A golden moment to stop sprawl

By Dick Cooper

10/28/2008

To recast an old saying: "If it weren't for the bad news, we wouldn't have any news at all."

Stocks plummet, banks fail, savings evaporate and foreclosures steal family homes and futures. A chart of new housing starts looks like the weakening pulse of a dying patient.

The flurry of building that gobbled up tens of thousands of acres and transformed farms into housing tracts all across the region has ended. The construction fields are quiet as an uneasy public waits to see where the United States' economy is heading.

It is a golden moment to make substantial changes in the course of development, and we need the political will and commitment from state, county and local leaders to seize it.

Rob Etgen, Director of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, a private, non-profit organization that preserves Maryland farmland, says the two main drivers of sprawl "have been cheap gas and readily available mortgage funding. Both of these factors have changed dramatically in ways that discourage sprawl and encourage smarter growth. We need to plan afresh for these new realities."

ESLC has organized a regional daylong meeting on November 7 at Chesapeake College in Wye Mills, Md., to spend a day examining how "a changing economy, rising gas prices and shifting housing market demands are creating a new paradigm for transportation and land use planning."

David A. Goldberg, Communications Director for Smart Growth America, a coalition of local, state and national organizations that advocates better housing and transportation planning, says "While this is a crisis for some homebuilders, it is an opportunity for planning future development."

Goldberg says local, state and regional planners should step back and look at all previous assumptions on how to control growth. He goes down a checklist of design features that should be re-evaluated, including location, lot size and street planning, all of which are based on gasoline-powered vehicles as the primary means of transportation.

"This is the time to do it," he says, "There are a lot of planning commissions with time on their hands."

Earlier this year, as the economic downturn was starting to bite, the Maryland Department of Planning published a report entitled "A Shore for Tomorrow" focusing on the mostly rural Eastern Shore.

"If the Eastern Shore is to maintain its traditional landscape, vibrant communities and resource-based economies, proper planning and land management must occur," the planners wrote.

The report set out two visions of the future, one that continues the "Current Policies" pattern of large-tract development and another it calls "Smart Growth."

"Smart Growth" advocates concentrating future growth, finding ways to reuse existing and historic buildings and protecting farms and areas that have fragile ecosystems. One chart, "Future Developed Acres, 2003-2030," shows that if nothing is changed, almost 100,000 acres will be developed during that period, compared to the 25,000 acres using "Smart Growth."

"If past development trends and patterns continue as they have since 1973, development will continue to sprawl across the landscape, consuming more and more resource land," the report states.

"Implementation of these smart growth principals will require changes in existing zoning and subdivision laws, a commitment to resource protection and other environmental policies, and political vision and will," the report concludes.

But, unfortunately, there are still major obstacles.

William C. Boicourt, Chairman of the Talbot County, Md., Planning Commission, says, "The towns see growth as a way to prosper. They don't see that they will always have to provide more services than they gain from new tax income."

He also says that farmers and other landowners do not want to be told what they can do with their land. They have seen friends and neighbors sell to developers for good money. "Farmers see development as a parachute, a safety net," Boicourt says.

It is time heed the advice of the state planners and take a holistic look at managing growth. More is not always better, bigger is not always best.

In its chapter "A Smarter, Better Future," the Maryland report states:

"The failure to target and control growth on the Easter Shore may significantly impact the traditional culture and communities that make 'the land of pleasant living' a destination in the first place.

The same could be said for all our communities. It is time to get it right.