Smart Growth Label is Often Misused Resulting in More Sprawl
About 20 years ago it was suggested that we should begin to cluster development onto just a portion of a property, in a more compact form that preserved the remainder of the property as open space. The concept was viewed with distain by most developers and widely rejected by elected officials. Just the mention of deviating from the typical subdivision pattern of development, now know nation-wide as “urban sprawl”, was considered heretical.
Times have changed. With Sarasota’s 2050 Plan, these once renegade ideas are now the rule, and communities around the nation are rediscovering the benefits of traditional forms of development now known as New Urbanism or Smart Growth. Smart Growth planning principals could redefine how American communities are built to a degree never before seen, except for urban sprawl itself, which catered to the lure of auto mobility and gasoline for less than a dollar a gallon.
Smart Growth is much more than just a visual form of development with special building codes to regulate density, height, setbacks and colors. Smart Growth is a comprehensive concept that considers every aspect of development, in order to provide a more sustainable living environment. Smart Growth includes energy conservation, environmental preservation, social values and viable economic principals employed at all planning levels.
The incentive to build using Smart Growth principals is often an substantial increase in development rights. In exchange for building Smart Growth, a developer may be given a bonus for much more development than otherwise would have been permitted. In Sarasota this typically means going from being able to build one house per five acres to three to five houses per acre, or going from three units per acre to up to 25 units per acre. Rarely does one see Smart Growth built without the promise of substantial density increases.
The Smart Growth label is now put on many new development projects, whether it adheres to the comprehensive concepts of legitimate Smart Growth development or not. Frankly, many recent so called Smart Growth developments are smart in name only. The two most common ways that the Smart Growth label is misused deal with location and infrastructure.
Smart Growth can not be smart if it is built at the wrong location. First and foremost, Smart Growth requires development to be sited in a location that maximizes existing infrastructure and avoids impacting significant natural resources. No matter how cute you make the buildings look, or how compact the design, locating developments in flood plains, environmentally sensitive areas or in locations far removed from supporting urban services, its just not smart.
Smart Growth planning principals provide for more efficient use of costly urban services such as roads, police, fire and utilities. By no means does Smart Growth eliminate the need for these services. Yet many purported Smart Growth projects have no financially feasible infrastructure plan to accommodate the increased development that incentivised the so called “smart” development.
For example, if a development, now with 200%-300% more intensity due to the added units for Smart Growth), is permitted that cannot identify an sustainable water supply, it doesn’t matter that Smart Growth efficiencies have reduced individual water consumption by 25%, you still need to have the a water supply for the new development or it isn’t smart. Likewise, Smart Growth may cut individual automobile trips by 20%, but if the roads and transit services are inadequate to accommodate the “bonus” development that comes with Smart Growth, it isn’t smart. In some cases we may be better off without the additional infrastructure pressures that the added bonus density of Smart Growth brings.
Smart Growth is a development option that by far out performs typical subdivision sprawl and is a chance to avoid paving over every tree and frustrating traffic jams. But misused, Smart Growth could compound existing infrastructure budget deficits and create more sprawl, simply disguised with different name. Smart Growth should be the way that we build new development, not the reason. “Smart Growth” in the wrong location or done without a financially feasible infrastructure plan, is nothing more than dumb growth with a smart name.