown in blue. On the right is a rendering of how the area might recover under the new plan's conservation features:

Density without conservation fails to live up to its smart growth promise. Conservation without density is an illusion doomed to fail. Lee County shows how to link the two.

The plan was developed by Dover Kohl & Partners. Read all about it here.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

NOAA launches terrific new web site and report on coastal smart growth

2009-09-14T13:52:40Z

Kudos to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for a comprehensive new report and web site on best practices for smart development in coastal and waterfront communities. The report was issued in cooperation with the federal EPA, ICMA, and Sea Grant Rhode Island.

The report's introduction explains the rationale:

"The water, beaches, cliffs, rocky shores, and other natural features attract people and spur development. But many coastal and waterfront communities have found that conventional development patterns threaten the assets they treasure most. Smart growth approaches-guided by a set of principles that help communities grow in ways that expand economic opportunity, protect public health and the environment, and enhance places that people care about-can help these communities accommodate development while protecting their traditional sense of place. Some of these approaches also can help communities be more resilient to hazards created by weather and climate, such as drought, sea level rise, and coastal and inland flooding."

The report has taken the 10 basic principles of smart growth that have been adopted by the national Smart Growth Network of organizations, associations, and agencies (including the report's sponsors and NRDC) and adapted them to reflect the specific challenges and opportunities characterizing waterfronts.

For example, here's some of what the web site has to say regarding the principle of "tak[ing] advantage of compact community design that enhances, preserves, and provides access to waterfront resources":

"Coastal and waterfront communities have a natural boundary-the water-that makes efficient land use critical. Not only is development physically limited within this boundary, but proximity to the water is often of highest value and at greatest risk from natural hazards, requiring an approach to community and building design that provides high structural integrity and the greatest benefit on the least amount of land. Compact community design accommodates increased development in waterfront districts through higher densities and narrower streets. Through smaller building footprints for new construction, reuse of existing buildings, and creative solutions to parking, compact building design can leave undeveloped land to absorb rainwater, thereby reducing the overall level of impervious surface in the watershed. Together, compact community and building design techniques reduce runoff, flooding, and stormwater drainage needs, contributing to better watershed health. For waterfront communities dependent on the health and beauty of neighboring waters, these outcomes are vital.

"Since compact design will still include impervious surfaces, communities are well-served by incorporating site-level green infrastructure/low impact development (LID) practices to manage stormwater runoff. Many attractive techniques are available, including rain gardens, tree boxes, and green roofs."

The site then goes into some excellent examples of good application of this advice, and they do this for the full range of principles and techniques that create smart patterns of sustainable development in our coastal areas. Its creators did a fabulous job. If you want the full report, go here.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

More on farmland conversion in Maryland

2009-09-06T15:19:18Z

This is a follow-up to add to the record concerning the wisdom of the proposed office park and subdivision north of Frederick, Maryland. The property in question is highlighted in red jutting out from the existing city limits to the north:

One can see the location of existing development inside and outside the city boundary by noting the location of road infrastructure. There are substantial areas within the existing city that are not yet fully developed, as well as infill parcels that have not been annexed. (Viewers should be cautioned that not all property without infrastructure within the city, such as parks and cemeteries, should be developed, but much of it can and should be.) Note that development on the eastern portion of the new parcels would leapfrog over other farmland.

Given the presence of undeveloped land within and closer to the city than the pending annexations, the implication is that development is being proposed in the parcels to the north not because they are the logical next best places for development under good planning priniciples, but because they happen to be the parcels where there are willing sellers, and buyers who wish to develop. The implication also is that, because county officials have been disinclined to approve the development, the developers pursued annexation with the city so that jurisdiction over the property would transfer to a more accommodating government.

Is this the way smart growth should evolve? Readers can decide.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Does this look like a good place for smart growth development?

2009-09-04T12:59:53Z

I don't think so, either. But the leaders of the city of Frederick, Maryland, apparently think otherwise. This is despite strong opposition from the leaders of surrounding Frederick County, which until now has had jurisdiction over the property.

Basically this is farmland clearly beyond the reach of current development (you can see the edge of current Frederick development - actually a retirement community - just inside the satellite image, at below left). The farms will soon become yet more sprawl if they are built with an office park and residential subdivision, as intended under the city's decision to annex the properties on both sides of the main highway, US Route 15.

My friend Kai Hagen, who is an elected member of the Frederick County Commission, believes that, instead of sprawl, community leaders should focus on the following principles:

Protect the Monocacy River [visible running north-south in the right area of both images] corridor, productive farmland, scenic vistas, and a buffer between Frederick and Walkersville.
Focus on the existing "pipeline" of future development in the city (more than 3,000 homes). Get that done first, done right, and evaluate the impact.
Don't expand dramatically to the north when existing roads are inadequate, congested and dangerous, and there's no plan to solve that anytime soon.
Emphasize well conceived infill and redevelopment. Don't neglect existing neighborhoods in danger of serious decline.
Don't skirt the letter of the law by rushing to approve two major and controversial annexations within six months of the 2009 election.

All five county commissioners signed an op-ed in the Frederick News-Post opposing the annexation of the 336 acres at issue, and the county school board has opposed current plans for a school-sprawl site on the property as well.

Maryland has a suite of smart growth laws, and these properties have fallen outside the development sites that must be designated in order to receive state infrastructure funding. But one of the major loopholes in the law is that, once the property becomes part of a city, it is generally deemed appropriate for development. The city's aldermen approved the annexation last night.

Challenges await, including a likely petition to overturn the decision by referendum. The county commissioners have also asked the state's planning office to weigh in regarding the property.

For the sake of Marylanders who care about their land, the health of their cities, and the environment, let's hope a challenge is successful. Until that is the case, sprawl remains alive and well in the state that coined the phrase "smart growth."

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Boycotting Dolly’s Tennessee mountains to keep pollution alive

2009-08-07T13:32:10Z

This isn't usually my beat, but as someone who grew up in western North Carolina, the southern Appalachians (pronounced with a flat "a" in the third syllable, thanks) mean a great deal to me. And, like a lot of normal people, I am increasingly distressed that coal companies are literally blowing the tops off mountains now because it's apparently the cheapest way to get at coal, a dwindling resource that is itself fraught with environmental issues.

My colleague Rob Perks blogs on the issue with regularity, and last week one of his posts particularly caught my eye: a bunch of coal companies are pressing a boycott of Dolly Parton's famous Dollywood resort and other Tennessee tourist attractions because of a Congressional bill co-sponsored by the state's Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican. As Rob points out, Alexander's bill would do nothing to stop coal mining, even by mountaintop removal: it's "meant to protect water quality by stopping coal companies from dumping toxic mining waste into valley streams, which is poisoning drinking water and killing fish throughout Appalachia."

For a wonderful vision of what's at stake, check out this short video of the Tennessee mountains, with Dolly's classic "My Tennessee Mountain Home" in the background:

As the Senator himself puts it, it "sounds like they are saying we are not going to see you unless you let us blow off the top of your mountains and dump them in streams and that's a pretty unusual message." Really.

Now, there's not a lot of coal in Tennessee (North Carolina was mined out a century ago), but there's a lot in some nearby states, and the flow of contaminated water doesn't respect state boundaries. And there is still some mining in northeastern Tennessee. Bravo to Alexander for taking a stand.

The fact that the coal guys want to hurt the Senator by hurting his constituents speaks volumes about their ethics. I won't write more about the issue, which really isn't my expertise. But you don't have to be an expert to love the mountains the way they are, thank you. Check out Rob's blog for lots of information about what's going on.

And, if you like Dolly as much as I do, stay for a minute and a half to see this video, too, featuring Dolly on lap dulcimer. It's even better musically than the one above:

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Farmland worth saving (photo essay)

2009-06-24T13:31:57Z

These wonderful photographs of Frederick County, Maryland, are all by my friend Kai Hagen, writer, photographer, conservationist, entrepeneur, and County Commissioner. Kai is concerned that development is sprawling out onto prime soils even while there are ample sites within the bounds of existing development to accommodate the county's growth. (Kai's campaign web site - now archived, take a look - was headlined, "We don't have to sacrifice what we love about where we live!")

Some of these sites - including the one immediately above - are themselves either proposed for, or squarely in the path of, encroaching office parks and subdivisions.

I wrote about farmland in a somewhat lengthy post back in April. As I noted then, "Every single minute of every day, America loses two acres of farmland," and we're losing our best land - the most fertile and productive - the fastest, according to the American Farmland Trust.

Our food is increasingly in the path of development: 86 percent of the nation's fruits and vegetables, and 63 percent of our dairy products, says AFT, are produced in urban-influenced areas.

The solution to providing the best protection for the resource is to keep cities and suburbs as intact and dense as possible, to limit their spread across the rural landscape. Low-density suburban development is the most inefficient in its incursions on farmland, as it is with regard to watersheds, wildlife habitat, and transportation efficiency.

My friend, developer Daniel Hernandez, says, "Finally, after so many decades, policies for smart agricultural policy are just now emerging into some level of coherence, and building support. It is clear that agricultural land preservation is critical to the economic future of our country and to feeding our country. Anything that undermines that would be irresponsible."

Daniel continues: ""Recognizing that much of this prime land around the country has unfortunately already been infringed upon, there is every reason to still support the complete preservation of these spaces."

Kai's photographs remind us why.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Planning with Legos(r) – or, I may not like reality, but I love Reality Check

2009-03-13T13:27:57Z

Most of us love to gripe about development, traffic, and sprawl, and some of us even love to complain about the development activities of nearby churches and schools. But what if the same folks who complain had to confront a specified influx of residents and jobs (and it will keep happening, despite the recession), and had to make realistic decisions about how to accommodate that growth in their communities? What would they do then?

It turns out that they make pretty good decisions, actually, if given all the relevant information. People may take ill-advised positions when allowed to confront growth only parcel by parcel, bit by bit. But, when given a chance to participate in the bigger-picture conversation, they come to an understanding of what the real choices are and, by and large, do pretty well.

That was the thinking behind Envision Utah, a voluminous exercise in participatory planning for growth in that state's Wasatch Valley (around Salt Lake City's region), begun in the 1990s. The process ended up changing the way Utah residents think about their region, the environment, and development, and it promises to change the results on the ground, too, from what they otherwise would have been.

And, that, in a nutshell, is also the philosophy behind Reality Check, a participatory visioning process being staged in metro regions around the country by the Urban Land Institute. Over the last few years (each of these undertakings does require a substantial investment of time), ULI and various partners have staged Reality Check exercises on-site in metro Los Angeles, metro Washington, North Texas, the state of Maryland and, most recently, the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill "Research Triangle" region of North Carolina.

The exact format has varied somewhat from place to place, but most involve the following:

Assembling a large and diverse group of stakeholders representing all relevant constituencies (300 of us in the one for metro DC a few years ago)
Providing the group with large-scale, gridded maps of their region
Providing basic information about the amount of growth in population and jobs expected in coming decades, along with related economic, transportation and environmental forces affecting the region
Dividing the large group into tables of 8-10, each with a facilitator and computer whiz to keep track of their thinking and decisions
Supplying a bunch of color-coded Legos(r) or stickers representing consistent numbers of expected new jobs and residents (e.g., each blue Lego might represent 1000 people, each yellow one 1000 jobs, etc.)
Asking each table to select places on the map, if any, where participants think growth should not occur, and to allocate the new jobs and residents among the places where it should, along with accompanying infrastructure

The process typically takes all morning, after which the tables report to the larger group. Sometimes there may be follow-up workshops and always there is a final report that is distributed to participants and local leaders.

While the exercise has no legal standing, it has tremendous educational value for participants and planners. And the participants then return to their constituencies with heightened awareness of the realistic issues facing their regions as well as, one hopes, new perspectives on how to meet the coming challenges.

Most tables learn right away that, if they allocate growth according to the current trend, there simply isn't enough room on the map for all the Legos(r). So they end up making thoughtful decisions, by and large (though there is always variation in the details among the tables). In the Research Triangle region, for example, 80 percent of the tables proposed a mass transit system linking the three core cities and the jobs-rich Research Triangle Park. In metro Washington, at every table, there was an increase in households near transit - "for some quite a lot," according to a summary presentation by cosponsor University of Maryland. At almost every table, participants also proposed an increase in jobs near transit. The percent of households inside the region's current development "envelope" remained constant at most tables at approximately 85 percent, meaning the trend toward increasing sprawl would be slowed.

I think two elements of the process are particularly important: First, participants must allocate all the expected jobs and residents. That's the "reality check" implied by the exercise's name. Second, the visioning is performed regionally. As ULI's thorough report on Reality Check points out, "political boundaries created 200 years ago have little relevance to the way people live, work, and play in the 21st century. Most of us cross county and even state lines several times a week as we commute to work, pick up our children at school, and go shopping on the weekend."

I love this process. None of us wants to see our communities screwed up, and all of us have a stake in their future. But we need to be realistic about it, too. Kudos to ULI for getting this going.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Bringing regions together for cooperation and planning would promote sustainability

2009-03-06T13:29:53Z

Cities are traditionally blue, rural areas red, and suburbs purple, says Bill Dodge, former executive director of the National Association of Regional Councils, on Citiwire. But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't or can't cooperate, and Dodge believes the trend may be favorable. If so, it will be a good thing for the issues we care about.

Dodge's piece came across my virtual desk on Thursday. Here's a bit of it:

"More urban regions are becoming interested in preserving their rural fringes, to slow profligate sprawl growth and promote infill development that utilizes existing infrastructure and services.

"Simultaneously, more rural regions have begun to encounter the same economic, environmental, and social challenges as the more urban ones-absorbing new immigrants from other regions and overseas, for example. Local leaders and citizens in both sets of regions realized that they cannot address their own challenges, especially tough ones like affordable housing, if they can't engage all parts of their regions-red, blue, and purple-in resolving them . . .

"More rural regions are now providing agricultural and other goods to neighboring urban regions and more urban regions are providing emergency preparedness and other services to neighboring rural regions. Soon, urban and rural regions could be jointly preserving the fields and forests that are critical to consuming the CO2 emissions that threaten the future livability of all regions.

Dodge posits that our first president to speak of "the new metropolitan reality" might do well to create an Office of Regional Policy within the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Interesting idea. Go here for the full story.

Incidentally, the image accompanying this post is of a regional plan for Northern Virginia, depicting what planners hoped in 1965 the area might look like in 2000. In actuality, sprawl overran the place and almost all of that hoped-for green space was obliterated. With good regional cooperation, it might not have turned out that way.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

We must pay more attention to coastal development and sea level rise

2009-01-27T13:18:48Z

I spend most of my professional time thinking about where development should go, where it shouldn't, and what form it should take. A lot of my thinking is derived from wanting to reduce transportation impacts from sprawl and also to conserve as much of the rural and resource landscape as possible. And, like any decent environmentalist, I want development to avoid environmentally sensitive areas like wetlands and erosion-prone slopes except in very limited circumstances.

Courtesy of an article in The Washington Post by Juliet Eilperin, and some time on the web site of The National Wildlife Federation, I got a wake-up call over the weekend with regard to the latter. NWF has produced some revealing maps showing the effect of sea level rise due to global warming. Here is the area of Maryland's Eastern Shore around the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. White indicates dry land, blue indicates open water, and shades of green indicate categories of wetlands, as noted on the legend below:

Now look at the same area in 100 years, after 27 inches of sea level rise:

That is frightening. I've been to Blackwater and enjoyed it. You can bike or drive around its quiet roads (see below) and view all sorts of waterfowl and some other critters, too. But, in a century, there will be no roads. The entire refuge will be underwater, just about, and the villages currently on the peninsula extending south from Blackwater will themselves be either underwater or converted to marsh. (So, apparently, will be at least some parts of the city of Cambridge.) Yikes.

Eilperin's article makes clear (as do the maps) that sea level rise poses enormous challenges for conservationists thinking about how to preserve ecological communities when their current boundaries are likely to disappear. I'm thinking it also needs to affect where and what we build in coastal areas, and we in the smart growth community need to pay more attention.

Maryland wants to rejuvenate the state's smart growth efforts. Good idea. But.

2009-01-14T00:24:36Z

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley announced yesterday that he was introducing six bills in the state legislature to influence the state's land development in a "smart, green, and growing" way. Collectively, the bills would do the following:

Strengthen local comprehensive plans by overturning a court decision that last year suggested that large development projects in remote locations may go forward even when they violate applicable plans;
Modernize the state's overall planning goals to give more emphasis to economic development, housing, and public participation;
Create a self-perpetuating system of state smart growth performance indicators;
Reauthorize the state's rehab tax credit, with new incentives for green building;
Strengthen mechanisms for funding transit-oriented development.
Provide assistance to aquaculture businesses to flourish in Maryland. (Pardon the pun, but this one seems like a red herring to me. It has nothing to do with planning or land use.)

It's a start, and perhaps an important one, insofar as it signals O'Malley's interest in building upon the innovative smart growth program enacted under the leadership of then-governor Parris Glendening in the late 1990s. Some of the new proposals, such as overturning the Terrapin Run court decision and giving more tools for TOD, are especially laudatory. But it's also a bit modest, given the facts on the ground. Some backstory:

One of the great pleasures that have come my way from working on these issues has been getting to know and work with governor (as we all still call him) Glendening, who graciously wrote a preface to my book while he was still in office, and with whom I now serve on Smart Growth America's board. Smart growth was his signature legacy (he popularized the phrase "smart growth," for that matter, giving our movement a name), and he continues to devote most of his professional time to the cause.

The heart of the program, which took effect in 1998, was a requirement that local jurisdictions create designated zones ("priority funding areas") for growth, justified by a showing of development demand. State infrastructure funds in support of new development then would be allowed to flow only to those areas, which were also required to achieve minimum densities. Other parts of the legislation sought to stimulate job creation within the designated areas, preserve farmland, redevelop brownfields, and provide homebuying assistance near places of employment. After the legislation took effect, several outstanding smart growth colleagues took positions with the state to oversee its implementation.

Unfortunately, changing land use patterns is a notoriously slow process, and the program was allowed to languish during the subsequent gubernatorial administration of Robert Ehrlich, Glendening's successor, who served from 2003 through 2007. This, coupled with the fact that some parts of the legislation were weak to begin with (remember, this was 1998), has meant that the program has produced mixed results.

The successes should not be dismissed lightly. According to a comprehensive and very good report published late last year (Where Do We Grow From Here?), Baltimore's population has stabilized after years of decline, property values have risen, and there has been some terrific revitalization in the city (see, for instance, The Can Company, which was assisted with state smart growth funds). Outside the city, Baltimore County has emulated the continued farmland preservation success in Montgomery County, northwest of DC. The traditional towns of Cumberland, Easton, and Leonardtown are all being revitalized, consistent with their character.

But the report is also candid about some fairly significant problems:

"While Smart Growth, as defined and implemented in Maryland, has achieved many successes, research and analysis suggest that major challenges remain. The percentage of housing built outside of PFAs [the designated growth areas] is slightly higher than a decade ago. Transportation investment has not consistently been targeted to PFAs. As of 2007, approximately 430,000 septic systems exist on improved parcels. Land preservation has not accelerated. An increasing share of undeveloped lands is fragmented and as a result, substantial preservation of large tracts of rural land is unlikely in many areas."

Dru Schmidt-Perkins, executive director of 1000 Friends of Maryland (a member of the commission that produced the report, and also a fellow SGA board member) told The Washington Post that "There are visions but no goals or standards" for what new communities should look like under O'Malley's initiatives and, for the most part, that's the way it appears.

I hope that O'Malley will look at the "smart, green and growing" package as a start, but not as an end to his personal work on these issues. I hope he also takes a hard look at the existing smart growth programs and ramp up their implementation and enforcement, with new legislative muscle if necessary. The fact that so much development is still occurring outside the designated growth areas, many of which were pretty generously designated by their municipalities, is alarming. Maryland's population is expected to increase 27 percent, by some 6.3 million people, by 2030, and the effect on greenhouse gas emissions and the state's justifiably beloved Chesapeake Bay will be immense if the growth is not controlled in a sensible way.

The Where Do We Grow report estimates that the state can reduce newly developed land in that time period from 650,000 acres to 150,000 acres if it's done right. Now that would be smart, green, and growing.

For more of Kaid Benfield's blog on community, development, and the environment, go here.

Huge timber company backs off plans to develop Montana forest land

2009-01-06T21:34:08Z

Plum Creek Timber Company, the nation's largest private landowner (8 million acres nationwide), has withdrawn a controversial request to pursue residential development of remote land in western Montana. The company had requested an easement on timber roads owned by the US Forest Service in order to access the land. After two years of talks between Plum Creek and the Forest Service, the federal agency appeared poised to grant the request in the final days of the Bush administration.

But, in a letter addressed to the Missoula County Board of Commissioners, who had opposed the request, the company said it had communicated with the agency and was withdrawing its request after over 30 open meetings with local and federal officials and members of Congress. Identical letters were sent to a number of officials in other Montana jurisdictions, Senator Max Baucus, and Congressman Denny Rehberg.

The letter is linked to an informative article on the New West Development website. Matthew Frank writes:

"The easement amendment was privately negotiated between Plum Creek and the Forest Service to clarify the decades-old easements and ensure Plum Creek access across Forest Service for purposes besides resource extraction, namely to access residences. Residential development has become a big part of Plum Creek's business as the timber industry flounders from the effects of the housing downturn. In October, the Government Accountability Office announced it was investigating the deal . . .

"But Plum Creek said in September that Montana counties that wanted to back out of the amendment could.

"With [Plum Creek CEO Rick] Holley's letter, said Plum Creek communications director Kathy Budinick, 'we're simply taking it a step further and saying, we're just not going to implement it anywhere.'"

The letter cited a general "lack of receptivity" to the idea, which had also been forcefully opposed by President-elect Obama during the presidential campaign last year. Potentially at stake were 1.2 million acres of remote Montana land, much of it adjacent to wildlife preserves and federally owned forests.

While these sites would have been super for the people who could afford to buy them and didn't mind driving for an hour anytime they wanted something from the store, from an environmental perspective they would have simply been highly habitat-disrupting, automobile-dependent sprawl. This is great news for Montana and for the environment.

The much more sensible approach is that advocated by Missoula County Commissioner Jean Curtiss, who wants to address the issue of private land development in her county (where Plum Creek owns 58 percent of the land) through orderly planning and zoning procedures. Last April, Curtiss told New West:

"One of our goals is to try and guide growth so that you put growth where the infrastructure is and don't just spread it hilter-kilter, especially with all the wildfires we've been having every year. Those folks that build a house out there are going to think someone's going to protect it. And the roads aren't necessarily going to be built to do that."

Plum Creek grew dramatically after it converted from a limited partnership into a real estate investment trust in 1999. Within two years, it more than doubled its forest acreage, largely because of a $3.8 billion merger with a subsidiary of Georgia-Pacific. It also acquired land that held more value as potential real estate development rather than industrial forestland. As of two years ago, according to a 2007 story in the Missoulian, Plum Creek's real estate activities contributed 30 percent to 35 percent of its total cash flow.

To the company's credit, last summer it negotiated a deal to sell 320,000 acres to The Trust for Public Land and The Nature Conservancy for conservation. Pursuant to the resulting Montana Legacy Project, all of the land will be conserved and some transferred to Forest Service ownership.

Now, allow me a free-association indulgence. Cue up Willis Alan Ramsey, who only made one fine album, back in the 1970s:

Show in this town is over

Maybe just never began

And it's goodbye to ol' Missoula

done all that I can

And it's goodbye to ol' Missoula

goodbye to ol' Missoula

goodbye to ol' Missoula

Sleepy town

The song was resurrected by Jimmie Dale Gilmore on his 2000 album, One Endless Night. The full lyrics are reprinted in a really nice short essay on Missoula that I found through the wonders of an Internet search.