|
|
|
Speaking of Sprawl
Can advocates of 'smart growth' hope to make headway against 350 years of home rule?
|
Business New Haven
3/17/2003
By: Mimi Houston
|
Those people who spend a lot of time thinking about Connecticut's future - how we're growing, where we're growing, and the consequences of this growth to those who live and work in the state - are more and more using an ugly five-letter word that many would associate more with a teaser town somewhere out in the wild, wild West.
Sprawl.
The more you say it, the more insidious it sounds. But what, exactly, is it?
"The whole issue of sprawl has burst on to the scene in the last couple of years," says Daniel Tuba, town planner of Monroe and president of the Connecticut chapter of the American Planners Association.
"My parent organization, the American Planners Association [APA], is deep into developing programs to deal with it," he continues. "It's found it's way to the state legislature - it's in the very early stages right now. We [the state APA chapter] have a legislative committee that's developing a white paper on it, and there is a standing group that monitors sprawl and smart-growth positions.
In popular usage "sprawl" has been loosely defined as building on and/or developing land parcels farther and farther from major, previously-established hubs of population. In more innocent days, these towns were known as "bedroom communities."
What made them more innocent was that they didn't house their own strip malls. People still came to the nearby center cities to buy necessities, see a movie, have a good meal.
Now, more and more, exurban municipalities are building their own commercial areas to accommodate most if not all their residents' needs. Indeed, if you need proof positive of the effects of sprawl, how many of us have listened to people who made it a point to assert that they hadn't visited New Haven in "years" - and yet live less than a 300-minute drive outside the city's limits?
Experts say the impacts of sprawl are many, and few of them desirable. It can lead to more abandoned inner-city buildings, greater (and eventually unbearable) tax burdens on inner-city residents who cannot afford them, a decline in the quality of urban public school systems, a decrease in community programs and services and racially diverse neighborhoods. And that's just to name a few. Hence, the growing concern.
"The definition of the problem," says New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr., "is the fact that in Connecticut, what we're seeing is a phenomenon where much of the open space is being consumed by development activity that is causing congestion because it is occurring away from where the population and transportation systems already are. It is ultimately harmful to our quality of life, and it makes us less economically competitive as a state."
DeStefano is a member of the state's Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burdens & Smart Growth Initiatives, a task force comprising appointed members of state and local government as well as the business and industry sector. The committee is studying the manifestations of sprawl, looking at ways to address it.
"We're looking at property tax reform and at 'smart growth,'" DeStefano explains. He feels when the committee presents its report in October of this year, most people will be open to new approaches.
"I really think that when people get into their cars every day, or wake up in their communities and see the blossoming of subdivisions and the stress they're putting on the roads and the utility structures, they'll realize there is a problem," DeStefano says.
But will legislative leaders and others at the state capital be as responsive?
"If you go to the planning and development committee," says DeStefano, "you'll get a very positive reaction, an openness. If you talk to the majority of legislators of the state, you'll find that the administration is still thinking about how it feels about these issues."
"There is a movement called smart growth," explains State Rep. Jefferson B. Davis (D-50), a legislator from bucolic Pomfret who has pretty much made up his mind about how he feels on the issue, "and it's easily defined. There are two equal values that drive it: The first is to try and have development take place where there is existing infrastructure. The second equal value is the protection of open space.
"All policies kind of build off those two values," Davis adds. "Smart growth understands there is a connection between property taxes and transportation, land use, affordable housing and quality of life that needs to be looked at in a more holistic way.
"Our unwillingness, as policy makers, to look at these issues within a context of the region's economies - in which we compete internationally - is having and will continue to have a significant impact on economic development and Connecticut's long-term competition," he says.
Davis and others working toward smart growth insist that other states have worked with these issues for years, and that Connecticut is behind the curve when it comes to state leadership on smart growth.
"This issue is not in its infancy, generally," says Davis. "But within the [Connecticut] legislature it's been consistently stifled by the governor and the legislative leadership who have been unwilling to provide this new context for making policy decisions. Governors of both political parties around the country have understood the value of smart growth - as both politically advantageous and as helpful to the quality of life and economic developmental profitability of their states.
"If I look to our neighbors," Davis adds, "Governor [Mitt] Romney of Massachusetts has taken this issue [smart growth] and formed the core of his administration. Governor [James] McGreevey in New Jersey has done the same thing. They are the newest generation of governors who have chosen to take bold actions for smart growth.
"Governor Romney, a conservative Republican, has hired the head of the Conservation Law Foundation - a liberal environmental group - as his chief administrator to coordinate smart growth policies through all state agencies," he says. "Governor McGreevey has chosen to make the New Jersey state plan - a long-term growth management strategy - a central focus for all decisions that his administration makes."
While Connecticut seems to be lagging in smart growth leadership, the face of things is beginning to change, albeit slowly.
"Bills are starting to pop up in the legislature," says Monroe's Tuba. "There is a subcommittee that monitors and makes recommendations to spread the word. A lot falls on the shoulders of the legislators, but part of the problem is this is New England.
"New England is fiercely independent," he says. "Each municipality jealously guards its home rule. We've historically had a very hard time dealing with issues on a regional basis. And sprawl is regional. It has to be attacked regionally. There needs to be a state initiative.
"Take zoning," says Tuba. "It's so dynamically different from town to town. Most towns have blinders on when it comes to the town line. They don't like to look past it and deal with problems regionally. Until that kind of philosophy and wisdom comes down - through legislative mandates and incentives - it will be hard to deal with a lot of smart growth issues."
And what are the most important of those issues?
"The key element to controlling sprawl," says Tuba, "is to turn development - both residential and commercial - back toward cities. But with Connecticut's tax system, every town fights one another for commercial and industrial growth to prop up their tax base. Everyone wants a piece of the pie. Most cities have a certain amount of infrastructure, and when you start leapfrogging - developing out of these areas - it causes congestion, crowding, the need for greater infrastructure, which costs the town more. It creates a spiral.
"There are cities with vacant land," Tuba continues, "areas of brownfields that are ripe for developing. Yet they're just sitting there. It's the American dream. Everyone wants their estate in the country. But it's a dangerous dream, because in the long run it hurts. It hurts the nation's resources, conservation. It has an impact on the environment - when you develop undeveloped land instead of redeveloping, development gets further and further out and creates greater decay for our cities."
Which cuts to the most fundamental issue: Should government enter the business of telling people where to live? Most dyed-in-the-wool Yankees would say no.
"I build where people tell me they want to live," says Bob Wiedenmann Jr., owner of Sunwood Development Corp. in Wallingford. Wiedenmann has built hundreds of homes, mainly in suburban and rural areas of Connecticut.
"If I had a bunch of people saying, 'I want to live in New Haven,' I'd go there," he allows. "But the logistics in inner cities makes it more difficult. On brownfields it's harder to clear the pollution. Sure, there may be sewer lines already there, but they are hundreds of years old."
And, Wiedenmann insists, his buyers simply don't want to go there.
"There is ongoing talk in Hartford to create growth boundaries and to stay where the infrastructure is," acknowledges Wiedenmann. "But they don't take into consideration where the homebuyer wants to live."
Wiedenmann voices the frustration felt by builders everywhere dealing with the talk of smart growth.
"I look at it as similar to the problem of everyone thinking we should use public transportation," he explains. "What they really want is for everyone else to use it - 'Get out of my way so I can get my car through. I don't want to take the bus, but I want you to.'
"They don't want sprawl, but 90 percent of those who say we should redevelop our cities live in the suburbs," he says, "where they don't want others to live. They're saying, 'Don't use up our valuable farmland.' You know what? If I were a farmer in Connecticut, I'd sell my 100 acres here and buy 300 acres in upstate New York, where the farming is better."
Wiedenmann says new development is unlikely to slow on its own, but that there are better ways of addressing its parameters.
"Rather than discourage sprawl," he suggests, "they should set policies in place that make people want to live in cities."
He also says not all developments have to put houses on large two-acre or even one-acre lots.
"We should encourage people to utilize better land use," he insists. "Using quarter-acre or even third-acre lots can make everybody happy.
"I've done some smaller lots - detached condos, really," Wiedenmann says. "And they're considered moderate density, not high density, when you look at the nation's general development. They're built on quarter-acre lots, and they're clustered, which allows some of the land to be used for open space."
Wiedenmann adds there is a distinct market for homes that are part of smaller, closely built neighborhoods, citing those who are not ready for retirement developments, but would rather be out playing golf than mowing extensive lawns.
"There is a very good market in that," he says, "but a lot of towns don't encourage that type of development. They make it very hard, and I look at it from an economic standpoint. Do I really want to subject myself to this abuse - from the town that doesn't help you get through the approval process?
"There is not magic pill to make this right," he acknowledges. "We have to look at our tax structure and education. We have all these people saying, 'I don't want any more houses in my neighborhood because I don't want any more kids in my town. I don't want my taxes going up. Sure, if you're over 55 and you have no kids - come on and live here.'"
"There is a Blue Ribbon Commission that is deep into the process of dealing with Connecticut's tax structure and smart growth," says Tuba. "The two issues are wrapped together. We have to examine the whole tax structure. When it's more attractive to get out of our cities than to stay in them, that further contributes to sprawl.
"Commercial and industrial businesses are leaving our cities in droves, and the tax burden is shifted more and more to the residents. Also, infrastructure costs more to maintain in cities, another reason for more taxes than in suburban areas."
Robert Santy, president of the Regional Growth Partnership and a member of the steering committee of the Connecticut Regional Institute for the 21st Century, testified in Hartford last month, reporting to legislators and members of the state's Planning and Development Committee. He presented a report, "The Shape of Things to Come: Is Connecticut Sprawling?" by the Regional Plan Association.
Santy says the report echoes the importance of controlling sprawl and maintaining Connecticut as a desirable place to live and work.
"Unlike 20 years ago, when graduates left college to work for IBM for 35 years," he says, "college students are now asking themselves, 'Where would I like to live?' It's whoever is attributing to the present natural environment, making cities more attractive places.
"Adopting smart growth principles will make us more competitive," he insists, "more attractive to the young, skilled workers we need to develop our bioscience and other industries. [If we don't] we won't have the natural resources like the Quinnipiac River, the hiking spots and open spaces that people find so important.
"Most companies know that," says Santy. "There are still some in the environmental community that still think big companies are the bad guys, but big companies are going to do things that make their workers happy. They're very much on board with smart growth."
The report Santy presented makes clear why so many cities and towns are struggling with the current tax structure. Two-thirds of municipal tax revenue comes from property taxes, and Connecticut ranks third in the nation for property tax burden per capita (1998). Additionally, an average of 57 percent of municipal budgets go toward paying K-12 public education - a cost the state is taking less and less a share in. It also states that in 2001, 80 percent of all towns and cities had to increase property taxes to keep up with the increased burden.
These figures hint at one of the greatest challenges facing smart growth proponents.
"The state's economic-development policy encourages businesses to move from cities into the suburbs," explains Jim Finley, associate director of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. "And it's felt that if an entity is going to leave the state entirely, it's the lesser of two evils to have them move out to the suburbs instead. At least they are still in the state.
"And, because of the present tax system, communities are competing against one another to attract commercial development to grow their grand list. We can make vast improvements" in the name of smart growth, says Finley. But the real problem won't be addressed, he insists, "if the underlying imperative to grow the grand list doesn't change. Right now that's the only way communities can generate more revenue. So, they make their decisions based on what looks good in the short run. It may look advantageous now, but in the long run it hurts services - education in particular."
Finley says many towns are making poor decisions in part because they have inadequate technologies and/or data to support planners and help them make better choices.
"There is no coordinated geographic information system (GIS),"Finley says, "so that communities can tie into one another. And there is no build-out analysis that we can use to show what each community will look like in the future. We have no idea where we're heading. There is no business plan showing how we want to grow - what we want to look like. These are the basic tools we're lacking to make better land use decisions or be aware of opportunities."
Finley voices a common frustration facing those dealing with sprawl in Connecticut - a vision for a better way, held back by a lack of resources, funds, leadership - or all three.
"Connecticut has enjoyed phenomenal growth success for such long periods, and all with maximum flexibility everywhere," he says. "We have a general political reluctance to work together under state direction, and we can no longer afford that [reluctance]. We need to work together, to marshal our resources to protect our quality of life.
"There is an economic aspect to changing the way we finance local government and land use," he continues. "We're a small state with urban, suburban and rural options and we'll lose all that characteristic unless there's an economic incentive to change and remain competitive."
Finley also insists that state government must step in to reduce some of the burden Connecticut residents, urban-dwellers especially, are feeling in terms of property taxes, but admits the current budget crisis facing the state makes this more challenging than ever.
So what is a state to do? The Regional Plan Association's report highlights Connecticut's highly skilled workforce as its most valuable economic resource, and urges an end to current practices contributing to sprawl and the possibility of the state becoming a less attractive place to live and work.
There are programs in place. Cities like Stamford are able to boast some success in attracting businesses and homebuyers.
"There have been some actions that SACIA [the Southwest Area Commerce & Industry Association] has been involved in that maximize on infrastructure that already exists," reports Lisa Mercurio, director of the Fairfield County information exchange, a data-driven initiative of SACIA. She highlights the move in 1995 of Swiss Re to a location in Stamford near the train station as a prime example of what smart growth is all about.
"They contributed funds to the development of the transportation center in Stamford and to upgrades to it," says Mercurio. "It was a very big move, with over 3,000 employees. They came from New York and into an infrastructure that already existed, right next to a pre-existing transportation center. A lot of their employees commute from New York City or its suburbs, and they can all take the train right to work."
Mercurio says SACIA has also been instrumental in efforts to preserve open space in Fairfield County.
"We've worked hard with legislators," she explains, "to encourage Governor Rowland to set aside $90 million for open-space preservation. Fairfield County is denser than elsewhere in the state, so the need to preserve open space is critical, and serves to redirect development to where the infrastructure already exists."
She says that Stamford has also been successful in building and filling new urban housing sites. SACIA, she notes, has worked to implement so-called inclusionary zoning - linking affordable and luxury housing - and cites a recent development that had 20 percent of its units designated "affordable" and set aside to house city and municipal workers. And, she says, there are no shortage of people who want to live in her city.
"We've added thousands of housing units within the last five years or so," concurs Ben Barnes, director of public safety, health and welfare for the city of Stamford. "We have a very large number of people living downtown."
Barnes says the city has worked hard creating and maintaining an attractive place in which to live and work, as well as investing in a very crucial piece of the pie: affordable housing.
"The city invests $600,000 a year of its own money into affordable housing," he says. "We also have high quality schools, high quality services, great nightlife - we have a lot of good clubs and restaurants, a very active special services district that puts on a lot of special events and works with small businesses to ensure their success.
"It's an important part of quality of life that we're trying to establish here," Barnes says. "We recognize that a diverse population, economic diversity, success as a business location and having housing for people of all economic groups is critical to that quality of life."
Other programs exist as well to encourage urban home-ownership. Yale University has a program that provides dollars toward the purchase of a new home in New Haven to its employees. The Connecticut Housing Finance Authority sponsors an urban homeownership program aimed at 16 targeted communities including New Haven, Meriden, Bridgeport and Hartford, offering special low interest rates on 30-year fixed mortgages to encourage state, municipal and private-sector workers to live in the municipalities where they work.
But one thing is clear. Until state leadership steps in, in a big way, providing more dollars and significant tax relief, the spreading of sprawl is not likely to abate any time soon.
"It's going to take a conscientious effort on the part of a number of people to attack [sprawl]," says Tuba. "It's an insidious, creeping problem - the kind that makes everyone feel pretty good, yet everything is crumbling around you. Those areas that are most heavily affected by sprawl are feeling very comfortable out there. They don't realize that they are part of the problem."
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
