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Government-Sponsored Website Helps Alabama State Employees Find Carpool Partners
In another sign of the gas cost impact on household budgets, the Alabama Personnel Department launched a password-protected ''Commute with Company'' website, to make it easier for state employees to join carpools to and from work, a service that Republican Governor Bob Riley promotes, stressing, ''It helps them combat high gas prices and reduces traffic on our roadways.''
Voluntary and free to all state employees, the secure website allows employees to fill in an online application, with a personnel database matching their commuting routes with others, not only by location, but also by departments.
''We realize that many state employees drive long distances to and from work,'' said State Personnel Director Jackie Graham, ''and our goal is to help state employees find someone with whom to share their commute.'' -- Alabama Office of the Governor
7/21/2008
Resource(s): www.governor.alabama.gov/
Pinal County Comprehensive Plan Available Online for Comments and Review
Guided by smart growth and sustainability principles, and focused on ways to save open space, improve mobility and attract living wage jobs, the Pinal County Comprehensive Plan -- worked out in a broad public process in the past 15 months, with participation of all municipalities and Native American communities -- is now available for review and comment online, ahead of outreach events throughout the summer and formal hearings this fall, all its policies designed ''to reflect and honor the local jurisdictions' planning authority while ensuring a coordinated, regional effort.''
A detailed follow-up to the Pinal Vision laid out by officials, residents, business leaders, landowners and other stakeholders, reports The Casa Grande Dispatch, the comprehensive plan elaborates on the vision's seven components in chapters -- Sense of Community; Mobility and Connectivity; Economic Sustainability; Open Space and Places; Environmental Stewardship; Healthy, Happy Residents; and Quality Educational Opportunities.
Among other top priorities, the plan identifies four county growth areas targeted for infrastructure investment over the next 10 years; outlines an integrated, multimodal transportation system that provides for vehicular travel and transit, including commuter and local rail lines, along with bike and pedestrian routes; lists 39 prospective mixed-use centers, each with 500 jobs for every 1,000 residents; shows large tracts of protected open space, as well as regional parks, wildlife corridors and recreational trails; calls for efficient use of resources, including water and energy; builds on the recently completed Pinal County Affordable Housing Plan with possible funding mechanisms for a full range of quality housing and neighborhoods; and, a point unique in a comprehensive plan, recognizes educational opportunities ''as critical to the long-term economic sustainability'' of the county and ''an important quality of life component.''
See the draft at www.PinalCountyPlan.com. -- The Casa Grande Dispatch
7/8/2008
Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1817
Maricopa City Leaders Initiate Commuter Bus Service, Ask Developers to Build Whole Communities
With the combined hardship of high gas prices, long commutes and ruinous foreclosures forcing many suburbanites to reassess their lifestyles and penchant for large homes on urban outskirts, Maricopa city leaders launched commuter buses to Tempe and downtown Phoenix, about 30 and 35 miles north, and took the extraordinary step of asking builders ''not to develop just isolated subdivisions behind walls, but whole communities that encourage walking by including stores, schools and services nearby,'' reports USA Today writer Haya El Nasser, quoting Mayor Tony Smith.
''The people of Maricopa don't want to be a bedroom community, a city of rooftops,'' he said. ''They want a self-sustained community.''
Reflective of a movement afoot nationwide, the writer notes, the ''seeds of change'' also are taking root in Buckeye, some 30 miles west of central Phoenix.
''We've got to get jobs to keep people from driving,'' said Mayor Jackie Meck, worried that gas could reach $8 or $10 a gallon, with Town Manager Jeanine Guy adding that even if gas ''drops to $3 a gallon'' and people may think ''we'' don't need mixed uses or transit anymore, ''We do.''
Urban experts, researchers and increasingly builders agree.
Although ''suburbs are not going to go away,'' pointed out Smart Growth America Communications Director David Goldberg, ''(d)rive-till-you-qualify collapsed. It's done. It's not going to work as a housing strategy anymore.''
The nation is ''sort of stuck with retrofitting the suburbs,'' which is ''not all that bad,'' observed Center for Neighborhood Technology Executive Director Scott Bernstein, since ''(t)here is nothing like a crisis to get people to try something.''
Fiserv Lending Solutions chief economist David Stiff, whose firm reconfirmed other research showing deeper home price drops in areas far from urban centers than in nearby suburbs, called the trends behind the long housing push into distant suburbs and rural areas unsustainable.
''The problem is that it can be two, three, four times as expensive to develop in close-in neighborhoods vs. outlying neighborhoods, if there's any space at all,'' he estimated, confident in people's responsiveness to economic incentives. ''Reducing commuting costs, trying to be more environmentally conscious and trying to find the cheapest housing affects decisions simultaneously.''
And developer Kenneth Himmel, who built the Reston Town Center in Virginia, the Time Warner Center in New York and City Place in West Palm Beach, Florida, told the writer now is ''the perfect moment'' for change.
''Some people will say, 'For $300,000 to $325,000, what are my options to live closer?' Maybe it's a smaller home,'' he stressed. ''Do they want to drive or do they want to be five or 10 minutes from their office? People will make the trade.'' -- USA Today
7/29/2008
Resource(s): www.usatoday.com/
Hercules City Council Action Will Help Waterfront Smart Growth Project
Frustrated by inaction on a 2000 community vision of turning the stagnant San Pablo Bay waterfront into ''a walkable, bicycle-friendly and transit-oriented'' neighborhood with upscale shops and restaurants, reports Contra Costa Times writer Tom Lochner, Hercules Bayfront LLC and city residents launched the Waterfront Now Initiative, with their petition signed by about 25 percent of registered city voters in just three weeks and the City Council unanimously passing a ''New Urbanist, Smart Growth'' development ordinance, which eliminates the need to put the issue on the November ballot.
''It has long been clear to us that the Hercules community has reached near-consensus on the proposed development,'' wrote residents Susan Fuerstenberg, Jeff Boore and Bill Prather to the council about the petition drive, with Councilwoman Chaleen Raines calling the ordinance ''a no-brainer'' in the absence of any real opposition.
The conceptual development plan for 53 acres of the waterfront features 1,224 housing units, 42,000 square feet of retail, 81,000 square feet of offices, 134,000 square feet of adaptable ''flex space,'' and an intermodal transit center, including an Amtrak Capitol Corridor station and a San Francisco ferry terminal.
Hercules Bayfront LLC spokesman Ethan Sischo thinks the site's commercial showcase could be under development next year, but most of the residential component won't be built before 2011, and then only if warranted by market conditions and allowed by timely federal, state and city permits. -- Contra Costa Times
7/23/2008
Resource(s): www.contracostatimes.com/
Editorial Urges L.A. Drivers to Share the Road With Cyclists
''Stop harassing cyclists'' and ''learn to share the road,'' appeals The Los Angeles Times to drivers, pointing out that bikers ''perform a public service by reducing traffic and emissions,'' and that high gas prices have clearly multiplied ''the number of people who bike to work or across town on errands.''
At the same time, cyclists tell ''horror stories about drivers who cut them off, yell at them, throw things and otherwise endanger their lives,'' the daily reports, citing an almost fatal result from July 4th.
A driver, ''allegedly enraged because two bikers speeding downhill on Mandeville Canyon Road were blocking his progress, swerved in front of them and slammed on the brakes,'' the daily says, noting that the bikers ''were seriously hurt and the driver faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon.''
With more and more bikers expected on city streets, officials ''are trying to adapt.'' Los Angeles, which already requires commercial projects over 10,000 square feet to include bike parking and showers for biking employees, is updating its bicycle master plan. West Hollywood may finally end its ban on sidewalk biking. And the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has equipped buses with bike racks and expanded bike parking areas at train stations.
''Obviously, a lot more is needed: more bike paths and lanes, more 'smart growth' policies that incorporate bike-friendliness and more incentive programs to encourage workers to cycle to the office,'' the daily opines. ''Bikers are boosting their health, their pocketbooks, and the city's environment. If it's a battle for moral authority between drivers and bikers, the bikers have already won. Give them a break.'' -- The Los Angeles Times
7/12/2008
Resource(s): www.latimes.com/
California's Climate Solution Act Will Set New Development Standard, Says Ventura City Manager
Confident that California's lead in cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, as required by its landmark Climate Solution Act (AB 32), will speed up changes in American development patterns and lifestyles necessary to achieve sustainability, Ventura City Manager Rick Cole told the Los Angeles-based Planning Report that even when the global economy slows down and gas prices decline somewhat, ''we can't put long-term policies at the mercy of immediate crises,'' stressing, ''It's not today's gas prices that will force adoption of a smart growth model -- suburban sprawl is doomed by the triple witching hour of heating up the planet, running up unsustainable debt, and running out of cheap energy.''
He cautioned, however, against expectations of instant results.
''We've been building both our landscape and our economy around the car for more than 60 years,'' he pointed out. ''Even if we adopted a universal program of smart growth across America tomorrow, it would be decades before we had repaired and reshaped our landscape and economy to a more sustainable model. In the meantime, there will be tremendous pressure to exploit existing and new energy resources to maintain the suburban model we live in.''
Asked by the Planning Report interviewer why AB 32 will be such ''a dynamic driver of change for smart growth,'' Rick Cole responded: ''Because we can't possibly reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 without reducing vehicle miles traveled.''
Continuance of sprawl and delay in ''rewriting every zoning code in the state'' will only increase what the public will pay in the long run, and the price is already staggering.
''I haven't seen figures for California, but The Economist says that this year alone, the oil-importing nations will transfer 2 trillion dollars to the oil exporting nations,'' he said. ''That's money that won't go to improve our infrastructure, won't go to protect our environment, and won't go to educating our youth. It goes out our tailpipes.''
Although he considers the political situation ''volatile'' -- because despite the home-price plunge in outer areas and the increase in ''smart growth, form-based coding, mixed use, and transit-oriented development'' projects throughout the state, ''we haven't quite reached the tipping point yet'' -- Rick Cole sees reasons for optimism.
One reason is the ''incredible backbone'' shown by presumed Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama in calling a gas tax holiday -- still pushed by his Republican counterpart, Senator John McCain, and for a time pursued by Senator Hillary Clinton -- ''what it was: 'A phony scheme that's typical of how Washington works.'''
Another reason is ''incredible resilience'' shown by California over the past 150 years.
''Our growing population and changing demographics will open a huge market for reinvesting in our older communities, in and around the core of our key regions,'' he predicted. ''Now is the time to prepare for that opportunity.''
Had Republican Governor Pete Wilson (1991-99) not ignored the best strategies from other states and his own growth-management opportunity during a similar ''deep real estate downturn,'' Rick Cole concluded, ''we'd be finishing the Subway to the Sea, the Gold Line extension to Ontario Airport, and we'd have regular commuter rail between Ventura and Santa Barbara -- and $5 gas would be a little less painful.'' -- Planning Report
7/1/2008
Resource(s): www.planningreport.com/tpr/
Editorial Calls California's SB 375 a ''Breakthrough'' on Regional Planning
For decades, California has in vain ''struggled with how to marry its environmental values with its transportation needs while honoring the traditions of local control and building adequate housing,'' with builders finding sprawl easier and cheaper, commuters jamming the roads, the state trying to ease traffic and air pollution, and some local residents using the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to block infill or affordable housing in their neighborhoods, says a Sacramento Bee editorial in support of state Democratic Senator Darrell Steinberg's bill (SB 375) ''that tackles these multiple dysfunctions.''
A result of two years of work, the editorial observes, the bill is seen by some as the most significant land-use measure since the 1976 passage of the California Coastal Act, with California League of Conservation Voters President Tom Adams, a force in drafting the bill, crediting the senator with a ''trifecta of the impossible'' in handling challenges of transportation, housing and climate change.
Builders ''have long opposed regional planning,'' but they are now ''looking at a future of $5 gasoline'' and backing the bill ''because it limits their risk of litigation,'' the editorial notes, quoting California Building Industry Association Chairman Ray Becker, who said, ''We get more certainty in the process.''
As in Sacramento's blueprint, the editorial continues, every required metropolitan ''sustainable community strategy,'' a product of numerous local meetings, would shape regional transportation plans, with the state's Air Resources Board setting regional emission-reduction targets and overseeing regional progress.
Although regions ''wouldn't be required by law to meet these targets,'' the editorial considers the $5 billion in transportation funds the state distributes each year a sufficiently strong incentive to comply with the bill.
With the Senate passing the bill and Assembly members expected to examine the ''finer details,'' the editorial says, ''Barring any surprises, they should send it to the Senate for concurrence, and then on to the governor's desk.'' -- Sacramento Bee
8/7/2008
Resource(s): www.sacbee.com/
Builders, Environmentalists, and Local Leaders Back California Anti-Sprawl Bill
In a political feat long thought impossible, state Democratic Senator Darrell Steinberg, the incoming Senate president pro tem, reports Sacramento Bee writer Aurelio Rojas, persuaded builders, environmentalists and local leaders to agree on his anti-sprawl bill (SB 375) -- modeled on the six-county Sacramento Area Council of Governments' 2004 smart-growth blueprint -- as necessary to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions to the 1990 level by 2020, a goal mandated by the landmark California climate-change legislation (AB 32) Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law two year ago.
Having passed the Senate and the Assembly Appropriations Committee, Senator Steinberg's bill requires metropolitan regions to adopt a ''sustainable community strategy'' for compact development, transit improvements and less costly housing.
In return, complying local governments will get money from the state's $5 billion annual transportation fund and qualifying developers will benefit from a streamlined permitting process, with some relief from California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) reviews.
''Because cars and light trucks emit about 30 percent of greenhouse gases in California, reducing the time that commuters spend in their cars through smart, coordinated transportation and housing planning is essential to meeting the requirements of AB 32,'' Senator Steinberg commented. ''It is also the first time in the country that the issues of land use, transportation, housing and climate change have been brought together in a comprehensive piece of legislation.''
California Building Industry Association Chairman Ray Becker said he has fought ''regional planning and regional government'' for three decades, but ''we cannot continue to do business as usual.'' Thus, ''this historic agreement.''
California League of Conservation Voters President Tom Adams used a race-winning-combination term, calling the bill ''a trifecta.''
Senator Steinberg, he stated, ''has managed to pull together a bill that brings some of the most important and most difficult statutes into alignment.''
And League of California Cities Vice President and Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo noted that the league board endorsed the bill unanimously and that local decision-making power remains intact.
''There are incentives in place that will reward those cities that chose to do smart growth,'' she stressed. ''If you still want to do it dumb, you can, but you don't get the incentives.'' -- Sacramento Bee
8/11/2008
Resource(s): http://climateintel.com/ ; www.sacbee.com/
Developer's Blogs Promote Benefits of Mixed-Use, Mixed-Income Neighborhoods
At hard public-relations work for its proposed mostly residential Ponte Vista community of 1,950 town houses and senior condos on a long-vacant 61-acre Navy site in San Pedro -- a project criticized by many neighbors as much too dense -- Bisno Development Company LLC launched not only a blog about the complex, but also five other blogs on its overall achievement efforts and support for smart growth, livability, transit and workforce housing.
''Ironically, some environmental and slow-growth advocates still oppose these projects because they see any density as bad,'' said its Chairman and CEO Bob Bisno. ''We hope these blogs explain why mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods, with appealing streetscapes, friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists, require density to be successful.''
In a press release about its new blogs, the company cites the 2003 ''Creating Great Neighborhoods: Density in Your Community'' guide from the Local Government Commission and the U.S. EPA.
''People are beginning to realize that nodes of more intense development can help achieve local economic development goals, provide housing options, create walkable neighborhoods, and protect their air, water and open space,'' it quotes. ''This balance helps create a sense of place -- a place to walk, a place to talk to neighbors, a place to know the children are safe to walk to school.''
See the blogs at www.bisnobuildingforpeople.com, www.bisnofortherecord.com, www.bisnolivablecities.com, www.bisnotransitdestinations.com, www.bisnoworkforcehousing.com and www.bisno.yourpontevista.com. -- BusinessWire, Daily Breeze
7/14/2008
Resource(s): www.bnet.com/ ; www.dailybreeze.com/
Strategic Transportation Plan, Reformed Zoning Code Part of Denver Mayor's Smart Growth Initiatives
Not unlike 100 years ago -- when Denver hosted the Democratic presidential convention, the nation faced hard times, and the silver crisis put many Western banks out of business -- the 2008 mortgage breakdown, shortly ahead of $4-a-gallon gas, caught many Americans ''in the vice of rising prices just as their savings collapsed,'' and Democrats once again chose Denver to confirm their White House nominee this August, in recognition of the city's creativity, determination and regional success, said Mayor John Hickenlooper in his fifth State of the City address, outlining another 25 initiatives and priorities, which include implementation of a comprehensive Strategic Transportation Plan (STP) and a reformed zoning code -- vital for smart growth.
With construction of a 12.1-mile light-rail line in the West Corridor underway and Denver Union Station being designed as one of the finest ''multi-use transit hubs'' in the nation, the mayor noted, the STP represents ''a unique planning approach to help mitigate road congestion by integrating all forms of mobility, including cars, walking, biking and transit.''
Metro Denver already has more than 900 miles of bike paths, plus almost 1,100 miles of bike lanes on roads, and the recent settlement around the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, he continued, ''will expand the bike system both in Denver and throughout our northern neighbors,'' while the River North Greenway Master Plan ''will extend and improve bike access leading into the Northeast Denver Greenway.''
Proud of voter approval for $550 million in bonds last year, with leveraged private dollars increasing capital improvement funds to a total of $700 million, much of the money targeted for ''mobility and cultural infrastructure,'' Mayor Hickenlooper said, ''A different but equally important competitive investment is to provide our neighborhoods and our development community with consistent, fair and efficient city processes.''
At the same time, an ''historic change in our zoning code,'' worked out by the Zoning Code Task Force after more than three years of broad public input, will become ''a crucial tool to implement the community's vision for smart growth embodied in Blueprint Denver,'' he stressed, looking forward ''to a comprehensive public process around the draft next year, before finalizing recommendations for City Council.''
Noting the real risk of climate change, he also pointed to the need for investment ''in the next generation of energy production and conservation,'' highlighted city achievements and plans in both fields, and addressed the huge potential for creation of quality jobs around home retrofits.
''Denver could work with the mortgage industry and facilitate the implementation of energy audit recommendations to the homes of individuals,'' he explained. ''By attaching energy improvements to mortgages, many home buyers could probably receive an annual dividend. Such a program would create thousands of jobs, reduce greenhouse emissions, and reduce the flow of dollars to oil exporters.''
Concluding his speech with a thought about the Denverites of 2108, Mayor Hickenlooper said probably ''motor scooters will seem as quaint to those citizens of the future as the horse and buggy does to all of us today'' or perhaps ''parking meters won't exist, because there will be no more cars on the roads,'' and expressed optimism that ''at least a few of our efforts will stand the test of time.''
When they gather ''to observe the city's 250th birthday,'' he said, ''I hope that people can say we read our times correctly and responded to them with all our might.'' -- City of Denver
7/1/2008
Resource(s): www.denvergov.org/
Editorial: Want Smart Growth? Eliminate Hidden Sprawl Subsidies
Because of sprawl, the national number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) rose three times faster than population growth between 1980 and 2005, including a 31-percent jump in Colorado -- from 10,900 to 14,340 miles a year for the average driver, writes state Democratic Representative Claire Levy in a Denver Post guest opinion, pointing out that the nation and Colorado can significantly reduce everybody's need to drive by ''smarter land-use planning'' and eliminating ''hidden subsidies for sprawl and impediments to smart growth.''
Multiplied by the population growth rate, she tells the readers, the extra 4,000 miles per capita they must drive to jobs, shops, schools and services far from their homes ''has contributed to the $1.5 billion annual shortfall in transportation funding,'' while homebuyers once told ''drive 'til you qualify'' now spend ''up to 60 percent of their household income'' on mortgages, utilities and gas.
In addition, the suburban development pattern often forces the elderly to leave their homes when they no longer can drive, inhibits walking and contributes to obesity, and overburdens county and municipal budgets with road and service extension costs.
The Urban Land Institute, she continues, found strong demand for transit-oriented development, but governments must help the market in its shift to smarter growth.
So far, the representative observes, state transportation and funding priorities reward auto-dependent development and make taxpayers pay for congestion relief, while zoning laws often bar compact mixed uses, the reliance on sales tax to fund municipal services impels municipalities to compete and expand, and annexation laws ''facilitate leap-frog development in search of sales tax revenue.''
What's more, the ease of creating special tax districts often lets developers go for outer projects instead of urban infill, cities and counties overlook their authority to charge greenfield impact fees, and the lack of regional or state planning ''pits municipalities against one another'' and induces redundant services.
''It has been a decade since Colorado seriously considered its land-use, annexation and tax policies,'' she stresses. ''Coloradans want to leave their cars at home. Let's design our communities to make that possible.'' -- Denver Post
8/8/2008
Resource(s): www.denverpost.com/
Stamford Approves Funds for Downtown Light Rail Feasibility Study
''Anyone who drives around Stamford now realizes that we're really in gridlock,'' said the city's Democratic Representative Patrick White as its board voted 19-11 -- with 10 members absent -- for a $141,000 downtown light rail feasibility study, adding ''Probably the most efficient way of moving masses of people is a light rail system.''
Republican Representative Carl Fransetti, reports Stamford Times writer Chase Wright, thought light rail might not work for the city, because of a low I-95 underpass, steep South End inclines, traffic delays during construction, and some system characteristics.
He suggested a comprehensive study of all options to ease downtown congestion, advice in line with Democratic Representative John Zelinsky's concern about light-rail costs, estimated at roughly $110 million to $120,000 million.
He dismissed city transportation planner Josh Lecar's argument that state and federal governments would be interested in funding light rail. ''Let's not kid ourselves,'' he told the planner. ''The money is going to come from our constituents, our hard-pressed taxpayers.''
In contrast, Democratic Representative Eileen Heaphy put the issue in a larger context.
''We have to look to the future,'' she stressed. ''We can't just stay where we are with all the changes going on around us and not consider the transportation challenges we will be facing in the future.'' -- Stamford Times
7/11/2008
Resource(s): www.thestamfordtimes.com/
Editorial: Connecticut Overdue for Plan to Overhaul State Bridges
With 1,400 of Connecticut's 4,175 bridges structurally deficient or functionally obsolete -- about 34 percent, in contrast to the 25 percent national average -- a fix-it-first policy is essential to avoid what happened 25 years ago, when partial collapse of an I-95 bridge over the Mianus River in Greenwich killed three people and seriously hurt another three, but as gas prices hover high above $4 a gallon, says a Hartford Courant editorial, the policy ''needs to be coupled with transit improvements and other smart growth initiatives.''
After the Mianus tragedy, the editorial recalls, democratic Governor William O'Neill (1980-91) and legislative leaders created a Special Transportation Fund for a $5.6 billion, 10-year reconstruction plan, which allowed the state to overhaul almost 1,500 bridges, repave more than 4,000 miles of roads, and ensure other improvements, becoming a national model.
Such an effort is once again needed, the editorial points out, quoting a 25th Mianus anniversary statement from the nonprofit Tri-State Transportation Campaign (Connecticut, New York and New Jersey).
''The Connecticut Department of Transportation spends only 22 percent of its transportation dollars on maintaining existing infrastructure, while 36 percent is dedicated to highway expansion projects, a dangerous allocation of funds in a state with some of the worst bridges in the country,'' stressed the watchdog group's Connecticut Coordinator Ryan Lynch.
Noting that other states in the region invest much more to sustain their roads, highways, bridges and transit systems, he said ''we should follow their lead.''
The editorial echoes the statement.
''We should have learned a hard lesson in Greenwich a quarter-century ago,'' it tells state leaders. ''We cannot allow another bridge to collapse.'' -- Hartford Courant
7/14/2008
Resource(s): www.courant.com/ ; www.tstc.org
Planner Says Army Should Locate New Training Center on Brownfield, Not Virgin Land
''It seems everyone has gotten the message about smart growth planning these days -- except the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,'' wrote Middletown-based architect and planner Catherine Johnson in a Hartford Courant commentary, hoping someone will dissuade the Army from siting a 273,000-square-foot regional reserve-training center on 88 acres in the western section of Middletown -- a choice strongly opposed by residents concerned about traffic, wetlands, water pressure and fire protection -- and convince it to select a brownfield, possibly near transit.
Though the federal government insists ''it doesn't buy or use contaminated land, including land the government itself contaminated,'' by excluding anything but virgin land, the architect-planner stressed, ''the government is making a mockery of Connecticut's smart growth and conservation initiatives'' and Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell needs to intervene with the Army brass.
Connecticut Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano and four state lawmakers said the same in a letter to the governor, reports Courant writer Josh Kovner, expecting the Middletown Common Council to join the pressure with a resolution urging the Army to heed the city's public interests.
The council, the mayor and City Planner William Warner want the Army to focus on three sites off Route 9 in south Middletown -- a Pratt & Whitney tract, a former feldspar quarry, and land near an auto salvage yard.
Army Corps project team head Diane McCartin told the writer the Pratt & Whitney tract was considered but excluded due to the lack of details on its contamination and the scope of the needed cleanup, while the other two sites would cost too much to develop.
She acknowledged the selected site's challenges, the writer notes, but was sure that engineering and environmental studies would suggest solutions to traffic, flood, drainage and other problems.
Still, wrote architect-planner Catherine Johnson in her commentary two days earlier, the Army reserve training center should be built ''on an established industrial parcel adjacent to a downtown,'' since it's ''less expensive to clean up such a brownfield than it is to drag all the necessary infrastructure into the country'' and since many central Connecticut municipalities ''would love to revitalize a former industrial area'' with an influx of 150 steady workers and up to 800 reservists on weekends.
Mentioning two brownfields in New Britain -- a city some 12 miles northwest of Middletown, but with rail links, she added a persuasive argument.
''As fuel becomes more expensive, we must think about moving troops by transit, as was done in World War II,'' she wrote. ''My father got on a train in Hartford in 1942, enlisted in New Haven, was trained in Pennsylvania and boarded a troop ship in California, all by public transit.'' -- Hartford Courant
7/27/2008
Resource(s): www.courant.com/
Elected Officials Take Stand Against Site Choice for Army Reserve Training Center
In another push against a U.S. Corps of Engineers plan to put an Army Reserve training center at a largely farmland-and-wetland site in northwest Middletown, reports Middletown Press writer Sloan Brewster, the city's Common Council passed a unanimous resolution opposing the choice, with Connecticut Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, flanked by state Democratic Senator Paul Doyle and Republican Representative Ray Kalinowski, telling its public meeting he notified the corps that it had embarked on an ''illegal'' course, which he will fight if necessary.
Given the 88-acre site's historic and topographic characteristic, ''a complete comprehensive environmental impact statement is mandatory,'' stressed the Attorney General in his letter to the corps, calling its suggested basic environmental assessment ''legally insufficient.''
Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell has expressed her opposition in a conciliatory tone.
As state National Guard commander-in-chief, she said in a statement, she has directed Maj. Gen. Thad Martin to work with the army to scale back the facility, expected to house units from several state facilities that will be decommissioned under the federal 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC), by keeping the 250th Engineer Company in New London.
This, the governor thinks, would require less parking for the center's military vehicles, reduce its personnel number from 1,046 to 861, and cut the building floor from 273,000 to 219,000 square feet -- all together allowing the Army to select a smaller and better site.
''I have also asked Gen. Martin to convey my sincere hope that the Corps of Engineers will work with the people of Middletown in an open and public process,'' Governor Rell added. ''That is the best way to resolve this important issue to the satisfaction of everyone involved.''
Supporting the idea of scaling down the proposed center, Democratic Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz criticized the governor for missing the opportunity to press the Army to make its site selection with an eye on smart growth, a request the secretary and Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro sent her a while ago.
''Gov. Rell still has not responded to our letter regarding that she involve the office of responsible growth in the search for a suitable site for the training facility and that she submit this search for a full review by the office of brownfield remediation and development,'' the Secretary said in a statement. ''While we agree that the new training facility is crucial to our national security and will indeed benefit the economy of its future host community, I strongly believe that the selection of a new training facility for the army and the Connecticut National Guard should emphasize the reutilization of brownfields and direct the U.S. Army of Engineers away from sites that would destroy pristine farmland or wetlands and disrupt the quality of life in residential neighborhoods.'' -- Middletown Press
8/4/2008
Resource(s): www.middletownpress.com/
D.C. Proposes Eliminating Off-Street Parking Requirements
Led by construction of the first interstates into the belief that car travel would soon become ''universal,'' District officials felt 50 years ago they must adapt the ''physical structure of the city to new forms of living'' through zoning that still shapes development and requires vast off-street parking for most structures, but with 37 percent of D.C. households owning no cars even by 2000 and with mounting alarm over greenhouse gases and oil dependence, writes University of California-Los Angeles Urban Planning Professor Donald Shoup in The Washington Post, the District's Office of Planning earned praise for a proposal ''to reduce the city's off-street parking requirements.''
The proposal, the professor points out, could ''correct the errors of the past'' -- when planners and traffic engineers thought ''most parking would be free'' and ''almost everyone would drive everywhere'' -- and it could ''put the city on a sustainable path to the future.''
Since parking structures cost $20,000 to $50,000 per space, he observes, developers forced to build garages build less housing, with several studies showing that minimum parking requirements increase its cost by about 20 percent.
''Even people who are too poor to own a car have to pay for this parking,'' he comments, adding that the requirements ''also make it illegal to reproduce such walkable neighborhoods as Capitol Hill, Georgetown and historic Anacostia.''
Observing that ''(h)ousing or anything else without a driveway does not fit into the automobile-first vision of the 1958 plan for the District,'' Professor Shoup recalls Abraham Lincoln's advice, ''As our case is new, so must we think anew, and act anew,'' and stresses, ''After 50 years of planning for cars, it is time to start planning for people.'' -- The Washington Post
8/3/2008
Resource(s): www.washingtonpost.com/
D.C. Mayor Launches Nation's First High-Tech Public Bike-Share Program
Working to turn Washington, D.C. into a sustainable ''world-class city,'' where a range of mobility options satisfies all residents, Democratic Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, a keen cyclist himself, launched the nation's first high-tech public bike-share program, with an initial 120 three-speed bikes at 10 self-service racks -- mostly downtown, near three Metrorail stations and many bike-lane streets -- available to online subscribers for unlimited number of up-to-three-hour prepaid rentals at the cost of $40 a year.
The move, reports Washington Post writer Elissa Silverman, placed the District ahead of Portland, Austin, San Francisco, Chicago and others that have experimented with or considered a less advanced system, but still not at the level of some European cities, especially Paris, which installed 20,000 bikes at more than 1,400 rental kiosks in just one year.
''We want to start small and start slow,'' said the District Department of Transportation's bicycle and pedestrian program manager Jim Sebastian, focusing SmartBike DC on experienced and street-savvy bikers for now, with about 150 riders registered before the program launch.
Eventually, bike sharing will replace ''cab rides and car trips for a lot of folks looking to get around the city quickly,'' he added. ''Plus they won't worry about parking. And it's fun. It's a great way to get around the city on a nice day.''
High gas prices and new public environmental awareness, the writer observes, ''have boosted the popularity of bicycling, making what people once thought of as childhood play a practical and increasingly hip form of urban transportation.''
Like some programs in Spain and Scandinavia, SmartBike DC is run by the Clear Channel Outdoor global advertising company, in partnership with the District Department of Transportation.
Company official Steve Ginsburg expects others to follow the District's lead.
''We're getting inquires from all around the country,'' he told the writer, ''to see if they can take the same program and implement it in their city.''
Details about the program at http://smartbikedc.com/program_information.asp and www.ddot.dc.gov. -- Washington Post
8/13/2008
Resource(s): www.washingtonpost.com/?nav=globaltop
Proposed FTA Rule Change Could Cost D.C. Schools Millions in Student Busing Costs
Since unlike most others, the Washington, D.C. public school system has no regular bus fleet and relies on Metro's extra, or ''tripper,'' buses to carry some 20,000 of its nearly 50,000 students to and from school, both could be especially hurt by a proposed Federal Transit Administration (FTA) rule change that after more than 30 years would now bar federally funded transit agencies from providing service scheduled specifically for school children though open to all passengers.
The change is supposed to ensure that taxpayer-funded transit doesn't take business away from the private charter bus industry, reported Washington Post writer Lena H. Sun and Examiner writer Taryn Luntz recently, with the latter citing numbers to illustrate the Metro's and the school district's financial stakes.
Metro, with extensive rail and bus service in the city and throughout the Maryland and Virginia suburbs, receives $200 million in federal aid a year. The school district pays it $26 a month per student for the ''tripper'' service -- matching the fee parents pay -- at a cost of $7 million a year.
Under the new rule, Metro would have to end the service to keep the federal aid, and the school system would have to pay much more for private contractor buses.
How much more isn't yet known, but the Examiner writer noted that Virginia's Fairfax County Public Schools pays $103 per student monthly for private bus service and Arlington County Public Schools, which has fewer than half as many students as D.C., earmarked $12 million for such a service in its next year's budget.
FTA spokesman Paul Griffo told Education Week writer Christina A. Samuels that any rule change would not affect school transportation for the 2008-09 school year. -- Washington Post, Examiner, Education Week
7/16/2008
Resource(s): www.washingtonpost.com/?nav=globaltop ; www.examiner.com/Newark/
Manatee County Density Variances Hampering Smart Growth Efforts
At ease that Manatee County residents and newcomers from the Northeast and other densely populated regions ''don't want high-density developments 'in their back yard,''' county commissioners routinely deviate from the comprehensive plan and approve at most 9 units per acre instead of the allowed 12, or 6 instead of 9, on given unincorporated tracts, respectively, writes Bradenton resident Sandy Kirkpatrick, a retired Realtor and banker, in a Bradenton Herald guest opinion, pointing out that although privacy, elbow room and similar amenities are pleasant, they come with downsides and leave out smart growth.
''Every errand involves a car trip, and not just for each of us -- for all the others clogging State Roads 64 and 70, Manatee Avenue and Cortez Road,'' he notes. ''Once just inconvenient, these trips at $4-plus per gallon are a strain on family budgets.''
When large lot and home costs add up, incomes decline, roads fail and construction bottlenecks appear everywhere, approaching ''all land-use decisions with the single blunt instrument of low-density is too simplistic -- the issues are too complex, and the needs of our people are too diverse,'' he writes, stressing the need for smart growth, ''with lifestyles in which people can walk to the grocery, the dry cleaners and the movies.''
Since a county commission election is scheduled for August 26, Sandy Kirkpatrick asks readers, ''With unprecedented gas prices, infrastructure problems and housing affordability issues facing us, isn't it time to ask the candidates to stand up and be counted on this outmoded and overly simplistic development model?'' -- Bradenton Herald
7/28/2008
Resource(s): www.bradenton.com/
Lee County Grapples With Funding Cuts, Need for More Bike Lanes
As elsewhere around the country, the ranks of recreational and commute cyclists in Lee County are swelling and seeking equal treatment as taxpayers and road users, with Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee Chairman Dan Moser asking the county to convert some 250 miles of paved right road-shoulders into designated bike lanes, but Department of Transportation (DOT) Director Scott Gilbertson cautioning that he would need $901,000 more for annual maintenance despite a $541,000 operational cut next year -- a problem of spending priorities the commissioners want the Smart Growth Department to help resolve by October.
Currently, report Naples Daily News writer Charlie Whitehead and Fort Myers News-Press writer Ryan Lengerich, the county has 276 miles of sidewalks and just about six miles of designated bike lanes, with most of the 250 miles of paved road shoulders, or undesignated bike lanes, blocked by trees, telephone poles, parked cars and everything else.
''If they're designated bike lanes they have to be kept clear,'' pointed out Dan Moser, doubtful whether 100 miles of the paved shoulders are fit for cyclists.
Wishing he didn't need to make the argument and calling it better ''if we were not working against ourselves,'' he asked, ''Are we going to have smart growth and complete streets or are we going to go away from them?'' ''There is some ambiguity and overlap in the definition of bike lanes, paved shoulders, and designated and undesignated bike lanes,'' Director Gilbertson responded, saying the $3 million-$5 million shoulder conversion could be covered from a bike path retrofit budget, but the county's annual maintenance costs would increase from $226,000 to about $1.127 million because designated bike lanes should be swept and edged each month rather than every three months.
''Everybody wants to do good things for bikes,'' said Commissioner Frank Mann, while voicing concern over the DOT budget.
Commissioner Tammy Hall stressed the county's need for a complete-street policy that ensures streets can be safely shared by cars, buses, cyclists and pedestrians.
Agreeing that ''(e)verything we designate as a nonmotorist lane we have to maintain,'' she said the issue of debris clogging paved shoulders and making them dangerous for cyclists can be addressed in a line item this budget season. -- News-Press, Naples Daily News
8/4/2008
Resource(s): http://news-press.com ; www.naplesnews.com/
Polls Show Blaine County Voters Are Ready to Pay for Open Space Preservation
Encouraged by January and July polls showing that despite the economic downturn, 63 and 65 percent of Blaine County voters are ready to pay $40 and $50, respectively, for open land and wildlife habitat preservation, a coalition of smart growth and conservation groups proposed a November ballot on a two-year property tax override -- which would cost an owner of a $436,000 median-price home $50 a year and raise $3.5 million -- an idea endorsed by an Idaho Mountain Express editorial, but the decision postponed by commissioners until their review of a tentative 2009 county budget on August 19.
The proposed county levy is modeled on a similar two-year tax Boise voters passed in 2001 to secure $10 million for land protection in the nearby Boise Foothills, reports Idaho Mountain Express writer Jason Kaufman, but Blaine commissioners are concerned about the 26 percent of July poll respondents unwilling to back the increase.
Many of them are struggling to stay in the county, observed Commissioner Larry Schoen, and in such circumstances each dollar may count.
The coalition -- Citizens for Smart Growth, Idaho Smart Growth, the Idaho Conservation League, the Nature Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land and the Wood River Land Trust -- recognizes the concerns over the economy, but fears some fragile areas may be hurt or lost without prompt action, including an infusion of funds into the county's transfer of development rights (TDRs) program.
With developers already looking at undeveloped private tracts in the Little Wood River watershed north of Carey, a prime wildlife migration corridor, Citizens for Smart Growth spokeswoman Vanessa Crossgrove-Fry said, ''We might be priced out of doing conservation easements.''
An Idaho Mountain Express editorial tells commissioners to let voters decide on the proposed two-year land conservation levy.
''Putting the measure on the November ballot,'' the editorial points out, ''would give voters time to study and discuss who would spend the money, its effect on taxpayers and whether the uses of the levy justify passage relative to other county needs.'' -- Idaho Mountain Express
7/23/2008
Resource(s): www.mtexpress.com/
Ottawa's Development ''Intensification'' Plan Under Fire
Adopted in 2003 under its smart-growth policy, Ottawa's development ''intensification'' strategy has recently provoked several battles over condo towers in older neighborhoods, with residents calling higher densities out of neighborhood character and developers blaming the city for the lack of necessary zoning changes to make the strategy work, reports Ottawa Citizen writer Mohammed Adam, a conflict officials think could be eliminated if high-density developers included affordable housing, community centers, arenas and parks on their sites or paid the city in cash for such improvements elsewhere.
Developers criticize the proposal as ''just another money grab at a time when the city is not even making an effort to meet its commitment on intensification,'' the writer observes, quoting Ottawa Homebuilders Association Executive Director John Herbert and Claridge Homes Vice President Neil Malhorta.
''In one area, one group could be asking for the sky and in another they'll be asking for something reasonable,'' complained the former. ''There will be no consistency, there'll be no reliability.''
The latter, Ottawa's largest condo builder, pointed out that some local old zoning bylaws restrict buildings to three or six stories while proper intensification guidelines should allow twice that height.
''Before they ask us to pay more,'' he said about the city officials, ''they need to review the zoning to reflect intensification.
On the other side, officials told the writer that developers should fund community amenities in areas where they seek significantly more housing since higher densities demand more services. -- Ottawa Citizen
7/3/2008
Resource(s): www.ottawacitizen.com/
More Suburban Development Would Undercut Light Rail Plan, Says Australian Architect
The Australian Capital Territory (ACT, similar to the District of Columbia) government is right to push for a $1 billion light-rail system, but not to release more land for suburban development at the edges of Canberra as the only way to boost affordable housing, said Australian Institute of Architects ACT Chapter President David Flannery, one of many experts convinced that higher residential densities in nearby town centers would ensure both housing affordability and critical mass for light rail, without weakening older neighborhoods.
''Not everyone realizes,'' he observed, ''how the issues we face in Canberra are all linked: shopping centres and schools closing in our inner suburbs, the failure of Canberra's existing public transport, and Canberrans finding themselves spending longer and longer time in their cars each day driving to work; these are all symptoms of the city's expanding footprint.''
Acclaimed urban designer Colin Stewart, reports Canberra Times writer John Thistleton, felt the same, noting that the Canberra Spatial Plan has lost some relevance in this time of climate change and high oil prices, and that the ACT should strive to become less auto dependent, a turn strongly advocated by conservationists, including Curtin University Sustainability Program Director Professor Peter Newman.
A member of the Federal Government's Infrastructure Australia board, the writer notes, Professor Newman has written books on cities, climate change and transportation strategies, and should lead the city's debate on higher densities and pedestrian-friendly development.
A recent ACT Planning and Land Authority conceptual report for Belconnen Town Centre, some eight miles northwest of central Canberra, points to its affordable housing potential and states that Transit Oriented Development ''makes it possible to reduce dependence on private car use for journeys to work and access to retail, education, recreation, cultural and other activities.'' -- Canberra Times
7/14/2008
Resource(s): www.canberratimes.com.au/
New Zealand Walking Conference Emphasizes Pedestrian-Friendly Community Design
As New Zealand gasoline prices moved past U.S. $6 a gallon, the need to make communities more walkable has become an even more urgent priority, said American smart-growth expert Dan Burden in an interview for the Otago Daily Times before a New Zealand Walking conference August 4-5 in Auckland, stressing, ''If you build your community for cars, you will get lots of cars; if you build your community for people, you will get lots of people.''
Invited by Living Streets Aotearoa, the conference's organizers, as a keynote speaker, Dan Burden -- a former National Geographic photographer, subsequently called by Time magazine ''one of the six most important civic innovators in the world'' -- brought a portfolio of photographs to help the audience visualize implications of car-centricity and the benefits of reducing that dependency.
In the U.S., pedestrian-friendly cities ''have not seen a softening of the housing market,'' he told the interviewer, mentioning Seattle, Washington, where ''they focused on walkability for the past 20 years, and they have a robust and growing economy.''
After the conference, the American guest is scheduled to lead seminars in Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch. -- Daily Times
7/26/2008
Resource(s): www.odt.co.nz/
Green Energy Trend: A Modern-Day Gold Rush?
''Just as thousands were drawn to California and Klondike in the late 1800s, the green energy gold rush is attracting legions of modern day prospectors in all parts of the globe,'' said U.N. Undersecretary-General and Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner as he released the ''Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2008'' report, which found that new renewable-energy investments jumped from $58.5 billion in 2005 to $92.6 billion in 2006 and $148 billion last year, the latter jump especially impressive in a time of financial market troubles caused by a credit crunch.
Simultaneously, the investments ''broadened and diversified,'' with the mainstream financial market becoming ''fully receptive to sustainable energy companies.''
Prepared by U.K.-based New Energy Finance for UNEP's Paris-based Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative, the report shows most new funds, $50.2 billion worth, invested in wind power last year, but the fastest growth in solar power, which attracted $28.6 billion in new capital.
''The clean energy industry is maturing and its backers remain bullish. These findings should empower governments -- both North and South -- to reach a deep and meaningful new agreement by the crucial climate convention meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009,'' Director Steiner pointed out. ''What is unfolding is nothing less than a fundamental transformation of the world's energy infrastructure.''
The total 2007 sustainable energy transaction volume reached $204.9 billion -- $98.2 going for new energy generation, especially from wind in the U.S., China and Spain; $50.1 billion for new technologies and manufacturing expansion; and $56.6 billion for mergers and acquisitions.
The report expects the investments to reach $450 billion a year by 2012, and more than $600 billion a year by 2020.
With the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimating total global energy-demand-focused investment at $20 trillion by 2030, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer warned, ''If these investments are not made in a climate-friendly way, emissions of greenhouse gases might go up by 50 percent in 2050, while science tells us they need to be cut by 50 percent by 2050.''
The U.S. Energy Information Administration, notes Associated Press writer John Heilprin, expects global energy demand to grow 50 percent over the next two decades, with oil prices likely to reach $186 a barrel. -- United Nations Environment Programme
7/1/2008
Resource(s): www.unep.org/
Infrastructure Needed to Preserve Quality of Life in Australia's Sunshine Coast
''The economic strength of the Sunshine Coast region (north of Brisbane) derives from its attractiveness and distinctiveness as a relaxed coastal region with a great lifestyle and natural environment,'' wrote the recently created Sunshine Coast Regional Council in a Growth Management Position Paper on the state's South East Queensland (SEQ) Regional Plan draft, telling the Queensland government that the Sunshine Coast can only accept an extra 260,000 dwellings by 2031 if it has sufficient infrastructure in place.
Otherwise, pointed out the council's economic development and entrepreneurship chairman Lew Brennan, it will be ''dumb growth'' instead of smart growth.
With its four major resorts -- Caloundra, Maroochydore, Mooloolaba and Noosa -- already almost merging into an urbanized coastal strip, the council's strategy, planning and transportation chairwoman Vivien Griffin said, ''If the state government wants to turn us into a second-rate urban city it would be putting at risk key breathing space for the rest of south-east Queensland,'' whose population is projected to reach 4.3 million over the next two decades.
The regional council, she stressed, aspires to make the Sunshine Coast the most sustainable region in Australia, to reduce its per-capita environmental footprint, and to show the state government a better way to manage growth.
Accordingly, it has carefully evaluated the implications of peak oil availability, climate change, emission trading, and water and food security, with its position paper incorporating measures to protect land for food production, seize renewable energy opportunities, and promote public transport.
Presented to the state government as part of the SEQ Regional Plan review process, reports Sunshine Coast Daily writer Bill Hoffman, the council's position paper, the plan and other related documents will be available for public input later this year. -- Sunshine Coast Daily
7/23/2008
Resource(s): www.thedaily.com.au/
Start Planning Now for Livable Communities, Says Louisiana's AARP Director
''In our society, older adults have been kind of marginalized,'' said American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Louisiana director Nancy McPherson, telling Baton Rouge Business Report writer David Jacobs how her concern about little attention to their mobility, affordability, service and social needs in various post-Katrina redevelopment plans resulted in talks with Baton Rouge-based Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) CEO Elizabeth ''Boo'' Thomas, sharing contacts and jointly promoting smart growth.
''What we're doing and what they're doing is so tightly knit,'' noted CPEX community planning outreach director Alison Cascio. ''What they want for their 50-plus population is the same thing we want for everybody.''
The goal is livability, the writer reports, one of the key topics at CPEX's ''Livable Louisiana: A Summit on Smart Growth,'' August 14-15, in Baton Rouge, where AARP Louisiana consultant Kathryn Lawler talked about ''aging in place'' and AARP senior vice president of livable community strategies Elinor Ginzler addressed residents' lifelong ''mobility options.''
A livable community, the consultant told the writer before the Smart Growth summit, is ''really a place where all people, and that means people of all incomes, ages, and abilities, can live throughout their lifetimes,'' without having to depend solely on cars or leave the neighborhood -- and lose its vital social contacts -- when no longer able or willing to drive or when ready to move into a smaller home.
Calling the societal treatment of the elderly a ''service model,'' with senior centers, nursing homes, in-home care and Meals on Wheels, she warned the model is no longer viable because of the sheer magnitude of mounting demand.
''We're talking about shifting a paradigm,'' she pointed out. ''We have to hit this with a ton of bricks now, or the aging population will be upon us and we're going to be scrambling to pull things together. We have a pretty limited window in which to make major, major changes in how we develop communities.''
Although some will always ''want to retire to that idyllic cottage on a golf course,'' AARP's research ''shows that most people would rather age in place,'' the writer observes, quoting AARP vice president Ginzler.
''We are operating under the assumption that when you create and redesign communities to meet the needs of the older population, it meets the needs of all populations,'' she said, confident of the association's clout at the local, state and federal level on all crucial quality of life issues, including affordable housing and such mobility solutions as ''complete'' streets.
''We want to recruit and arm our members to be agents for social change.'' -- Business Report
8/11/2008
Resource(s): www.businessreport.com/
Smart Growth Projects Helping to Revive Louisiana Communities
''Suburbia is not ugly; it's just not functional,'' especially in the era of traffic congestion, ever-longer commute times, and record gas prices, said Lafayette-based Architects Southwest partner Steve Oubre at a public seminar in New Iberia, Iberia County, pointing out that smart growth, with its mixed uses, higher densities, and almost everything easily accessible on foot or bike revitalizes communities, saves local resources and identity, and gains broad acceptance.
The designer of award-winning River Ranch on 324 acres about three miles southwest of central Lafayette, told the audience that when the development was conceptualized, planned and launched in 1996-98, it was the 20th traditional neighborhood project nationwide, but now there are more than 2,000 in various stages of planning, processing or construction.
One of those that may soon break ground is 100-acre Teche Ridge, Iberia Parish, which Steve Oubre designed for the nonprofit Southern Mutual Help Association as a mixed-use and pedestrian-friendly development similar to River Ranch but more affordable, thanks to mechanisms that will make it possible for teachers to live next to doctors.
Under the parish's newly adopted smart growth ordinance, reports the Baton Rouge Advocate, Teche Ridge development will be faster and less frustrating than it was for River Ranch, which needed 120 variances from the city.
Southern Mutual Help Association President Lorna Bourg noted that the association is finalizing a contract to begin Teche Ridge infrastructure work.
Following the parish's lead, said New Iberia Mayor Hilda Curry, the city is devising a similar ordinance and working with Steve Oubre to redesign the depressed Hopkins Street area, which will include addition of sidewalks and lighting.
Calling the investment a good start on reviving the area economically, the architect promised to hold a public planning workshop for the project sometime in October.
See the history and details of River Ranch development at http://riverranchdevelopment.com/about/development.asp. -- Advocate
7/22/2008
Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/
Baton Rouge Hosts ''Livable Louisiana'' Smart Growth Summit
With much of Louisiana's transportation budget dependent on the 18.4-cent federal and the 20-cent state gas tax, and with the latter's revenue down 7 percent, due to the recent consumption decline caused by high prices at the pump, the state and some groups essentially would want to see gas-guzzling Hummers driven a thousand miles per week to boost state aid for aged roads and bridges, observed Louisiana Transportation Secretary William Anker at the Center for Planning Excellence's (CPEX's) ''Livable Louisiana: A Summit on Smart Growth'' in Baton Rouge, urging participants to lobby for better land use and more budget surplus investment in transit.
''That is how we have funded transportation since the 1950s,'' he said about gas-tax vulnerability. ''We need to break that cycle. We need to figure out how to finance transportation differently if we are to be successful.''
Poor land-use planning has worsened the state's transportation problems -- including the $14-billion project backlog -- with many school districts often lured by the cheapest land for new schools, the secretary pointed out, commenting, ''That cheap land costs us a fortune.''
Another speaker troubled by the enormous infrastructure cost of sprawl and confident that strong and sustained public pressures would turn more officials toward smart growth, Oakland, California-based Pyatok Architects Inc. principal Michael Pyatok, seen by many as ''Oakland's affordable housing hero,'' told the audience that even in his heavily Democratic city grassroots groups must show up at city council and planning commission meetings to ensure better development.
Codes that prevent higher densities or less costly housing ''exist to be broken,'' he said, noting that though Not-In-My-Back-Yard (NIMBY) attitudes may often characterize middle-income neighborhoods, he has recently heard about a $1.3-million median-income neighborhood that killed a project aimed at $700,000-average earners.
Learning to change and let in higher densities and different incomes, he continued, requires planners and developers to include nearby residents in project planning, work together on design under regulatory oversight to avoid misconceptions, and make it fit the local scale and character, with a margin for change and personalization.
Cities must realize they need all-income-level development to bolster their economies, and businesses must understand that public investment in affordable housing helps their operations through a readily available work force.
Cities like Phoenix, notorious for bad development choices, he added, suffer from sprawl because of their policies, with Phoenix' four million people widely dispersed, but with the same number of Brooklyn and Queens residents in New York City accommodated by the two boroughs on just 5 percent of what's been paved over within Phoenix' borders.
Portland, Oregon-based Gerding Edlen Development staffer Kellee Jackson pursued the theme further with her firm's ''20-minute living'' concept, under which a project's residents shouldn't need more time to walk, bike or drive to reach anything they seek in products and services.
Combining mixed-use and sustainable development principles, the firm ensures that its projects conserve resources in construction and operation by observing the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental (LEED) standards.
''It's not about doing without,'' said Kellee Jackson, explaining that green-construction upfront costs are only 0.3 to 3 percent higher, depending on the LEED level -- Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum -- while long-term savings range from 20 to 60 percent.
Indeed, ''(s)sustainable design is a matter of effort, not so much of cost,'' agreed Baton Rouge-based Chenevert Architects principal J. Dyke Nelson, saying green development is increasing nationwide and Louisiana better get on board ''or we'll get run over,'' a call echoed by Episcopal High School Head Kay Betts in relation to schools.
Telling the summit her school's board of directors has made sustainable campus operation a priority and the school is now building a ''rain garden'' to help absorb stormwater and clean residual runoff before it reaches the Jones Creek watershed, she stressed, ''Green schools are more likely to recruit and retain excellent faculty and staff.'' -- The Advocate
8/16/2008
Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/
Sustainable Energy, Smart Growth Could Help Louisiana Become ''Green'' Capital
''It is equally unsustainable to depend largely on oil and gas from unfriendly regions of the world, as it is to believe that we can rely on oil-based supply forever,'' said U.S. Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu at a regional Summit for Sustainability in Alexandria, central Louisiana, telling area political and civic leaders that the state has resources and expertise to become ''the 'green' capital'' in sustainable energy production, and encouraging them to embrace efficiency, conservation, and Smart Growth.
''We know we have some assets in this state, but we have not always known how to capitalize on them,'' she stressed. ''With good planning, we can ensure that our sense of community never dissipates.''
Optimistic that Louisiana's relatively slower development now may be advantageous, reports Alexandria Town Talk writer David Dinsmore, Senator Landrieu added, ''We can kind of step back and figure out how we want to grow.''
The summit's host, Mayor Jacques Roy, shares her views.
''From nurseries in Forest Hills to the beautiful streetscape in Natchitoches, our region has much to offer if we work together toward sustainable growth,'' he observed. ''Our region's story provides clues to what Smart Growth is all about (and not about) -- and what must be addressed. At the turn of the century and before, Alexandria and central Louisiana were models of traditional American planning.''
Today's New Urbanism ''was the order of the day in downtown Jena and Alexandria many years ago,'' an order undermined by the automobile, urban flight, haphazard development and suburban sprawl since the 1950s, Mayor Roy said. ''Following the last 20 years of inching forward and development of objective criteria for sustainable planning, we are once again poised to take the lead.'' -- Town Talk
7/2/2008
Resource(s): http://landrieu.senate.gov/hrt/index.cfm ; www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage
Commentary: Sensible Land-Use Regulations, Transit Subsidies Would Help Rural Maine Cope With High Transportation Costs
In doubt whether gas price spikes alone can ''substantially reduce our almost total dependency on the private auto,'' especially in Maine, because of low population densities, scattered residences and ''a culture that treats the auto as a symbol of adulthood,'' Southwest Harbor-based political economist John Buell points out in Bangor Daily News guest opinion that some changes ''in how and how far we travel, where we live, and how we spend our time'' may be mutually reinforcing, but ''(p)ublic policy must play an important role in any constructive transformation, just as it helped establish the car culture.''
Aside from driving farther, the economist notes, people are also working more, with a family of two adults seeing its work time up 500 hours [per year] over the last two decades.
''We work longer hours to buy our cars and to support families we have ever less time to see,'' he observes. ''As we spend more time in cars and workplaces, costly cell phones suddenly become a necessity, both to attend to business interests and to talk with our families.''
He also believes U.S. Census data showing the average American now commutes 100 hours a year ''only understate the time burden of the auto,'' since ''most families face comparable increases in time driving for shopping and other errands.''
None of this is inevitable, according to the commentary.
''Zoning regulations that encourage integration of homes, businesses, and retail shops can reduce commuting time as well as the necessity for lengthy errand forays. Land-use planning and zoning changes aimed at clustering developments can preserve the rural quality of life while still increasing population densities,'' he writes. ''These strategies both encourage and are abetted by expansion of public transit options. Maine's 'smart growth' movement has made progress in fostering these goals and the appropriate policy tools to advance them.''
Although the best solutions may take a long time to implement, any expedient anti-congestion alternative is worth pursuing, he continues, urging not only businesses and chambers of commerce, but also state and local governments to promote carpools.
''Public transit faces two related chicken and egg problems,'' he explains. ''Livable communities and clustered housing become more appealing if transit is available. By the same token, however, it makes little sense to increase public transit stock absent adequate population densities. In addition, more frequent bus and van service encourages wider use, but until many are willing to use these services, there is little immediate economic incentive to improve them.''
Confident that governments ''can break those knots by moving simultaneously on sensible land-use regulations as well as transit subsidies for both operational and capital improvement purposes,'' the economist thinks those ''who choke over 'subsidy and regulation' should recognize that our suburban sprawl is enabled by massive government capital infusions, land-use regulations and continuing subsidies,'' also hoping for more imagination from environmentalists.
''Better transit options can mean more time for recreation and family,'' he concludes. ''These experiences in turn can intensify our desire to limit the auto's hold on our lives. We can build a markedly better quality of life if we regard high gas prices as not merely a challenge but an opportunity.'' -- Bangor Daily News
7/22/2008
Resource(s): www.bangornews.com/
Financial Incentives, Stricter Definitions for Growth Areas Needed to Preserve Maryland's Green Space
Passed in 1997, the state's Smart Growth law offered infrastructure aid for development in and near established communities, yet developers put 75 percent of their projects outside those areas, said Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) advocacy manager Terry Cummings at a Smarter Growth forum in Bel Air, Harford County, telling area officials, planners and civic activists, ''We need to pass meaningful growth management reform, and we need a lot of people involved in the effort.''
Just as at an earlier such forum in Frederick, Frederick County, notes Baltimore Sun reporter Mary Hail Hare, presenters showed the audience a series of periodic state planning maps, on which the ever larger red-colored development areas since the 1970s indicate that should the expansion rate continue, it would almost eliminate green space in central Maryland and along the Chesapeake Bay by 2030.
To avert the threat, state lawmakers must define growth areas more precisely, provide funds for their infrastructure, and use significant ''financial disincentives to direct growth away from rural areas,'' said CBF senior land-use policy manager Alan Girard, promising to work during the 2009 legislative session for such legislation and for the enforceability of local comprehensive plans.
Bel Air-based Frederick Ward Associates (FWA) President Craig Ward, his firm involved in planning, engineering and architectural design across the mid-Atlantic region, also advised public action to change law, mentioning such barriers to development in growth areas as moratoria because of crowded schools, with Homebuilders Association of Maryland director of government affairs Susan A.M. Stroud praising county efforts to concentrate growth near its three municipalities, but adding, ''Don't make growth areas dysfunctional with adequate-public-facilities regulations that don't work.''
The county's officials have been rewriting its 25-year-old zoning code, the reporter notes, and the county Council will soon get the 400-page rewrite, helped by agricultural, environmental, historic preservation and planning advisory boards, but many at the Smarter Growth forum thought the revisions didn't go far enough.
The Friends of Harford nonprofit group called for more transit instead of highway construction, schools designed to conserve land, and revitalization of neighborhoods affected by blight. -- Baltimore Sun
8/3/2008
Resource(s): www.baltimoresun.com/
''Skinny'' Infill Homes Create Controversy in Baltimore Region
As long as they meet height and setback requirements or obtain variances, ''skinny'' 12-foot-wide infill houses are legal in Anne Arundel County and Baltimore, offer low-income buyers an affordable choice and help the smart-growth density goal, but they antagonize neighbors in Brooklyn Park, a World-War-II-era-worker community across the county-city jurisdictional line, reports Karen Shih of The Baltimore Sun, quoting Arundel Neighborhoods Association board member Gary O'Neill.
''What used to be somebody's yard is now turning into a building lot,'' he said, voicing the area's concern about its identity and property value loss and calling a 12-foot-wide house ''without a doubt the most ridiculous thing we've ever seen.''
His group can't do anything about that house, on the market for under $240,000 -- in comparison to the neighborhood's average price of $271,181 and the county's $427,655 -- but it is fighting a variance for a proposed two-story, 18 x 40-square-foot home.
''I'm going to be staring right into the window of the other house,'' neighbor Robert Cook told the reporter.
Although he and others worry that more tiny lots will be sold soon, especially since the county's ''small area plan'' for Brooklyn Park envisions an additional 1,600 townhouses and older residents are hard pressed for money during the economic downturn, the writer notes, real estate agent Diane Kenworthy sees remarkable interest in the 12-foot-wide house she is advertising.
''Everybody loves that house,'' she said, stressing there are many people ''who want to live in that area who need affordable housing.'' -- The Baltimore Sun
7/17/2008
Resource(s): www.baltimoresun.com/
Maryland Task Force Working on First Statewide Comprehensive Plan
As Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley's low-profile Task Force on the Future for Growth and Development lays the foundation for the state's first 20-year comprehensive plan, reports Washington Post writer Miranda S. Spivack, his Secretary of Planning Richard E. Hall is assuring county and municipal officials, vested in and insistent on local land-use control, that the state doesn't intend to dictate anything, but simply to set guiding principles that would discourage sprawl and promote denser development near transit, schools, water supplies and other amenities.
''One of the problems we have had in Maryland is getting the growth to go where we want it to go,'' said Secretary Hall. ''Just because we have mapped smart-growth areas and identified them doesn't mean there is as much growth there as we would like to see.''
Therefore, he pointed out, ''(w)e want to articulate state policy, how it manifests itself on the landscape and how it all comes together.''
State planners, the writer continues, expected more and faster development along portions of the I-95 corridor between Baltimore and Washington, because of its bus and train links with both cities, and along Metro's Red Line in southern Montgomery County, just north of the capital.
Although sensitive about their prerogatives, local officials and industry professionals sound receptive.
''Traditionally in Maryland, local land-use decisions have been made at the local level,'' observed Maryland Association of Counties (MACo) Associate Director Les Knapp. ''That's not to say we don't want a state plan, we just don't want one that usurps our authority.''
A task force member, Laurel Department of Development Management Director Karl Brendle, whose city is ''in the throes'' of several redevelopment plans to absorb some of the residential influx expected during the military Base Relocation and Closure (BRAC) placement of 22,000 jobs at nearby Fort Meade, told the writer, ''We are trying to grow from within.''
With Maryland's population of roughly 5.7 million projected to grow by another million over the next two decades, the challenge is to find places for a lot of new homes, he said. ''If the state continues the way it is going, you are going to continue to allow development of farmland. That's senseless.''
He and another task force member, Morris & Ritchie Associates President Frank Hertsc,h agreed the state should provide aid to fund transit, developer incentives to build bike and walking paths, and subsidies to encourage less car-dependent and more energy-efficient development, or smart growth.
Government should move quickly, the latter noted, stressing, ''You can't direct people to live in an area unless you meet the infrastructure needs.''
And Home Builders Association of Maryland (HBAM) Executive Vice President John Kortecamp said the group is looking forward to the plan.
''In concept,'' he added, ''as long as you have a state policy that is supposed to guide growth, it helps to have some architecture that helps articulate what path that should take.'' -- Washington Post
7/5/2008
Resource(s): www.washingtonpost.com/?nav=globaltop
Green Communities Act Will Help Bring Renewable Energy Home in Massachusetts
''Climate change is the challenge of our times, and we in Massachusetts are rising to that challenge,'' said Democratic Governor Deval Patrick at Boston's Museum of Science as he signed the Green Communities Act, a landmark energy bill that commits $10 million a year to help communities become more energy-efficient or invest in renewable sources and requires utilities to increase their renewable energy purchases from 3.5 to 25 percent by 2030, while allowing them to own solar electric panels, whose rentals will gradually cover their cost while enabling customers to cut their energy bills.
The law, reports Boston Globe writer Beth Daley, also requires utilities to invest in energy efficiency to meet increased demand if such investment costs are equal or lower than those of extra power purchases -- a requirement expected to avert the need for additional construction of costly and emission-intense power plants.
What's more, the law authorizes the use of at least 80 percent of the revenue from the regional effort to cap plant emissions for efficiency programs, including home energy audits to identify potential savings for owners; requires new buildings to meet updated building codes with new efficiency provisions; and makes it easier for customers who install solar panels or wind turbines to sell energy surplus.
All this together, the writer notes, will likely motivate utilities to devise customized energy-saving plans for home owners and businesses alike and to provide rebates for installation of insulated windows, high-efficiency boilers and similar fixtures.
Utility officials and environmentalists are hailing the Green Communities Act as one of the most innovative efforts in the nation to stabilize energy rates, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and spur clean technologies that don't further global warming.
''It pushes us to a new level,'' said NStar CEO Tom May. ''We get to cross the street to our customers' side and help them with energy choices . . . such as windmills in a neighborhood or solar panels. It's helping them reduce their carbon footprint.''
Environment Northeast attorney Sam Krasnow and Conservation Law Foundation lawyer Sue Reid feel the same way.
''The leanest power plant is the one that never gets built. Energy efficiency is the cheapest and cleanest energy resource available,'' pointed out the former, with the latter stressing, ''This is a tremendous advancement that comes not a moment too soon, giver rising energy prices and the climate crisis.'' -- Boston Globe
7/3/2008
Resource(s): www.boston.com/news/globe/
Open Space Protection, Resource Conservation Highlight Mass. Gov. Patrick's New Commonwealth Capital Policy
While many people in small towns strive to protect their cherished open space, many in crowded urban areas often think it's only fair to put any additional homes or factories in the less congested suburbs, but they should realize that ''everyone loses'' as land is paved over for yet another subdivision or strip mall and as ever longer commutes jam roads, says a Newburyport Daily News editorial, supportive of Democratic Governor Deval Patrick's new ''Commonwealth Capital Policy,'' which calls on municipalities ''to site and build homes and businesses in ways that that conserve energy and natural resources.''
Launched in the wake of a recent MetroFutures report from the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, which recommends directing growth to the region's cities and mature suburbs, and ''making every effort to keep what's left of our fields and forests undisturbed,'' the editorial observes, the capital policy pursues the same goals.
It seeks to reward ''those communities that have taken formal and significant action to work with neighboring communities to foster development projects, land and water conservation, and other outcomes that have regional and multi-community benefits.''
It also advocates environmental responsibility, including steps to reduce energy consumption and to rely on power from renewable sources; advises municipalities to follow the state's lead in expediting projects that meet their overall development targets; and recommends encouraging people to leave their cars and depend more on transit, bikes and their own feet for mobility.
And as ''some communities continue to fight over the use of former rail right-of-way for bike and walking paths, 'smart growth' decrees that these be expanded,'' the editorial points out, concluding that the governor's policy ''also makes a good case for directing new residential growth to those neighborhoods -- many of them older -- with easy access to rail and bus lines.'' -- Daily News
7/9/2008
Resource(s): www.newburyportnews.com/headerlink
Reading Officials, Developer Working on Downtown Smart Growth 40R District
Having won overwhelming Special Town Meeting approval for a Gateway Smart Growth District last December as part of redevelopment near the I-97/Main Street interchange, reports Reading Advocate writer Stephen Vittorioso, Reading officials are now working with Watertown-based Housing Partners, Inc. and Boston-based Abacus Architects and Planners on a proposed Smart Growth 40R District downtown, where about a quarter of the new 500 housing units would be affordable.
Under state law Chapter 40R, towns approving higher-development densities then current zoning allows in their central or infrastructure areas and near transit qualify for state zoning-incentive payments and a $3,000 bonus for each new housing unit, at least 20 percent of which must be affordable for those with 80 percent or less of the area's median income.
''The idea of a Smart Growth District in downtown is born out of the community's interest and economic revitalization of downtown,'' said community services director and town planner Carol Kowalski. ''You need a critical mass of people to have the kind of retail mix that we're looking for in downtown.''
Residents of the prospective Smart Growth 40R District downtown, the writer notes, would enjoy easy access to public transportation, including a nearby station of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) commuter rail line.
Still in a conceptual phase and eventually dependent on a two-thirds Town Meeting vote, the project ''is not going to happen by itself,'' said Carol Kowalski, ''so it's important for us to actively seek out opportunities for input from residents, groups, boards and commissions'' to ensure its best plan.
Details about Smart Growth Chapter 40R requirements and payments at www.mass.gov/envir/smart_growth_toolkit/pages/mod-40R.html. -- Advocate
7/22/2008
Resource(s): www.wickedlocal.com/reading
Cluster Development Would Create Rural Villages, Protect Rural Heritage in Boone County
Impatient with Boone County's outdated comprehensive plan and its commission's inability to protect land and rural heritage, local Democratic civic activist Sid Sullivan is campaigning for a commission seat, stressing in a Columbia Missourian guest editorial that ''(r)ather than giving lip service to the smart growth constituents and blindly following the decades old zoning ordinance, the county could easily provide incentives to developers and landowners to cluster development into rural villages leaving 60 to 80 percent of the land in its natural state.''
Under the current ordinance, he writes, owners can subdivide their land into 2.5-acre ''estate plats,'' too large for economically feasible public water and sewer services and too small for further subdivision into urban size lots.
The bureaucrats ''wring their hands feeling apologetic and noting their impotence to improve the situation,'' but ''leadership can find a way to solve this problem,'' the candidate for commissioner asserts, pointing out that ''zoning classification of planned districts could and should be amended to retain some of our farms before the entire county is developed into residential estates.''
The amendments should encourage higher-density clusters on 20 to 30 percent of a given tract, with the landowner or developer donating the remaining development rights to a public agency or a nonprofit land trust for a possible tax credit.
The housing could often be clustered away from roads and public view to preserve the landscape and further improve landowners' investment return, while protecting the county's rural quality.
Under such zoning amendments, the county ''could create rural villages that would support a walkable elementary school and neighborhood commerce while protecting local farms within reach of an urban market,'' he writes, adding that ''three or four of these clusters adjacent to one another'' would leave substantial land acreage undisturbed, and asking, ''Wouldn't that be beautiful?'' -- Missourian
7/10/2008
Resource(s): www.columbiamissourian.com/
Long-Term Effects of High Energy Costs Still Uncertain in St. Louis Region
Encouraged by 50 years of constant road construction, urban sprawl carried home owners ever farther away from the central city, but finally seems to have met its match in $4-plus gas, with some commuters moving closer to jobs and some outer suburbs testing smart growth, ob |
