NATIONAL
Editorial: Congress Can Remedy Its
Legacy of Sprawl
Although the transportation engineers and
suburban developers "who have made it nearly impossible to walk
in most neighborhoods built since World War II" bear the main
guilt for the nation's rates of obesity and road accidents,
"they've only done what Congress has paid them to do," but
what Congress should continue remedying through its new six-year and
more transit-friendly transportation bill, which "could slim us
down," writes Smart Growth America communication director David
Goldberg.
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3975&state=52
Professor Defines Un-Smart Growth
Terms in "A Field Guide to Sprawl"
"Sprawl is low-density, scattered,
automobile-dependent development" created in a "political
economy organized around unsustainable growth," said Yale
University Professor Dolores Hayden as she narrated 160 years of
American suburban history at a packed University of New Mexico
School of Architecture and Planning forum in Albuquerque, quoting data
from her incoming book, "A Field Guide to Sprawl."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3976&state=52
COLORADO
Larimer County Becoming Focus of Rural
Sprawl
Increasingly attractive to retirees,
telecommuters and other urbanites, open-range Larimer County -- on
Colorado's northern edge, yet within an easy 20-to-60-mile distance
from Metro Denver -- is "a prime battleground" in the
nation's newly surfaced controversy over exurban growth, or rural
sprawl, reports Christian Science Monitor writer Amanda Paulson,
quoting Environment Colorado land-use expert Will Coyne, who says,
"The focus on growth has been around urban and suburban growth,
while we're watching millions of acres be consumed by ranchettes"
of 35 and more acres.
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3978&state=6
CONNECTICUT
Editorial: Connecticut Anti-Sprawl
Bill Would Stimulate New Construction in Urban Areas
"Support is growing for steps to
rein in sprawl," says a Hartford Currant editorial, urging
Connecticut lawmakers to pass "a sound anti-sprawl bill"
that would "encourage development in urban areas, which already
have an infrastructure of roads, schools, sewers and public safety
services."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3979&state=7
FLORIDA
Editorial Advises Caution as Florida
Lawmakers Tinker With Developments of Regional Impact Reviews
Since poorly regulated development
"threatens the environment and strains schools and roads,"
while "excessive regulation stifles the economy, reducing the
opportunity to enhance public services that benefit all,"
managing growth is "a question of balance, says a Tallahassee
Democrat editorial, advising legislative caution on two proposed bills
to ease restrictions on Developments of Regional Impact (DRI), which
is "one of the state's primary tools for promoting smart growth
that affects an entire region."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3985&state=10
GEORGIA
Emory University Considers Adding
Smart Growth Principles to Campus Master Plan
With Emory University in northeast
Atlanta updating its Campus Master Plan to meet new sustainability,
transportation and green space challenges in the next five years,
School of Law Professor William Buzbee told a forum of division
representatives, administration officials and campus planners that the
university should embrace smart growth and address "environmental
issues before there is a problem" as the campus expands.
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3984&state=11
KANSAS
Lawrence's Smart Growth City
Commission: "Choosing How We Grow"
In the first year since they bested
developer-funded rivals and formed a smart-growth majority on the
five-member Lawrence City Commission, Commissioners Boog Highberger,
David Schauner and Mike Rundle have approved plenty of residential
projects, while asking builders to plan bike paths, pedestrian
walkways and traffic remedies, and passed tax abatements for two local
companies to help them expand, but denied permits for a Wal-Mart on
the city's northwest edge, with Commissioner Rundle, who becomes mayor
April 6th, telling Lawrence Journal-World writer Joel Mathis,
"It's simply a matter of choosing how we grow."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3986&state=17
MASSACHUSETTS
State Offers Littleton Grant Money to
Explore Smart Growth Possibilities
Smart growth is "near and dear"
to Republican Governor Mitt Romney's heart, state health official and
Charles River Watershed Association director Bob Zimmerman assured
Littleton selectmen, telling them that right upon his return from the
Super Bowl game in Houston, the governor stopped by the office of his
Chief of Commonwealth Development Douglas Foy and told him,
"Please don't let us become Houston. They have the worst sprawl
I've ever seen."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3987&state=22
NEW JERSEY
Highlands Water Protection and
Planning Act Placed on Legislative Fast Track in New Jersey
As Governor James E. McGreevey signed the
Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) bill, stressing it will steer
developers "toward the village centers and away from farm
fields," state Democratic Senator Bob Smith and Republican
Senator Robert Martin, along with Democratic Assemblyman John McKeon,
took another step to advance his smart-growth policies, by introducing
the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act, to curb development
in almost half of that ecologically fragile region, that is on some
350,000-390,000 acres, about a third of them in private hands.
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3988&state=31
New Jersey Future Founder Sees
Renewed Focus on Open Space Preservation With Enactment of TDR Law
Having fought "environmentally
irresponsible" development long but with little success, New
Jersey Future founder and executive director Barbara L. Lawrence
finally sees a better future heralded by Governor James E. McGreevey's
enactment of the Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) law, telling New
York Times writer Chris Hedges, "We no longer talk about whether
we will change our practices. Indeed, we know how to wage this war,
and we are working on building the political consensus it will take to
win."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3989&state=31
OHIO
Knox County Smart Growth Group Focuses
on Outreach to Raise Awareness of the True Costs of Sprawl
Knox County in central Ohio would do well
to resist sprawl and save farms and open space, since for each dollar
from their respective tax revenues it had to spent $1.05 in services
for subdivisions but only 29 cents for rural land, pointed out Knox
County Citizens for Smart Growth member John Martin in his
"Growing Smart in Knox County" draft report, writing,
"Trees don't call the police, and corn stalks don't drive on
county roads."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3990&state=36
OREGON
Portland Metro Council Urged to Resist
Land Speculators, Strengthen Town Centers While Drafting New Growth
Boundary
With the Portland Metro Council having to
choose about 2,700 from 29,000 acres for industry-slated expansion of
the metro's growth boundary in June, Coalition to Save the
(Willamette) Valley representative Bill Kenny urges the council in an
Oregonian commentary to resist land speculators who bank on inclusion
of a 1,300-acre swath south of the Willamette River near Wilsonville,
and to join Councilor Carl Hosticka, who proposed an ordinance to make
the river the urban boundary and protect "what Oregon's first
residents called French Prairie, the 'Eden at the end of the Oregon
Trail'."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3991&state=38
TEXAS
Dallas Suburb Chooses Smart Growth
With $200 Million Mixed-Use Community
Largely overlooked in years of fast metro
expansion, the southern Dallas suburb of Lancaster decided against
"a run-of-the-mill development" and chose a smart-growth
option for its 1,500 open acres, where a public-private partnership
envisions a $200 million mixed-use community, with one of the key
local developers, Harvest Real Estate Partners president D. Randall
Potts, expecting many of the future 7,100 homes to attract
"first-time buyers and first move-outs."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3992&state=44
Hometown's
"Child-Centric" Elementary School: Bringing Education to the
Heart of the Community
In a radical turn from a
"warehouse" school design, Arcadia Realty developer William
Gietema Jr. is building a "child-centric" elementary school
in the neo-traditional Hometown community northeast of Fort Worth,
saying, "Instead of a school designed around the drive-through,
we designed the school first, then came up with a method to allow
parents to deliver and pick up their children without damaging the
school's design."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3993&state=44
VIRGINIA
Roanoke County Planners Propose New
Incentives for Construction in Urban Areas, Rules to Discourage Rural
Subdivisions
After three months of the Roanoke County
Smart Growth Task Force's meetings, during which land conservation
advocates sought to keep development within the county urban service
boundary while builder representatives wanted the boundary to
disappear, county planners outlined modest changes to the
comprehensive plan, recommending incentives for construction in
urbanized areas and some rules to discourage rural subdivisions.
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3994&state=47
INTERNATIONAL NOTES
UN Summit Urges Changes in Coastal
Land Use Practices to Prevent Spread of Ocean "Dead Zones"
At the newest three-day United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP) summit in Jeju, South Korea, environment
ministers and delegates from 158 nations focused on the increasingly
frequent water shortages, dust storms, and oceanic overfishing, but
especially on ocean "dead zones," devoid of life due mostly
to excessive nitrogen runoff from farm fertilizer, sewage, and
industrial pollutants.
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3995&state=54
Ontario Politicians Faced With
Tough Decisions in Effort to Promote Smart Growth
As Ontario's governing Liberals continue
to roll out "their ambitious strategy to beat back urban sprawl
in greater Toronto," its pace expected to accelerate from now
trough the fall legislative session, they find themselves facing the
vexing question "Is smart growth smart politics?" writes
Globe and Mail columnist John Lorinc, noting apparent differences
among provincial, city and local officials over transportation and
some land-use matters, while quoting them Mississauga Mayor Hazel
McCallion, former head of the Central Ontario Smart Growth Panel, who
said, "The real challenge of smart growth is the will to do
it."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=3996&state=54
Read the State by State News' February
2004 Issue -- U.S. and International news summaries.
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