on common ground: summer 2004

The type of planning and community developmentdescribed by the term Smart Growth continues to evolve.When the term was first introduced in the mid-1990s,

Smart Growth’s focus was on reducing or mitigating the envi-ronmental degradation brought by development—consumptionof land and the accompanying negative effects of degradedwater and air quality and loss of natural lands, wildlife, andfarmland. The term’s early use also encompassed the need toprovide adequate infrastructure to handle growth’s demandsand address concerns such as traffic congestion.

Subsequently, Smart Growth’s vision has expanded to con-sider new models of how to rebuild (or build) communities tobe better places. This refined vision now includes alternativetransportation options (including transit and walking), the cre-ation of “walkable,” mixed-use communities, and the revital-ization of older neighborhoods and cities. From the beginning,the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®’ definition ofSmart Growth included the provision of a wide range of hous-ing options and prices, and this element has been embraced bySmart Growth advocates.

MEASURING

SUCCESSToday’s Smart Growth

2 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2004

Now there is an increasing recognition that SmartGrowth must address the need for social equity in ourcommunities. This means creating safer, healthier,more livable communities for all members of our com-munities, and embracing the full range of our diversepopulation in the benefits of Smart Growth, includinghomeownership.

Are these expanding goals for Smart Growth beingachieved? The scorecard is mixed. There has beensignificant achievement since the late 1990s in thepreservation of natural lands and agricultural landsthrough a variety of mechanisms, including publicpurchase, land trust stewardship, and the use of pur-chase or transfer of development rights. Transit rider-ship is increasing, and many communities are invest-ing in new transit systems. The downtowns of manymajor cities have been revived, and growth in thesecities has included significant residential develop-ment. Some jurisdictions are rewriting their zoningcodes to permit and encourage more compact, mixed-use development, and these projects are doing verywell in the marketplace.

But in most places, zoning still makes SmartGrowth development illegal, and the amount ofdevelopment that could be called Smart Growth is asmall portion of what is being built. Low-density sub-urbs that require the use of a car to go everywhere arestill the norm (and still required by most zoningcodes), and attempts to integrate different housingtypes and prices are usually opposed. While home-ownership rates are at an all-time high, housingopportunities for low-income households are dwin-dling, especially in revitalized high-cost cities. Andwhile some older cities flourish, others—especiallythose whose economies were based on manufactur-ing—are stagnating or declining.

In this issue of On Common Ground, we take awide-view scan of the State of Smart Growth—what’sworking and what challenges remain. We report onefforts to measure and promote Smart Growth, zoningcodes that encourage Smart Growth, and some of theREALTORS® who have embraced Smart Growth intheir business plans and in their associations’ publicpolicy efforts.

For more information on NAR and Smart Growth,go to www.realtor.org/smartgrowth.

On Common Ground is published twice a year bythe Government Affairs office of theNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, andis distributed free of charge. The publication pres-ents a wide range of views on Smart Growthissues, with the goal of encouraging a dialogueamong REALTORS®, elected officials, and otherinterested citizens. The opinions expressed in OnCommon Ground are those of the authors and donot necessarily reflect the opinions or policy of theNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, itsmembers, or affiliate organizations.

EditorJoseph R. MolinaroManager, Smart Growth ProgramsNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

700 Eleventh Street, NWWashington, DC [email protected]

DistributionFor more copies of this issue or to be placed on ourmailing list for future issues of On Common Ground, please contactTed Wright, NAR Government Affairs, at (202) 383-1206 or [email protected].

SUMMER 2004 ON COMMON GROUND 3

Mithun Designphoto: Michael Seidl

Communities are learning to build compactly by mixinghousing, stores, and offices … but outmoded zoning and otherobstacles must be overcome.


The LongRoad to


On the Internet, theCensus Bureau operatesa “population clock” that

gives an up-to-the-minute esti-mate of how people are living inthe United States (www.census.gov/cgi-bin/popclock). On April15, the clock counted 293,026,388people on U.S. soil—140 millionmore than in 1950. Every 13 sec-onds another person is added.

This near-doubling of thenation’s population in a littlemore than half a century—compounded by the tendency ofAmericans to demand more liv-ing space per person, drive moremiles per person, and consumemore goods per person than theydid in 1950—is forcing policymakers to face an importantquestion: How should our com-munities grow?

In the 1,000-square-mile Highlands region that stretches from easternPennsylvania across northern New Jersey to New York’s lower Hudson Valley andnorthwestern Connecticut, nearly 100 square miles have undergone developmentduring the past two decades. The spread of houses, roads, offices, and shoppingcenters has exerted a mostly harmful impact on agriculture, wildlife, and sourcesof fresh drinking water. Meanwhile, in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West,development is penetrating areas that used to be far off the beaten path. In muchof the United States, countryside is giving way to “rural sprawl.”

What’s the answer? Part of it can be summed up in two words: Smart Growth.“Smart Growth first and foremost is plain old good planning,” says Don Chen,executive director of the national advocacy group Smart Growth America. “Itmeans improving on what we’ve already built, rather than throwing away oldneighborhoods and leaving scars in the landscape so that we go chew up the nextfield or forest.”

Smart GrowthBy Philip Langdon


In much of the United States, countryside is giving way to “rural sprawl.”

The goal of Smart Growth proponents is to steerdevelopment to the most suitable places andorganize it into better-connected, more compactforms. If that can be done, people can live well onless land. In fact, they can live better—becausetheir communities will be more walkable and gen-erally more convenient. The environment will beless degraded by miles of strip commercial build-ings and parking lots.

Here’s a quick rundown on what’s happened so far:

• Smart Growth has captured public attention.David Goldberg at Smart Growth America saysthat 23 governors talked about Smart Growth intheir 2003 State of the State addresses, or madecomments or initiated policies that apply smartgrowth principles. Those governors includeDemocrats Phil Bredesen in Tennessee andJennifer Granholm in Michigan, andRepublicans Mitt Romney in Massachusetts andMark Sanford in South Carolina. The appeal ofSmart Growth cuts across party lines.

• New Urbanism has gained momentum. Thismovement, which calls for homes to be within

walking distance of gathering places such asparks and cafes and to have sociable streets andsidewalks, “is growing as never before,” saysRobert Steuteville, editor of the nationalnewsletter New Urban News. A survey complet-ed in December 2003 by the Ithaca, NewYork–based newsletter identified 648 neighbor-hood-scale New Urbanist communities that arebeing developed or are in phases leading up todevelopment. That’s a 37 percent increase overthe year before. “For the last seven years, theaverage increase has been 28 percent per year,”Steuteville points out. New Urban News defines“neighborhood-scale communities” as thosecovering at least 15 acres, featuring an intercon-nected network of streets and a mixture of hous-ing types, and at least one central gatheringplace. “The placement of parking and buildingsand the design of streets must create a pedestri-an-friendly character,” Steuteville emphasizes.

• Economic benefits have been substantial. AMarch 2004 study by Mark Muro and RobertPuentes for the Center on Urban andMetropolitan Policy at the Brookings Institutiondetermined that compact development patterns


can cut road-building costs nationally by $110billion, or nearly 12 percent, over 25 years. Theycan reduce water and sewer costs over the sameperiod by $12.6 billion, or nearly 7 percent. Theycan shave $4.2 billion, or nearly 4 percent, fromthe annual costs of operations and servicesdelivery.

• The building and development industry isgrowing more receptive. Harry H. Frampton,chairman of the Urban Land Institute, whichserves developers, said his organization has“helped Smart Growth gain enough traction tomove into the mainstream.”

• Smart growth ideas have been incorporatedinto laws and government policies. Nineteenstates have growth management laws and 10have smart growth laws, according to SmartGrowth America. In addition, regions such asmetropolitan Portland, Oregon and municipali-ties such as Fort Collins, Colorado have adoptedsmart growth principles.

“While in some areas Smart Growth initiallywas motivated by worries over the destruction offarms and natural areas, it has gone far beyondthat now,” says Chen of Smart Growth America.“People are making the connection between

The goal of Smart Growth proponents is tosteer development to the most suitable

places and organize it into better-connected,more compact forms.


spread-out, disconnected development and theneed to spend so much of our lives in traffic. One-size-fits-all subdivisions just aren’t working for apopulation that is aging, deferring children andhaving fewer of them, and forming single-personhouseholds faster than any other type.”

How communities respondA number of governments have decided to chan-nel development into existing towns and cities andother areas where new construction makes themost sense from a regional perspective. UnderDemocratic Governor Parris Glendening,Maryland established “Priority Funding Areas”—areas designated for growth. Land outside thoseareas is ineligible for state financial support,including road-building and other projects intend-ed to accommodate growth. (One exception isschools. To forestall opposition from rural legisla-tors, schools were omitted from the Smart Growthlaw, but Glendening took other actions to concen-trate school construction dollars in built-up areas.)

Maryland’s program designated the state’s 157municipalities and all the communities inside theWashington and Baltimore beltways as PriorityFunding Areas. Many counties are beyond thebeltways and have no municipalities. Every coun-ty was allowed to designate additional PriorityFunding Areas, but those areas were required tohave water and sewer lines, and had to achieve a

minimum density of 3.5 dwelling units per acre innew residential projects. If a county designated aPriority Funding Area, it also had to be consistentwith the county’s 20-year growth projections.

Since construction of schools in outlying areasoften entices families to move to the suburbanfringe, Glendening increased state school spend-ing and focused more of its construction and ren-ovation budget on older, more built-up communi-ties. In 1996–97, 43 percent of Maryland’s schoolconstruction and renovation funds went to oldercommunities. When Glendening left office inJanuary 2003, schools in older communitiesreceived 80 percent of those funds.

Glendening’s Republican successor, Robert L.Ehrlich Jr., has since backed off on some elementsof Smart Growth, such as using state funds toacquire open space, but he too is focusing on bol-stering older communities. “The idea is to spendmoney renovating and fixing up these existingtown centers and historic Main Streets,” saysChuck Gates, spokesperson for the MarylandDepartment of Planning.

“It has made a significant difference,” Gatessays of Maryland’s effort over the past eight years.On Baltimore’s west side, large condominium tow-ers have been springing up. “Throughout olderparts of our communities, we see new life andincreasing property values,” says Dru Schmidt-Perkins, executive director of 1000 Friends of

Smart Growth seems to work best when it encompasses anentire metropolitanarea.


Maryland. On the other hand, Gates notes that ifhomebuyers want to live in more remote areas andare willing to pay a premium for that privilege,developers will heed the market and continuebuilding at the fringe. Smart Growth, as practicedin Maryland and many other places, does not pre-clude outward development; it does, however,eliminate many of what effectively were govern-ment subsidies for sprawl.

Smart Growth seems to work best when itencompasses an entire metropolitan area. BeforeMaryland embarked on its smart growth efforts,some counties acted on their own, with mixedresults. Baltimore County, which surroundsBaltimore City, restricted development in somerural areas, such as the horse country north ofBaltimore, where the landed gentry live. Thatinadvertently encouraged residential develop-ment to leapfrog to Harford County to the north-east and Carroll County to the northwest. “Boththose counties have experienced enormous sprawlproblems,” says Gates. The lesson is that restric-tions in one area sometimes shift developmentinto more distant places.

About as close as any urban area in the UnitedStates has come to a comprehensive approach isPortland, Oregon. Portland’s directly elected met-ropolitan government, known as Metro, overseesexpansion in a three-county area. Only the area

across the Columbia River in Washington State isexempt from Metro’s growth controls. Motivatedby the disappearance of prime farmland, Portlandhas been thinking regionally since the 1970s,when Governor Tom McCall and the state legisla-ture took steps to control outward development.

Oregon law requires Metro to keep a 20-yearsupply of land available for development withinthe growth boundary. Since the late 1970s, theboundary has moved about three dozen times,usually not far. The most recent expansion, inDecember 2002, added a substantial territory—18,638 acres, enough for 38,657 housing units andthousands of jobs. Rather than expanding aroundthe fringe, Metro concentrated two thirds of thegrowth in one area: Damascus/Boring. “Theintent,” says Metro principal planner RaymondValone, “is that it be all planned together as a com-plete community.”

Portland-area housing prices have risen consid-erably in the last decade. How much of the priceincrease resulted from the growth boundary is anopen question. Some areas of the U.S. with no

growth boundaries have experienced sharplyescalating house prices. “In Portland, the housingsupply is expanding in a fashion that correspondsvery well with the population,” says Gerrit Knaap,executive director of the National Center for SmartGrowth Research and Education at the Universityof Maryland. In part because of restrictions onoutward expansion, plenty of private redevelop-ment is occurring in the city. The population with-in the city’s boundaries has grown to 539,000 from366,000 in 1980, partly through annexation butalso through an embrace of apartments, town-houses, and other, denser forms of housing.Housing has been built on former parking lots,above stores, even atop a public library. Haggard-looking neighborhoods have improved. “There’sno blight in Portland,” Knaap says. “That’s reallystunning.”

As Smart Growth has become the norm, gov-ernments in the Portland area have taken steps to

ensure that housing of various kinds can be pro-duced in a range of locations. “Any corner lot in asingle-family residential zone in Portland is enti-tled to be converted to a duplex,” notes RobertLiberty, former executive director of 1000 Friendsof Oregon. “All local governments [in the region]must authorize accessory apartments.” While sub-urbs in many sections of the United States havebecome less dense over the years, Portland’s sub-urbs have become denser.

The 2000 Census found that greater Portland,unlike most American metropolitan areas, doesnot concentrate poor families in the city. Peoplewith modest incomes were able to dispersethroughout nearly all of the Portland suburbsbecause every municipality and county is requiredto zone for a sizable number of apartments. In2000, for the first time, more poor people in thethree-county area lived in the suburbs than inPortland itself, Betsy Hammond reported in TheOregonian. The result, in the view of Bruce Katz,director of the Brookings’ Center on Urban andMetropolitan Policy, is that social problems are notcompounded by concentration. Nor are the centralcity and the older suburbs emptying out, draggingdown the metro area.

The center, with its MAX light-rail line and anew streetcar line, is thriving. The light-rail lineconnects towns on the east side to those on thewest. Mixed-use development has clustered closeto MAX stops like Orenco Station—a popular cen-ter where residents can walk from home to coffeeshops, restaurants, and commuter rail.

If Smart Growth is to achieve substantialresults, efforts must be made at both regional andlocal levels. In metropolitan Washington, D.C., thebest development over the past 25 years owes itsexistence to the regional Metro rail system and tolocal initiatives. A prime example is the profusionof housing, offices, stores, restaurants, and ser-vices within walking distance of five Metro sta-tions in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor of ArlingtonCounty, Virginia. What had been an aging, low-density commercial road corridor in the 1960s hasbecome “the economic engine of ArlingtonCounty,” according to James Snyder, supervisor ofthe county’s Planning Section. Since 1979, whenMetro opened its Orange Line in the corridor,18,000 houses and apartments, 14 million squarefeet of offices, and 21.5 million square feet of retailhave appeared. “Things are compact and dense,”Snyder says. The corridor, containing 7.6 percentof the county’s land area, generates 33 percent ofits property tax revenue. It allows Arlington to setits property tax rate lower than other major juris-dictions in northern Virginia.

Greater Atlanta, the biggest metropolis in the


If Smart Growth is toachieve substantial

results, efforts must bemade at both regional

and local levels.

Southeast, is now trying to combine regional andlocal action, both of which are badly needed afterdecades of uncontrolled sprawl made commutingon the region’s clogged highways maddeninglyslow. In 1999, the 10-county Atlanta RegionalCommission launched the Livable CentersInitiative, providing $5 million over five years forcommunities to devise ways to build mixed-useand residential construction with access to transit.The resulting community plans are eligible for ashare of $350 million in transportation improve-ments. One such plan calls for turning PerimeterCenter—a suburban mall and office center withthree MARTA rail stations—into a transit village.Another calls for building mixed-income housingon what had been parking, near an underusedMARTA station in Decatur. In Midtown Atlantanear the Georgia Tech campus, extensive develop-ment integrating offices and housing is takingplace. Dan Reuter, chief of the Commission’s LandUse Division, calls Midtown “a national successstory.”

In most of the United States, Smart Growth isstill the exception to the rule. Impediments aremany: zoning codes discourage mixed uses; finan-ciers resist integration of offices, retail, and hous-

ing; and developers tend to specialize in only oneor two kinds of projects. “Compared with the chal-lenge at hand—fundamentally transforming howour communities grow—the strides that have beenmade are quite modest,” says Smart GrowthAmerica’s Don Chen.

There is no doubt that compact, mixed-usedevelopment with extensively interconnectedstreets, pedestrian convenience, and access totransit is increasing. The question is whether itwill become widespread enough, fast enough. “Inmy perspective, the ‘smart growth movement’ hasbeen most successful at sparking a national con-versation about why places matter,” says JohnShepard, a long-range planner with LarimerCounty (Fort Collins), Colorado. That’s an impor-tant beginning. But much more will have to bedone, as Hank Dittmar, president of the advocacygroup Reconnecting America, acknowledges.“Our challenge,” Dittmar says, “is to scale up, andto take down the regulations, codes, standards,and habits that shackle the marketplace.”

Philip Langdon is senior editor of New Urban News, anational newsletter on New Urbanism and communitydesign.


Bozeman, Montana, population 27,509, is one city that practices Smart Growth on a smallscale. “We’re encouraging residential infill, taking underutilized residential lots andbumping up the density through accessory dwelling units,” says Jody Sanford, associate

planner. Often the new, small units are above garages along alleys. They’re especially popularwith students at Montana State University. “Most of the designs are quite nice,” Sanford says.

In older parts of the city, owners are allowed todivide large lots in two to create additional hous-ing. The more people who live in a neighborhood,the better the nearby shops and eating placesfare. Along with residential additions to existingneighborhoods, small-scale commercial infilldevelopment is encouraged. A custom cabinet-maker and a maker of custom bicycle frameshave built apartments above their shops. Thecity’s policy of trying to improve and augmentwhat already exists is paying off in the attractive-ness and vitality of the center. Says Sanford:“Downtown has experienced quite a renaissancein the past 10 years.”


26Smart Growth

Light Rail

22Local Alliances

14Smart Codes Smart Places

38

48Urban Villages


On Common Groundsummer 2004

On Common Ground thanks the following contribu-tors and organizations for photographs, illustrations,and artist renderings reproduced in this issue: HaleyFleming of Atlanta Regional Commission; DavidGoldstein of Natural Resources Defense Council;Jody Sanford of the City of Bozeman; ChristineShenot of the Maryland Department of Planning;Howard Katz, Director of Strategic Planning,Cuyahoga County Treasurer’s Office; Tom Myer ofCondo 1; Rob Steuteville of New Urban News; JanetStone of Greenbelt Alliance; Urban Advantage;Emmaus Main Street Program; Craig Lewis, TheLawrence Group; Fisher & Hall Urban Design; PeterJ. Musty, Charette Center.

54EPA Awards

2 Introduction

4 The Long Road to Smart Growth Communities are learning to build compactly by mixing housing, stores, and offices … but outmoded zoning and other obstacles must be overcomeBy Philip Langdon

14 Smart Codes Smart Places By Jason Miller

22 Local Alliances Helping to Determine Smart Growth CriteriaBy John Van Gieson

26 How Do You Know If It’s Smart Growth?By David Goldberg

32 Coast to CoastREALTORS® take an active role in shaping sustainable, Smart Growth communitiesBy Steve Wright and Heidi Johnson-Wright

38 Light RailA solid option in the transportation debateBy Chris Swope

44 Housing versus TransportationTwo sides of the affordability coinBy Joanne M. Haas

48 Smart Growth Fuels Vibrant Urban VillagesBy Brad Broberg

54 And the Winner Is …EPA’s 2003 National Awards for Smart GrowthAchievement

60 Smart Growth in the States

What do you do when your development codes won’t letyou build or maintain the kindof town you want?

You make new rules.

SmartPlacesCodes By Jason Miller


Mention zoning codes to the average person and the reaction is pre-dictable: a stone-faced stare, glazed eyes, a yawn. But communi-ties across the United States are discovering that the very fabric of

their neighborhoods and towns is built on those codes—or, more accurately,because of them. And communities are doing something about these codes.

Conventional zoning codes are fundamentally flawed, says GeoffreyFerrell, a principal with Geoffrey Ferrell Associates in Washington, D.C.“Ever since the industrial years, the conventional separation-of-usesapproach has been the wrong approach to control”—to keeping unpleasantuses away from the residential areas. “It has devolved to micromanagementof use and density. The [built environment] that has resulted is very, verypoor about 99 percent of the time. No one’s happy with what they’ve beengiven.”

Ferrell’s co-principal, Mary Madden, agrees. “That micromanagement ofuses has resulted in a huge number of unintended consequences, namely,suburban sprawl. Everybody hates sprawl, but the builders aren’t violatingrules; they’re building exactly what the codes call for. Those codes are ablueprint for sprawl. Under the existing conventional codes, you can’t helpbut build it.”

Community frustration with conventional codes and the type of develop-ment they spawn has driven new urbanist- and smart growth–minded plan-ners to create new zoning codes. While these new codes go by manynames—form-based codes, new urbanist codes, TND (traditional neighbor-hood development) ordinances, smart zoning, the SmartCode© from Miami-based town planners Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company—they are alldesigned to create places that emulate the urbanism of older, well-lovedplaces, while preserving rural areas and historic sites threatened by conven-tional development.

Communities that have replaced their conventional codes with new ordi-nances have generally reported success in the process leading up to the newcodes’ implementation, as well as favorable upturns in their real estate mar-kets. Here are a few of the notable success stories.nIn the 1960s, Columbia Pike was considered Arlington, Virginia’s mainstreet. A 3.5-mile stretch of road that runs from the Pentagon to the ArlingtonCounty/Fairfax County border, Columbia Pike was intended to be a Metrorail corridor. When this didn’t happen, development along the Pike stagnat-ed and the corridor languished for 40 years. Growth occurred along the Pike,but it was of a singular variety, says Timothy Lynch, executive director of the



Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization, whoseoffice is located on the Pike. “We saw bankbranches with drive-through lanes, fast food fran-chises with drive-through lanes—and that’s beenabout it. We also saw long-time businesses eitherclose or move to other parts of the county. Thereare pizza stores, check-cashing stores, laundro-mats, dry cleaners, dollar stores—these are allservices people use, but you can’t buy a men’ssuit, women’s clothing, a pair of shoes, or even abook on Columbia Pike.”

In January 1998, Arlington County Board chairChris Zimmerman recognized the Pike’s need forrevitalization. A challenge came from the long-time property owners on Columbia Pike, however.Many of the existing buildings were owned out-right by second- and third-generation owners whowere making money and weren’t interested ininviting hard-hitting capital gains taxes if theysold their buildings. Others, anticipating a boomfrom the arrival of the Metro line, had developedbuildings that ended up being “white elephants”after Metro declined to advance along theColumbia Pike corridor.

Columbia Pike citizens wanted to preserve and

enhance the richness of their community, whileensuring none of the long-time local businesseswould be replaced.

To tap the potential of this diamond in therough, the Columbia Pike community developed acomprehensive Columbia Pike RevitalizationPlan, which included adoption of a form-based (asopposed to a conventional use-based) zoningcode. The code is a legal document that regulatesland development by setting careful and clear con-trols on building form to create good streets,neighborhoods, and parks, with a healthy mix ofuses. Components of the code include clear defini-tions of terms, a regulating plan, building enve-lope standards to determine each building’s form,standards for siting and streetscapes and for archi-tecture, and administrative guidelines for expedit-ing the approvals process.

By most accounts, the Columbia Pike venture isan ongoing success. Since implementation of theform-based codes in 2002, more than $30 millionin development has been approved along the cor-ridor. Within the corridor itself, more than $300 million in development projects are in vari-ous stages of negotiation and planning.

Everybody hates sprawl, but the builders aren’t violating rules; they’re building

exactly what the codes call for.

The present Safeway grocery store in theColumbia Pike corridor, Arlington, Virginia.

A computer-generated model of ColumbiaPike’s Safeway grocery store could beredeveloped under the new form-based codes.


Lynch sees good things ahead for ColumbiaPike. “The first development—a $90 million proj-ect—broke ground this past March. We’re alreadyseeing tremendous community benefits. Thedevelopers have started to create the street wallsthat will define the space, and they’re doing itthrough the form-based code.”

As for how much the form-based codes haveaffected the property values on Columbia Pike, it’sstill a bit early to tell, says Dan Lockard, a REAL-TOR® with Fraser Forbes Company in McLean,Virginia. “I think it’s going to have a positiveimpact on the county, however. The first propertyis just entering the development process now.Everyone is watching closely to see what happens.

“The form-based code takes a lot of the guess-work out of what you’re doing,” he adds. “The reg-ulations lay everything out for you. It makes yourjob easy.”

Emmaus, PennsylvaniaFaced with encroaching conventional suburbandevelopment at either end of their seven-blockdowntown main street, the citizens of Emmaus,Pennsylvania, wanted a solution that would pre-serve the pedestrian-friendly layout of the down-town and retain the identity of the 250-year-oldcommunity.

The borough (population 12,000) had revisedits comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance in1992, but at that time there was no TND ordinanceconceived of, let alone implemented. “We knewthe character we wanted, but we didn’t know howto get there,” says Joyce Marin, a resident, councilmember, and one of 150 business owners in thedowntown district.

In 2000 came the scare that became the catalystfor change. A downtown landowner planned to builda conventional strip mall in the midst of Emmaus’traditional collection of mixed-use, mostly two-story

buildings. Since the zoning codes in place permittedinfill development of a conventional suburbannature, the Emmaus Borough Council appointedMarin to chair a newly created entity, theCommunity Relations Planning and DevelopmentCommittee, and the first order of business was toexamine a sample zoning ordinance intended to pro-tect the main street.

After 18 months of discussion and analysis, thecommittee decided to amend portions of the zon-ing code for the central business district, ratherthan create an “overlay” of traditional codes thatwould be no stronger or weaker than the existingconventional codes. Emmaus attorney CraigNeely, now the Emmaus Borough Council presi-dent, insisted on this approach, stating it wouldmake the code changes defensible. With theexception of one court battle, Neely’s position hasproven correct.

The code changes followed a practical logicrather than an aesthetic one. Every amendmentwas made for practical reasons—usually to protectthe pedestrians’ safety and enhance their experi-ence. Drive-throughs were prohibited. Minimumsetback distances were changed to “build-to”lines, which meant that new buildings needed toalign with existing buildings along the sidewalks,creating a street wall. Fencing requirements wereadded. New construction had to be at least twostories, and parking had to be behind the build-ings. Vehicular entrances to properties may only

The Emmaus Farmers Market before the city implementedcodes that focused on preserving and creating a small townAmerican charm.

BEFORE CODES AFTER

be that—entrances; the exits have to be behind the properties.

Interestingly, even though the codes don’t man-date aesthetics, that’s exactly what the citizens aregetting more of, says Marin. “Emmaus is a muchmore desirable place to live today than it was eventhree years ago.”

Neely agrees. “Once spring arrives and theflowers start blooming, and the trees leaf out, I getcomments from visitors—they think they’re com-ing into Mayberry.”

Emmaus’ ordinances ensure that future devel-opment will conform to the existing pattern, saysNeely. “The provisions are designed to preservewhat’s already here, since 85 percent of what’shere conforms to the ordinance already. The ordi-nance has never really become an issue for peo-ple. … You don’t hear about it because it’s doingits job, quietly.”

David Fretz knows what a good job it’s doing.The Emmaus-based REALTOR® with PrudentialFretz Realty sees the results every day. “TheEmmaus real estate market is very strong becauseof low interest rates, but people also love Emmausbecause they are tired of the fast-food, strip-malllook in every American town. When towns pre-serve a traditional look through traditional codes,when they restore themselves and their character,that creates value. Not every community is sensi-tive to that, but Emmaus is one that is.”

“We’re on the cusp of being the hottest, hippest lit-

tle place on earth,” says Marin. “We are becoming.”

Petaluma, CaliforniaA 24-member citizens advisory committee spentan amazing seven years coming up with a visionfor a 400-acre piece of land adjacent to the olddowntown of Petaluma (the first town in Americato adopt a limited-growth plan, in 1972).Passionate about the property, the citizens knewthey had a jewel of an opportunity, and they want-ed to make the most of it. They wanted thePetaluma River—which runs through the city—tobecome the centerpiece. They wanted the newdevelopment to blend and connect with the his-toric downtown, but with an edgier look.

After several fits and starts, an aggressive CityCouncil pushed the committee to act, and invitedFisher & Hall Urban Design of Santa Rosa,California, to assist the committee in its decisionmaking. When principals Lois Fisher and LauraHall assembled a team, presented theSmartCode© option, and framed the discussion asan effort to create “smart zoning,” the committeedecided to move ahead with the new approach.Nine months later, the Petaluma SmartCode wasadopted to a standing ovation from political adver-saries and citizens, alike.

The Petaluma SmartCode differed from its pre-ceding conventional code in its simplicity. The“hybrid” SmartCode used ordinary language andsimple graphics, coding precisely the aspects of

The North River area of the Petaluma River before its potential development under the SmartCode.



the built environment that the community caredabout most: the building heights, the buildingfronts, and the civic spaces. The code showed newstreets, new green spaces, roads, and buildingsfacing the river. Different areas were coded for dif-ferent densities, minimum and maximum buildingheights, finished heights, parking areas, and per-centages of frontage types.

After the codes went into effect in June 2003, “itwas like a dam breaking,” says Hall. “A four-square-block theater district has been approved. A10-acre condo project has been approved. In thepipeline is another 10 acres of mixed-use build-ings: shops or workplaces on the main floor, con-dos on top. Six downtown blocks of redevelop-ment are scheduled—in an area that had had verylittle development in the last 20 years!”

Fisher points to the roadblocks the PetalumaSmartCode has removed. “Two-thirds of theapproval process is gone, now,” she says. With theSmartCode—which has been approved by thePlanning Commission and City Council—there’s

only the design review step to take if the develop-er follows the SmartCode.

“The SmartCode also eliminated mandatoryon-site parking. From a real estate perspective, abuilding can now move from use to use morequickly, and can change hands more quicklybecause there isn’t the constraint of how much park-ing must be included with each use.”

Mike Moore, community development directorfor the City of Petaluma, admits it’s a little early todetermine exactly how SmartCode is faring, butlikes what he sees thus far. “We had a large projectin the initial stages, and in terms of theSmartCode’s application, I think it has worked forthat project, which is several blocks in the down-town area and includes the renovation of an exist-ing historic building and the construction of amovie theater, a parking garage, some apartmentbuildings, a mixed-use building, and a small officebuilding.”

Skip Sommer, a commercial REALTOR® withPetaluma-based Creative Property Services/

The [Emmaus] code changes followed a practical logic rather than an aesthetic one …

usually to protect the pedestrians’ safety and enhance their experience.

An artist’s rendering of the North River area of the Petaluma River after potential development under the Petaluma SmartCode.

Golden Land Realty, represents some of the devel-opers who are transforming downtown Petalumaunder the new SmartCode. “My clientele loves thenew code because it minimizes the planningprocess,” he says. “And the city loves it because itstreamlines their ability to respond to developers.”

Huntersville, North CarolinaA bedroom community, Huntersville lies immedi-ately north of Charlotte, North Carolina. In the’80s and early ’90s, Huntersville and the neighbor-ing towns of Cornelius and Davidson began togrow—fast. The rate of change Huntersville experi-enced was disconcerting for residents who had livedthere for some time. Even newcomers were uncom-fortable with the unchecked growth, since they hadwanted the small-town quality of life and character.Waves of suburbanization were moving out fromCharlotte, threatening to diminish the town’s char-acter in such a way that it would not be recognizableas the place that people had chosen or had grownaccustomed to over the years.

The movement to look at change in the regula-tions was spurred by a typical urge to maintain thecommunity’s identity and not be “absorbed” intoCharlotte. Ann Hammond, then the planningdirector for the Town of Huntersville, began toexpose the town’s officials to the new urbanistprinciples that were showing up in the planningand popular press. “They reacted as I had,” shesays. “They said, ‘This makes sense, and it makessense for us.’”

Hammond and the town’s officials gatheredcommunity representatives and began the vision-ing process with comparative surveys of differentneighborhood images. “Virtually 99.8 percent ofthe people said they preferred the traditionaldevelopment form,” says Hammond.

On the strength of that visioning process,Hammond and her team developed a strategicplan with input from a Citizens AdvisoryCommittee and the Huntersville Public WorksDepartment. With help from consultants from theCollege of Architecture at the University of NorthCarolina Charlotte and input from the Real EstateBuilding Industry Coalition, they totally rewrotethe zoning ordinance, and made significantchanges to the subdivision ordinance.

The result? A draft ordinance that mandatedtraditional development form in terms of buildingplacement. Build-to lines replaced minimum set-back requirements. Frontage requirements wereincluded, as well as parking requirements. Frontdoors had to be on the side of the building frontingthe street. These and other changes encouraged apedestrian-friendly orientation of all buildings tothe street.

With the help (“and open-mindedness,” saysHammond) of the Mecklenberg CountyEngineering Department, they added a section onnarrower, more pedestrian-oriented streets. Thecode required connectivity, narrow lots with alleyaccess, and some vertical mixing of uses based onlocational standards—meaning that some mixed-

The Basin Street Landing in Petaluma before adoption of the SmartCode, butwithin the SmartCode’s area of implementation.


The Basin Street Landing in Petaluma presently under construction due to the adoption of the SmartCode process.

use buildings were allowed closer in to town andat certain key intersections.

The planners’ goals were simple:• Allow neighborhoods in the more urban sec-

tions of town to fill out properly over time.• Allow for more TND greenfield developments.Hammond never misses the chance to correct a

misperception of the Huntersville code: “The coderequires more traditional forms of town and citydevelopment. It does not require TNDs; it permitsTNDs.”

The ordinance continues to allow single-family,single-use subdivisions, but they must adhere tothe new code:

• Narrow lots must have alley access.• Homes on wider lots may include a front-

loaded garage, but the garage must berecessed from the front plane of the house.

• Every building must be on a public street.The public street stipulation proved to be an

interesting aspect, because conventional subur-ban shopping centers were effectively outlawed bythis point; they needed to be configured as pedes-trian-oriented shopping streets.

But these and other constraints proved successful

in creating better places within Huntersville, saysCraig Lewis, managing principal and director oftown planning with The Lawrence Group in neigh-boring Davidson, North Carolina. As a consultant forHuntersville, Lewis has seen the outcomes of theordinances—both good and not so good.

Political maneuverings blunted the edge ofsome of the ordinance’s requirements, says Lewis.“The result was a proliferation of hybrid tradition-al neighborhoods. There were a lot of small lots inseemingly discontinuous areas over a 50-square-mile area within the Huntersville, Cornelius, andDavidson municipalities. Spots of sprawl were allover the place. The production builders are allthere, all building semblances of traditionalneighborhoods, but many are hybrids.”

Fortunately, the Huntersville success storiesoutnumber the hybrids. “Vermillion is a pure tra-ditional neighborhood that’s doing it right,” saysLewis, “and they still have another 200 to 300acres that they can develop.”

Jason Miller is a freelance writer, editor, photographer,and publishing consultant based in St. Paul, Minnesota.


“The code requiresmore traditional forms

of town and citydevelopment. It doesnot require TNDs; it

permits TNDs.”Ann Hammond, former planning

director, Town of Huntersville

Tamien Place, a proposed mixed-use development in San Jose,California, was opposed by near-

by residents who felt that constructingtwin 11-story condominiums on the siteof an old bowling alley would destroytheir neighborhoods. Most of the oppo-nents lived in one- or two-story homes.

But the project was compact, wasapplauded by some advocates for itsdensity, included affordable housingunits, and was located near a freewayand a CalTrain commuter rail station. Itseemed, in other words, to embodySmart Growth criteria.

Because of the controversy, approvalof the project by the San Jose CityCouncil was far from certain. The coun-cil member from the district where theproject was to be built supported it, butthe member from the adjacent district,where many of the opponents lived,opposed it.

That’s where the local HousingAction Coalition (HAC) came in.Composed of diverse groups with aninterest in supporting Smart Growth, theHAC, based in San Jose and covering allof Santa Clara County, urged local offi-cials to support the Tamien Place project.

“We all got together, spoke to variousmembers of the City Council and wroteletters, and the project got approved,”said Paul Stewart, executive director ofthe Santa Clara County Association ofREALTORS®.

The Santa Clara HAC is one of agrowing number of local and state

alliances that review proposed develop-ments, usually at the request of thedevelopers, to determine if they meetSmart Growth criteria. If so, the alliancecertifies or endorses the proposal andurges local government authorities toapprove it.

Particularly in California, where thecertification movement originated in theearly 1990s, REALTORS® have becomeplayers in urging local officials to sup-

port developments endorsed by the rep-resentatives of groups with divergentviews on growth.

The Santa Clara HAC includes mem-bers of the Home Builder’s Association,Sierra Club, Building and ConstructionTrades Council, Silicon ValleyManufacturing Group, and the SantaClara County Association of REAL-TORS®, among others.

In the case of Tamien Place, ShilohBallard, who supervises the HAC asdirector of housing and communitydevelopment for the Silicon ValleyManufacturing Group, put out the callfor volunteers to talk the project throughthe political process. Local REALTORS®

played a key role on the team that per-suaded local officials to approve TamienPlace, she said.

”They always send a representativeto all of our meetings and have beenincredibly active in helping to supportour activities,” Ballard said.

Stewart works closely with Ballard toensure that local REALTORS® areactively involved in supporting projectsthat passed muster with the HAC’sreview committee.

“Some time ago we, along with othergroups in the county—including somegroups that were never able to talk toeach other, I might add—realized thatwe needed to advocate for housing pro-duction, especially affordable housing,”Stewart said.

He said the process works because theparticipating groups have agreed to leave

their differences at the door when they gettogether to advocate projects that are cer-tified by the HAC review committee.

The Santa Clara HAC is a member ofthe San Francisco–based GreenbeltAlliance, an extensive coalition of localgroups in nine Northern Californiacounties with a population of more than7 million.

A pioneer in the certification move-ment, the Greenbelt Alliance has been


“We don’t say ‘no’ to sprawl; we say ‘yes‘ to good, compact, infill development.”

Janet Stone, Greenbelt Alliance

HELPING TO DETERMINE SMART GROWTH CRITERIABy John Van Gieson


LOCALALLIANCES


reviewing and certifying developmentprojects since 1990, before the termSmart Growth gained the currency it hastoday. In 14 years, the Alliance has putits stamp of approval on 105 proposeddevelopments. (The Santa Clara HACsays projects it certified added more than33,000 housing units, nearly half ofwhich were affordable to low and moder-ate income residents.)

Janet Stone, director of the LivableCommunities Program at the GreenbeltAlliance, said the review com-mittees typically meet once amonth to determine whetherprojects submitted by develop-ers meet the organization’s cri-teria for certification.

The alliances that endorsedevelopments generally havesimilar criteria, but there areregional differences based onlocal concerns. In California,which Stewart said contains 6of the 10 highest-priced hous-ing markets in the country,there is an emphasis on afford-able housing. On the otherhand, the Vermont SmartGrowth Collaborative’s crite-ria emphasize preserving thequaint villages and that givethe state its picture postcardcharm.

Discouraging sprawl andpromoting infill developmentare common goals of the certi-fication programs.

“We don’t say ‘no’ to sprawl; we say‘yes’ to good, compact, infill develop-ment,” Stone said.

She said developers in the SanFrancisco Bay area covet the endorse-ment of the Greenbelt Alliance, whichprovides letters of endorsement andspeakers to urge project approval atPlanning Commission and City Councilmeetings.

“We’ve even had developers who wereturned down come back and try to arguethat actually their project does meetSmart Growth criteria,” Stone said.“We’ve had lots of feedback from devel-opers saying, ‘Your support made the dif-ference and pushed this project over theline.’”

The Bay East Association of REAL-

TORS® is actively involved in theHousing Action Coalition in the Alamedaand Contra Costa counties’ suburbs eastof Oakland. Nancy Rogers, public affairsdirector of the Bay East Association ofREALTORS®, said REALTORS®, envi-ronmentalists, members of faith-basedorganizations, government officials,developers, business leaders, and otherssit on the committees that review projectsproposed for certification.

“There are a lot of growing painsgoing on right now, and you have REAL-TORS® involved with a lot of coalitionsand being at the table with groups wenormally wouldn’t be involved with,”Rogers said. “We have to be more flexi-ble.”

“It’s taken awhile for the developers tocatch on and come to us,” she said. “Iwould say two to three years for thedevelopers to begin to understand whatwe’re doing and to use us.”

The certification movement hasspread east, but the high level of involve-ment by REALTORS® in California hasyet to materialize in other locations.Leaders of Smart Growth alliances in thestates of Vermont and Pennsylvania andthe Washington, D.C. area say REAL-

Local REALTORS® playeda key role on the team thatpersuaded local officials to

approve Tamien Place.

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76

Greenbelt AllianceEndorsementsAre Based On Seven Criteria:

Is it located in anurban area within a half-mile of mass transit?

Will it reducedependency onautomobiles?

Does it have a minimum density of 20 units peracre?

Does it have at least 20 units?

Is it based on good design features?

Is it being developed with community input?

Does it includeaffordablehousing units?

TORS® are not actively involved in their efforts. One of the most promising new certification

programs is the Washington Smart GrowthAlliance based in Washington, D.C., which coversthe city and its Virginia and Maryland suburbs.Formed by the Urban Land Institute and four part-ner organizations, the Washington program is aprototype for programs being considered by otherregional affiliates of the Urban Land Institute.

The partners in the Smart Growth Alliance(SGA) are the Chesapeake Bay Foundation,Greater Washington Board of Trade, Coalition forSmarter Growth, and the Metropolitan Wash-ington Builders’ Council. The review committees,which meet quarterly, have endorsed 15 projectsin the SGA’s three-year history.

John Bailey, director of the Smart GrowthAlliance, said the organization believes in work-ing with developers to correct problems that mayprevent them from being recognized for meetingSmart Growth criteria. “We’re sort of like theteacher who says, ‘Hey, I don’t want to fail you. Iwant to pass you,’” he said.

In Vermont, REALTORS® helped to develop theSmart Growth criteria used by the Vermont SmartGrowth Collaborative, but they have not beenactive in the review process.

Development in Vermont typically occurs on afar smaller scale than condominium towers likeTamien Place in San Jose, or the massive mixed-use projects springing up in the Washington sub-urbs. Beth Humstone, director of the Vermont col-laborative, said one of the projects approved by

her organization contained only four affordablesingle-family homes.

Those homes were proposed, however, in thecenter of the Village of Hancock, population 382.Hancock residents were fiercely insistent on pro-tecting their 216-year-old village, Humstone said,and it took a great deal of negotiating to reachagreement with them.

Resistance by neighbors is a constant problemthat must be overcome by Smart Growth develop-ers and their advocates in the certification move-ment. Stewart said opponents of growth twist themeaning of Smart Growth to use it as a no-growthclub to beat up on projects they don’t like.

“Often the neighbors will call us up and say,‘Could you help me fight this project?’ when it is aSmart Growth project,” Humstone said. She said hergroup’s endorsement may help to overcome opposi-tion to Smart Growth projects, “but it’s too soon tosay since it’s the Nimbys we’re dealing with.”

Nimbys—short for Not in My Backyard—are apotentially potent political force.

“If you’re a city council member and you’re fac-ing a crowd of 50 people who are opposing a voteyou’re going to take, why would you vote thatway?” Ballard said. “You can’t go out on a limb.”

What the endorsements do is give local officialscover in supporting controversial developments.And they’ve been known to strengthen a back-bone or two.

John Van Gieson is a freelance writer based inTallahassee, Florida. He owns and runs Van GiesonMedia Relations.


For a project proposal to be recognized, it must satisfy five criteria:

1. Location. The project must be located in an area designated and appropriate for growth or revitalization, most particular-ly infill or sites adjacent to developed residential or commercial areas. It should take advantage of existing or short-termplanned public water and sewer service, and it should be accessible to public transportation.

2. Density, Design, and Diversity of Uses. The “three Ds” of smart growth development must be present, either within theproposed project or within its vicinity. There should be sufficient density and scale to support a mix of uses, walkability, andpublic transit. The project should be designed so that it is integrated effectively into the existing community fabric.

3. Transportation, Mobility, and Accessibility. The project should be designed, located, and programmed to offer alterna-tives to single-occupancy vehicle trips, by enabling safe and effective pedestrian and bicycle access to multiple uses andactivities and/or by being accessible to public transportation.

4. Environment. The project should protect, conserve, and/or mitigate damage to open space, water and air quality, andimportant ecosystem components.

5. Community Assets. The project should generate benefits for its surrounding area and/or the host community. These mayinclude positive economic impacts, affordable housing, support for the school system, historic preservation, public accessto parks or open spaces, support for local efforts to encourage alternative transportation, adaptive use of obsolete build-ings, and other improvements to quality of life.

WASHINGTON SMART GROWTH ALLIANCE RECOGNITION PROGRAM CRITERIA

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF IT’SSMART GROWTH?

By David Goldberg



Imagine yourself in Pam Sessions’ shoes. You’re aprofit-oriented developer with a social conscience.Through market and demographic research,

you’ve detected an unmet demand in metro Atlanta forwell-designed, urban scale neighborhoods, with a mixof housing types and prices, in a village-like setting.You’ve absorbed the literature on green design andSmart Growth. The principles make sense and you’redetermined to put them into practice. You’ve hired adesign firm credited with landmark projects fromSeaside, Florida to Maryland’s Kentlands. You’re con-fident you’ve got a to-die-for winner, but when youpresent it to the local government the reception is atad chilly—something akin to being doused with icewater, then clonked on the head with the bucket.

“It’s always a challenge to do something new,”Sessions says in her characteristically understatedmanner. The truth is, almost every aspect of her“smart,” “green” project was either illegal or otherwiseunacceptable at the time. Narrow, tree-lined, pedestri-an-oriented streets? Sorry, code violation. Mix town-homes, big and little houses and apartments at differ-ent price points? It’s just not done.

Eventually, though, Sessions did get her Vickeryproject approved—once the rental apartments werejettisoned. The whole process might have been a biteasier, she says, if there had been some respected thirdparty to evaluate her plans and certify them as “smart”and “green,” or to tell her how to make them more so.Such a certification also could have helped the localcommunity understand how certain changes to plansmight be counterproductive to goals such as reducingtraffic or water runoff or encouraging people to walk.

Sessions might be getting her wish. Concerns like hers, along with severalother considerations, are behind a growing effort to create tools, throughresearch and standard-setting, to help answer the question, “How do you knowif it’s Smart Growth?” The question applies not only to individual projects, butalso to the broader policies being put into place to preserve rural land, revital-ize already-developed areas, and accommodate future growth in high-qualityurban settings. Over the next few pages we’ll take a look at three promisingefforts to measure Smart Growth in order to certify that it is, in fact, happening.One is an expansion of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design(LEED) certification for green buildings to neighborhood developments; anoth-er is an effort in Atlanta to create a market-ready, branded certification of smart-growth communities; and the third is an attempt to create a scorecard forMaryland’s statewide Smart Growth program.

Taking the LEED in greening the neighborhoodSince its introduction a few years ago, the LEED rating system developed by theU.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has gained wide acceptance as a wayboth to teach best practices in resource-efficient building design, and to recog-nize the builders and buildings that use them. Under LEED, projects can earnCertified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum status by meeting rigorous criteria in sever-al categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, indoorenvironmental quality, materials and resources, and innovation in design.

Its shortcoming, according to some advocates of Smart Growth, is that it givestoo little weight to the building’s context. For example, a brand-new office build-


ing in a cornfield reachable only by car could ratehigher for energy savings than a renovated in-town building accessible by subway, foot, bike,and car. At the same time, acknowledges urbandesigner Doug Farr, the USGBC could criticizenew urbanist and smart growth advocates forneighborhood designs that fall short on minimiz-ing storm-water runoff, night-sky lighting, or theheat-island effect.

“We wanted to see if we could work together tocome up with a rating system for green, smart-growth neighborhoods,” said Farr, a Chicago newurbanist and green architect responsible for sever-al LEED-rated buildings himself. Farr has beenrepresenting the Congress for the New Urbanism(CNU) in a three-way planning effort amongCNU, the USGBC, and the Natural ResourcesDefense Council (NRDC), which has expertise inboth smart growth and environmental design. Thecollaboration has produced a 15-member panel ofexperts that will establish rating criteria for what isbeing called LEED-ND, for neighborhood devel-opment.

“One reason to do this is to foster a positive sideof environmentalism and reward good actors—business people, architects, designers, REAL-TORS® who are pursuing a path with good envi-ronmental values,” said Kaid Benfield, NRDC’ssmart-growth guru and representative on LEED-ND. Another is the hope that projects able to meetthe high standards will face less oppositionfrom neighborhood groups, or at a mini-mum, prevent opponents from making falseclaims of environmental harm. As it haswith individual buildings, a LEED standardmight also convince more developers to trya greener approach. “Developers like pre-dictability,” Farr said. “If you’re telling meto do Smart Growth, give me a clear ideawhat’s expected.”

Farr sees the ND designation as addingat least two new rating categories: locationand linkage. “For location you would ask: Isit leapfrog development or in a preferredgrowth area? Is there a plan for transit orother infrastructure? The other [linkage]addresses neighborhood patterns—pedestrian linkages, having something towalk to.”

Less clear is how, or whether, to incorporatesocial goals associated with Smart Growth, suchas the provision of affordable and mixed-incomehousing. Those goals have an environmental com-ponent, in that housing close to jobs and publictransportation can reduce the air and energyimpacts of long car commutes. But the context—Is

there too much or too little low-income housingnearby? What are local needs?—is likely to vary sowidely that standard-setting could be very diffi-cult, Benfield said.

Another challenge will be to set clear standardsbut avoid being overly rigid. “Whatever system wecome up with will have to be flexible enough torecognize regional variations,” Benfield said. “Ipersonally think creativity is really important inthe smart growth world. It’s an incredibly creativefield, one in which new answers are being foundalmost on a daily basis. I think we need to encour-age that and whatever we do shouldn’t standard-ize too much.”

Marketing Smart Growth in Metro AtlantaAs the LEED-ND panel begins to craft the new

program, members will no doubt want to watchdevelopments in metro Atlanta where Sessionsand three other developers are guinea pigs in aLEED-like effort, with some twists. There, a col-laboration between the Greater Atlanta HomeBuilders Association (HBA) and the SouthfaceEnergy Institute, a nonprofit


devoted to energy efficiency, produced a LEED-like marketing brand for residential construction,dubbed EarthCraft House. In the last couple ofyears the concept has caught on, with more than1,000 eco-friendly houses built or under construc-tion. More importantly, a growing number ofdevelopers, Sessions among them, have vowed tobuild only EarthCraft Houses.

With the brand gaining cachet, Southface andthe HBA began working with the Urban LandInstitute and local planners and designers to cre-ate standards for an EarthCraft HouseCommunity. While many of the goals are similar toLEED-ND, EarthCraft is taking a conscious con-sumer orientation that requires a somewhat differ-ent approach to setting the standards.

“There is a real market for green communities,”

said Jeff Rader, the home builders’ project leader.“We see it as a product type that will be profitable.Conservation subdivisions generate a lot-pricepremium. We want to strengthen that valueenhancement by working on a whole range ofgreen elements. We also believe they should beeasier to permit since they do carry with thempublic benefits if they are done in truly greenway—reduced impact on the natural environment,reduced traffic and infrastructure demand.”

Initially the EarthCraft group planned a pro-gram like LEED, which awards ratings based on anumerical scoring system, but ultimately decidedthat only a jury could achieve the necessary flexi-bility. “We found we couldn’t standardize it for allcontexts,” Rader said. “In urban infill, for exam-ple, you might not be able to score high on green

In the last couple of years the (EarthCraft House) concept has caught on,with more than 1,000 eco-friendly houses

built or under construction.

EarthCraft homes – Clark’s Grove, Georgia


“Any effort to measureSmart Growth shouldsomehow capture the

most important goal ofall, a population that isliving happily and hashopes for an equally

bright future.” Harriet Tregoning, former secretary for

Smart Growth, State of Maryland

REALTORS® Take an Active Role coast to coast



By Steve Wright & Heidi Johnson-Wright

When Linda Goodwin-Nichols set up shop asa REALTOR® in

Florida’s Osceola County threedecades ago, Smart Growthwasn’t an issue.

In fact, growth of any kindwasn’t an issue. Back then, thequaint but sleepy CentralFlorida county didn’t even have

50,000 residents. On a holidayweekend, a population greater than

that visited nearby Disney World.Today Goodwin-Nichols, who acts

as vice mayor of the fast-growing city ofKissimmee, cannot think of fully serving a

client without keeping abreast of issues such ashigher density, smaller lots, better roads,

improved infrastructure, conserved land, and—most important of all—school capacity.

“Trying to balance extreme growth while pro-tecting private property rights has always been amajor challenge,” said Goodwin-Nichols, presi-dent of Goodwin Realty & Associates. “Now it’sextremely crucial that we, as REALTORS®, get

involved with planning organizations, theChamber of Commerce, the school board, and our

government to be proactive in looking at what ourcommunity will look like in 20 years.”

Whether REALTORS® are trying to preserve rural char-acter in the East, small town charm in the Midwest, affordable

housing in California, economic vitality in the Pacific Northwest, orgood public education in Florida, they are finding that Smart Growth

is key to the future.Goodwin-Nichols lives in Osceola County, which has more than

tripled its population in less than two decades. She identified educa-tional funding as the crucial issue in an area that is popular with

young and growing families.

in Shaping Sustainable, Smart Growth Communitiesto coast to co


“We’re building so fast that we’re adding near-ly a classroom’s worth of children per day,” shesaid. “But we’re one of the worst-funded schooldistricts in the state. So we have to look at taxes,impact fees, and other ways of making sure ourchildren get a good education.”

Goodwin-Nichols said that, years ago, shecould not have pictured herself becoming politi-cally active, but now she has served eight years ona city commission. In addition, three agents in hermedium-sized office serve on either a planning orcode enforcement board.

The Osceola County Association ofREALTORS® has become so concerned aboutdevelopment eating up land for parks, recreation,and open space that it committed preliminary sup-port to the idea of raising taxes to buy undevel-oped land in the Central Florida county.

A group called Save Osceola has been workingto place a sales tax issue on the county ballot toraise funds for buying undeveloped land and per-manently setting it aside for parks, recreation, andopen space. Board members from the OsceolaREALTORS® association committed their supportfor the effort. Save Osceola is a grassroots organi-zation dedicated to land preservation and man-agement for the purposes of water resources,wildlife areas, and for nature-based recreationalopportunities.

However, the movement for a sales tax may beon hold. A separate referendum for a sales tax thatwould have helped pay for education in the coun-ty failed at the ballot during the March 2004 pri-mary. After seeing that voters would not support asales tax hike to pay for education, Save Osceolahasn’t taken steps to raise funds to back an openspace ballot issue.

“If you as a REALTOR® are going to representyour clients and customers, you need to knowwhat’s going on in your community,” Goodwin-Nichols said. “If we as REALTORS® can’t getinvolved in solving the problems in our communi-ties, then nobody can. We have the manpower tomake a huge influence in our community.”

In Ventura County, California, one of the mostexpensive housing markets in the country, thechallenges are different. The lack of developableland and affordable housing are what motivateREALTORS® to get involved in Smart Growthmatters.

“With a housing crisis in California, we need toretain rural land while supporting jobs and hous-ing needs,” said Kay Wilson-Bolton, past presidentof the Ventura County Coastal Association ofREALTORS® and broker/owner of Century 21Buena Vista.

The Ventura Coastal County Association hasresponded by joining a coalition called HousingOpportunities Made Easier, or HOME. TheHOME coalition advocates for such things asaffordable housing and higher-density develop-ment in Ventura County, where voters have placedgrowth restrictions on much of the county land.Consequently, less land is available for develop-ment, so it must be used more wisely.

“We have to take a hard look at single familyhousing. Is it a 6,000-square-foot lot with a picketfence or a 1,200-square-foot, third-story condo

The American dreamhas to be redefined as

we go into the nextdecade. Let’s see if wecan plan our cities sowe can walk to get a

quart of milk. It’sgoing to take awhile,but we can get there.


space, but very high on transportation access andwalking destinations, etc.” A jury can also better evaluate the place-making details that willmake plans worthy of brand distinction.

To calibrate their standards, the initial jury willevaluate four local projects that have been praisedas smart growth developments and that incorpo-rate EarthCraft houses. One of those is Sessions’Vickery, a suburban greenfield project in proximi-ty to already-developed areas; another is Clark’sGrove, a new district in the exurban city ofCovington. The third is Glenwood Park, a brown-field redevelopment in Atlanta, and the fourth isSerenbe (see map on page 28), a new village with-in a huge swath of undeveloped Fulton Countythat is being master-planned for sustainability by acollaborative of land owners. “We want to test ourprogram against those very high-performanceprojects to make sure we don’t miss innovation, orthat we don’t have a flaw in methodology thatwould prevent them from qualifying,” Rader said.“Toward the end of summer, after we’ve made theevaluations, we’ll open it up for business.”

Rating Maryland’s Smart Growth ProgramPrograms such as LEED and EarthCraft shouldmake it possible to evaluate individual projects fortheir contribution to a metro area’s long-termquality of life, and that in turn will make it easierto build neighborhoods that mix uses and housingtypes. Meanwhile, however, single-use sprawldevelopment continues to be the dominant prac-tice. An increasing number of states and localitiesare adopting policies to change that. One of thebest-known states is Maryland, whose adoption ofa Smart Growth program under Governor ParrisGlendening in the mid-1990s helped popularizethe term.

The Maryland program requires local govern-ments to designate “priority funding areas” wheremost development should occur, and then limitsstate funds for infrastructure and services to thoseareas. Maryland encourages redevelopment ofexisting places through policies including taxcredits and a shift of school funds toward rehab-bing old schools and away from new construction.The state also took aggressive steps to set asideopen space and preserve agricultural land. “In ret-rospect,” said John Frece, who was Glendening’sspecial aide for Smart Growth, “one of the thingswe didn’t do, but should have, was to set specifictargets for what we wanted to achieve. We say wewant more walkable, livable communities, but wedon’t say how we’ll know we’re making progress.”

The state did measure the proportion of devel-opment occurring within priority funding areas,said Harriet Tregoning, who was secretary for

Smart Growth under Glendening. “About 75 per-cent was within PFAs [Priority Funding Areas].But that’s not to say that everything inside wasSmart Growth. However, on average, developmentoutside used 10 times more land.” And State fig-ures show that the rate of growth in miles-driven-per-person each day is slowing, she said.

While some evidence is visible in the form ofrevitalized town centers and renovated neighbor-hood schools—and it’s clear that the land con-sumption rate is slowing compared with the trendof the 1990s—better measures of progress areneeded, said Frece, who left his state governmentjob to become communications director for theNational Center for Smart Growth Research andEducation at the University of Maryland. Througha grant from the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy,the center is working with the MarylandDepartment of Planning to set and measure anumber of critical benchmarks.

While the scorecard is still being formulated,several measures have suggested themselves,such as: open space preserved; trends in farmacreage; pollution in Chesapeake Bay; transit rid-ership; rates of biking and walking; land zoned formixed use; and housing supply and affordability.“Unfortunately, we’re limited by what is measura-ble based on what statistics are kept,” Frece said.

Tregoning said she hopes any effort to measureSmart Growth would somehow capture the mostimportant goal of all, a population that is livinghappily and has hopes for an equally bright future.“You would want to know: Do people feel theiraccess to jobs and amenities is adequate or gettingbetter? Do they have good choices in housing andneighborhoods at all stages of life? How do theyfeel about their quality of life?”

ConclusionHowever we measure it, the best way to assesswhether neighborhoods and regions we’re build-ing are “smart” may be to look through the eyes ofsomeone living several decades hence. Will theneighborhoods built in the early part of this centu-ry be as beloved and functional as those built inthe early part of the 20th century are now? Willthere be working farms and open vistas? Will oldersuburbs be vibrant and vital, or will they be slums?Perhaps when we can answer those and similarquestions positively we’ll at last know we’re prac-ticing Smart Growth.

David A. Goldberg is the communications director forSmart Growth America, a nationwide coalition based inWashington D.C. that advocates for land-use policyreform. In 2002 Goldberg was awarded a LoebFellowship at Harvard University where he studied urbanpolicy.


with a balcony? The answer is: It’s both,” saidWilson-Bolton.

“The American dream has to be redefined as wego into the next decade. We have to have a real gooddialogue on this. If we believe in that dream, wehave to see if people are willing to take less to getmore. Let’s see if we can plan our cities so we canwalk to get a quart of milk. It’s going to take awhile,but we can get there,” Wilson-Bolton said.

In the rolling hills of Pennsylvania’s LancasterCounty, REALTORS® have joined forces with politi-cians, preservationists, regulators, and developersto define Smart Growth and use it to preserve thecounty’s resources.

“In 2002, the Lancaster County Association of

REALTORS® met with more than two dozen groups,including local builders, the Chamber ofCommerce, economic development groups, and his-toric preservationists to come up with recommenda-tions for zoning at the municipal level,” said FrankChristoffel IV, director of governmental affairs forthe Building Industry Association of LancasterCounty, which also provides governmental affairsservices to the Lancaster County Association ofREALTORS®.

The Lancaster County Board of Commissionersendorsed the plan’s recommendations and appro-priated $60,000 for outreach and education, plus$30,000 per year line item funding, with the goal ofdefining Smart Growth.

“It means one thing to one person, another thingto another person. We wanted to find some commonground,” explained Christoffel.

“We’re working with municipal supervisors tobuild on smaller lot sizes and to consolidate thegrowth where sewer, water, and public infrastruc-ture already exist,” he said.

“The county has a population of 480,000, and isadding about 5,000 per year. We have to build onsmaller lots. The real estate market shows thesesmaller lots do very well, they don’t hurt REAL-TORS®. It’s easier for municipalities to provideservices,” said Christoffel.

“It’s a great challenge with 60 separate munici-palities. Zoning is the real devil in the details. Ifyou’re a developer and you want to build a Smart

Mithun Designphoto: Michael Seidl


Growth community, you have to get a variance ora conditional exception, as opposed to currentzoning that encourages sprawl. It’s easy to buildsprawl. It’s harder to build Smart Growth.”

“It’s very difficult to sit on land for three yearsto go through a lengthy local permitting process.We focused on smaller lot size, expediting the per-mitting process within growth areas in the coun-ty,” said Christoffel.

“[The Smart Growth coalition] is the first of itskind in the state,” he said. “We won the 2003 Stateand Local Government Affairs Award for the BestSmart Growth Program in the U.S. from theNational Association of Home Builders.

“We support Lancaster County’s agriculturalhistory. We have permanently preserved over50,000 acres of farmland out of about 600,000 totalacres,” said Christoffel.

Tom Larson, director of regulatory and legisla-tive affairs for the Wisconsin REALTORS®

Association, said their member REALTORS® gotvery proactive in SmartGrowth because “planningis critical to protection ofthe quality of life and hous-ing market in Wisconsin.

“We saw plans only foragricultural preservation,only for preserving naturalresources—they were plan-ning for areas where theydidn’t want development tooccur, but they didn’t planfor areas where they didwant development to occur.They didn’t look at whatthe strengths and weak-nesses were,” Larson saidof area planners. “Theydidn’t plan proactively forgrowth and development.”

Larson said theWisconsin REALTORS®

Association tells munici-palities not to hire big,expensive planners fromfar away.

“Planning is about get-ting the people to buy intothe plan. If you have a plan that nobody is goingto follow, it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said.“Planning has to respond to local political realitiesand it has to be a living, breathing document that’sflexible. Things change. You have to allow forchange and have updates on a regular basis.

“Some people over-think these plans,” Larsoncontinued. “But they should be plans that every-

one can read and understand—you shouldn’t haveto be a Ph.D. to understand them.”

Larson said the Wisconsin REALTORS®

Association has launched a Quality of Life pro-gram featuring statewide real estate and livingconditions surveys that will help the organizationwith its comprehensive planning efforts “by get-ting into the psyche of buyers.

“Rather than representing 15,000 REALTORS®,we want to become the voice for over 3 millionhomeowners in the state,” he said.

In the Pacific Northwest, the WashingtonAssociation of REALTORS® has also created aQuality of Life program focused on protectingproperty rights, ensuring economic vitality, pro-viding housing opportunities, preserving the envi-ronment, and building better communities.

“We’ve become some of the lead players on thestate and local level,” said Bryan Wahl, director ofgovernment affairs for the Washington Associationof REALTORS®. “We have really been ramping up

our efforts to influence local planning efforts. Ourconcern is our ability to accommodate growth,especially in Washington where we have urbangrowth area restrictions.”

Wahl said the Washington Association of REAL-TORS® has scored several key victories in the statelegislature, which has supported several measuresthat encourage economic vitality, improve trans-

It’s easy to build sprawl. It’sharder to build Smart Growth.


portation and infrastructure financing, andprovide housing opportunities.

Wahl said Washington REALTORS® anddevelopers face a number of problems withpermitting processes that are difficult andtime-consuming, development regulationsthat often are conflicting, and overly restric-tive limits on use of a property.

“When you draw lines in the sand, youhave to find ways to provide for the landcapacity to accommodate that growth,” hesaid. “We’ve been able to reach out andwork with organizations that typically weweren’t on the same page with, such asenvironmental [groups]. They’ve come tosee the only way we can manage land is to provide housing of different types: mixeduse, cottage housing, planned unit develop-ments.”

Wright and Johnson-Wright are award-winningjournalists who frequently write about SmartGrowth and sustainable communities. They livein a restored historic home in the heart of Miami’sLittle Havana. Contact them at [email protected].

raillight38 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2004


It was a smart growth triumph in the unlikeliest ofplaces: Houston, the traffic-choked city of freeways,finally has its own light-rail system. Sleek, new rail-

cars began carrying passengers in January, rolling in andout of the downtown on 7.5 miles of track laid into the citystreets. City officials called it the dawn of a new era. Butthere has been one nagging problem: automobile driverskeep crashing into the new railcars, at the alarming rateof five times a month.

Some people joke that awe-struck Houston drivers aredistracted because they have never seen public transitbefore. Actually, there’s a bit of truth to that theory: itturns out the car drivers were at fault in nearly everycrash. Houston transit officials are working out a fewsafety kinks on their end. In the meantime, the auto-railcrashes have become something of a metaphor for trans-portation policy in an era of sustainable growth: cars andpublic transit have to learn to get along, even in car-crazyplaces like Houston.

Crash problem aside, Houston’s light rail demon-strates a remarkable turn in thinking that’s occurring allacross the country. Cities and states are coming to realizethat they cannot solve their traffic congestion problemssimply by building more highways further into the coun-tryside. So ambitious efforts to build up public transit are

A Solid Option in theTransportation Debate

By Chris Swope


underway even in places where it once seemedimpossible to persuade people to leave their carsat home. Houston, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, andSan Diego—all cities that grew up around theautomobile—are building extensive light-rail sys-tems. Meanwhile, on the highway side, manystates are shifting investments away from buildingsprawl-spawning roads in favor of fixing up theinfrastructure they already have.

The nationwide boom in public transit is takingmillions of cars off the roads, easing the conges-tion in U.S. cities somewhat. Trains, buses, andother forms of public transit carried riders on 9.5billion trips in 2001, the highest number in 40years. In the past 5 years, according to theWashington, D.C.–based Surface TransportationPolicy Project, transit ridership has grown by 21percent. In the same time the number of milesAmericans drove grew by only 12 percent.

As communities increase investments in transit,the biggest payoff is not in removing cars from theroads. It’s in transit’s ability, particularly with rail,to shape compact, pedestrian-friendly develop-ment patterns—the opposite of suburban sprawl.Already a Houston developer is planning a 30-story condominium tower adjacent to the newlight-rail system. Units are expected to sell atprices up to $1 million, in part because buyers seerail access as an important amenity. Houston’slight-rail line is expected to stimulate as much as$1 billion worth of housing, offices, and retailspace along its route.

Critics argue that light-rail systems like

Houston’s are an expensive boondoggle, carryingtoo few passengers to justify the $43-million-per-mile price tag. However, not even the staunchestrail advocates expect Houstonians to abandondriving altogether. As they see it, what light rail isdoing in Houston and other sprawling cities is giv-ing people an alternative transportation choice—ifthey want it—as well as an alternative to ramblingsubdivisions, parking lots, and strip malls. “Wealways want to see people get out of their carswhenever it’s possible,” says Ken Connaughton,spokesperson for Houston’s transit system. “Butthe goal here is to give people transportationoptions. People will always need to drive. But weneed a combination of choices—buses, rail, andthe roadway—and unless we have all three in aviable combination we’ll be in gridlock forever.”

Traffic congestion is costly One thing about the nation’s transportation sys-tem is painfully clear to nearly anyone who lives ina metropolitan area: traffic congestion has neverbeen worse. According to a report by the TexasTransportation Institute (TTI), the averageAmerican wasted 26 hours stuck in traffic in 2001,up from just 7 hours in 1982. All the bumper-to-bumper delays weren’t just aggravating for driv-ers, they were also expensive to the U.S. economy.TTI puts the cost of congestion at $70 billion,including lost time and fuel.

The country’s traditional response to trafficcongestion has been to build more roads. Thatwasn’t so hard to do back in the 1950s when the

The biggest payoff is not in removing cars

from the roads, it’s intransit’s ability, to shape

compact, pedestrian-friendly development

patterns.


nation built its cherished interstate highway system. But roadbuilding these days is politically dicier and more expensive,especially in built-up areas where residents resist it. There isalso a growing recognition among government officials, if notamong highway engineers, that new roads have a way of lead-ing to more traffic. Developers build more houses, offices, andshopping centers near the new highways, which then fill upwith cars and create a need for more new roads. It’s a costlycycle, and exactly the recipe for suburban sprawl that the UnitedStates has been using for half a century.

A gradual shift in this thinking began in the early 1990s.Congress gave state and local governments more freedom tospend federal money on mass transit and other solutions, inaddition to highways, to solve their traffic problems. Roads andhighways still get 80 percent of the dollars. But highway alter-natives get 20 percent, and that amounts to a significant invest-ment. From 1990 to 1999, federal spending on transit doubledfrom $3 billion a year to $6 billion, according to the SurfaceTransportation Policy Project. Over the same period, federalspending on bicycle and pedestrian projects grew from $7 mil-

lion to $222 million.The new funds and flexibility sparked a flurry of

transit experimentation at the local level.Hundreds of miles of light-rail track were laid incities around the country. Commuter rail is enjoy-ing a renaissance, with new systems planned inAtlanta, Minneapolis, and Portland, Oregon, aswell as a unique rail line planned for the Chicagosuburbs that will make it possible to travel fromone suburb to another without riding downtownfirst. And numerous cities, including Boston,Charlotte, and Miami, are using a cheaper alter-native to rail known as “bus rapid transit.” Thatstrategy speeds up pokey city buses by givingthem a dedicated lane on the roadway.

As local transit undertakings increase, highwayfunding is shifting away from building highwaysin favor of fixing and expanding the existing net-work. Several governors, including Democrats JimMcGreevey of New Jersey and Jennifer Granholmof Michigan, as well as Massachusetts RepublicanMitt Romney, are among those advocating a “fix itfirst” strategy with highways. It’s a smart growthphilosophy that reflects how constrained manystate budgets are. For example, in MarchPennsylvania erased 26 road and bridge projectsworth $5 billion from its 12-year plan. State trans-portation secretary Allen Biehler said the movereflected “a tightening financial picture and ongo-ing concerns about the impact transportation deci-sions have on Pennsylvania’s landscape.”

In the new environment, several high-profile

highway projects in other states have becomepolitical footballs. An 18-mile highway project inMaryland, known as the Intercounty Connector,killed five years ago by then-Governor ParrisGlendening, has been revived by the newRepublican Governor Robert Ehrlich (plans call forlimiting the number of interchanges on the roadto limit the amount of sprawl it creates). InTennessee, Democratic Governor Phil Bredesenput a hold on the northern half of a beltway pro-posed around Nashville (the southern half is near-ly complete). And last year in Georgia, RepublicanGovernor Sonny Perdue killed a controversial 59-mile highway, known as the Northern Arc, thatwas proposed to run through Atlanta’s northernsuburbs.

Residents who live in the Northern Arc’s pathcalled Perdue’s move a victory for Smart Growth.But Susan Laccetti Meyers, vice president of apro-highway group called Georgians for BetterTransportation, says Perdue made a huge mistake.“The Atlanta lifestyle is conducive to the automo-bile,” Meyers says. “And only in very limitedinstances will you see that change. Projections arethat in 2025, 97 percent of people here will stilluse automobiles as their primary means of gettingaround.”

The voters speakAt the local level, mass transit is enjoying a surgeof political support. Much of that backing comes

“We need a combination of choices—buses, rail,and the roadway—and unless we have all three in a viablecombination we’ll be in gridlock forever.”Ken Connaughton, Houston’s transit

system spokesperson



straight from the voters, who are passing growingnumbers of transit ballot initiatives. Three-quar-ters of local transit initiatives won last year, andmore are on the ballot this November. Last year’swins included Kansas City, where voters raisedtaxes in order to expand bus service; SanFrancisco, where voters kept a tax to fund bus,subway, and some roadway projects; and LoneTree, Colorado, a Denver suburb that agreed to taxitself to join the regional transit district.

The biggest ballot victory for transit came inHouston. By last November, Houston had alreadyspent $324 million of its own money to build thefirst 7.5 miles of light rail, with no federal match-ing funds. (Several members of Congress from theHouston area, including the powerful RepublicanTom DeLay, think light rail is too expensive.) Thispast November voters were asked to approve anadditional $640 million in bonds to begin work ona 64-mile light-rail expansion. It was a tough sell,

given the timing; no one had yet taken a spin onthe new system to see how it worked.

In the end, 52 percent of Houston votersapproved the light-rail bonding. They’d alreadyseen the kind of traffic that 50 years of road build-ing had brought about. Why not try somethingnew? Now that the light rail is running—the rail-cars carried more than 550,000 passengers in thefirst month alone—most Houstonians seem satis-fied that their city is on the right track. (Except, ofcourse, for those few drivers who crash into thetrains.) “Ridership has exceeded what we expect-ed,” says Ken Connaughton, the transitspokesperson. “It’s very popular. You can go outon the line nearly any time of day and see fulltrains going by.”

Chris Swope is a staff writer for GoverningMagazine.


Americans spend more from their annual household budgets coming andgoing than they do on practically anything else—and that often includesbuying the house of their dreams in the suburbs.

Surprised? You’re not alone. Look in the lane next to you.“I’m sure a lot of people who move into a sprawling suburb don’t realize they

are inflicting more transportation costs upon themselves,” says researcherDavid Goldstein of the California-based Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC). After studying car ownership and driving patterns in three metropoli-tan areas, Goldstein concluded travel-related expenses often displaced the sav-ings consumers envisioned by closing on bigger, less expensive suburbanhomes. “You’ll spend more driving to and from, than paying for the home.”

Goldstein says the NRDC study draws a direct link between the amount peo-ple drive and whether their neighborhood design includes features such as den-

sity, transit access, and pedestrian and bicycle paths. “This study shows peoplewho live in more convenient communities are less dependent on cars.”

Similar findings surfaced in another recent survey where transportationcosts also registered a close second in annual household expenditures,behind housing. “It’s all about location, location, and location,” saysresearcher Robert Dunphy, senior resident fellow of Transportation andInfrastructure with the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C.

This is why Dunphy’s study, just like Goldstein’s, stresses transportationas one factor never to ignore when contemplating a move, no matter if it iswithin a single metropolitan area or from one part of the country to another.Goldstein agrees, adding REALTORS® and consumers alike can tap a limit-ed but growing pool of resources dedicated to helping consumers weightransportation and housing factors before signing on the dotted line.

People gotta moveDunphy approached his study confident of one factor. “There is an extraordinaryamount [of money] people spend on housing. We already knew that.”

Using consumer expenditure data released last year by the U.S.Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, Dunphy’s research shows

Researchers havefound that sub-

urban sprawlmeans consumers

are spendingmore on travel

than their homes… and SmartGrowth is the

real thing.

t w o s i d e s o f t h e a f f o r d a b i l i t y c o i nTRANSPORTATIONHOUSING

By Joanne M. Haas

V E R S U S

housing costs swallowed about a third of a singlehousehold’s total budget in 2001. That includes pay-ing the mortgage or rent, upkeep, and utilities—alltold, that’s about double what folks spent nearly 30years earlier.

According to Dunphy’s calculations, whichincluded National Association of REALTORS®

data, transportation consumed 19 percent of ahousehold’s budget in 2001. People spent more onmoving around than they did eating, seeing doc-tors, or even getting new clothes. “Clearly, mobili-ty is worth a lot to people, and they do spend a loton it,” Dunphy says.

The combination of housing and transportationexpenses demanded more than 50 percent of all con-sumer spending that year, and things aren’t muchdifferent in 2004. In another Dunphy discovery,lower-income people spent nearly identical percent-ages of their budgets for housing and transportationas their wealthy counterparts. The differences sur-faced when considering regions, whether SmartGrowth features were available, and if homeownerswere willing to endure long commutes to own larger,less expensive suburban homes.

Dunphy says that to reduce housing expenses aperson must locate where housing is less expen-sive—and that often means smaller markets. But,

he stresses, it’s imperative the housing cost calcu-lations also include transportation expenditures toget “the full burden of a location cost.” Some ofthe bigger markets have high housing costs butoffer lower transport burdens. That combinationdoesn’t necessarily make the living easy, but itdoes make it more affordable.

“New York and Boston both have lower trans-portation costs so that helps you deal with the costof apartments,” he says of two cities known asexpensive places to get a home zip code. SanFrancisco resembles that trend. But, Dunphy adds,weighing high housing costs with lower trans-portation costs makes the city by the Bay “not asextremely expensive.”

The 2001 data in Dunphy’s study shows theaverage household spent $7,600 annually ontransportation, with most of that going for costsrelated to private vehicles and a fraction for publictransport, including air travel. That average waslower in cities like New York, Boston, andWashington, D.C., which are big, densely devel-oped, and operate well-used mass transit systems,making private vehicle use unnecessary andalmost unattractive.

Of the 28 metropolitan areas included in hisstudy, housing costs were the lowest in theMidwest and near the Great Lakes in places suchas St. Louis, the Twin Cities, Kansas City,Milwaukee, and the off-shore cities of Anchorageand Honolulu. However, some savings were loston above-average transportation costs. Dunphynoted the biggest surprise is Honolulu, known asa high-priced market for home purchases.Perhaps, he said, it’s an example of households,possibly renters, just getting by in a tough market.

Cities like Baltimore and Cleveland, wherepopulations have dropped, are experiencing areturn to inner neighborhoods where the besttransit options abound. “That’s one of the favor-able trends for transit—the resurgence in city liv-ing,” Dunphy says.

Based in Washington, D.C., Dunphy hopes hisresearch is noticed by tax-averse lawmakers look-ing for insight as to what consumers are willing tospend and for what purposes. The Congressionaldebate regarding the federal transportation budg-et, he notes, pitted anti-tax legislators againstadvocates for investment.

It wouldn’t take much of a user fee increase, hesays, to fund transit and road improvements thatwould translate into lower car repair bills and less caruse. “The data show Smart Growth has a financialpayoff,” he says of why he likes toll roads, especiallyin tight fiscal times. “There really is no other way toget the money. The consequences of a pretty goodlife are starting to creep in.”


“You’ll spend moredriving to and from,than paying for thehome.” David Goldstein,

Natural Resources Defense Council


Another idea Dunphy likes is the pay-at-the-pump insurance proposal, which would allowmotorists to pay for the insurance they need for themiles they drive.

Sprawl ife at a priceGoldstein says NRDC research shows clearly “theamount you need to spend on driving dependsupon how smart the growth is in the neighborhoodyou’re living.”

The NRDC study—completed by Goldstein, thecouncil’s energy program director, and a few oth-ers—involves the metropolitan areas of Chicago,Los Angeles, and San Francisco, with some datafrom Seattle.

“We have empirical evidence that SmartGrowth works,” Goldstein says. “This study showspeople who live in more convenient communitiesare less dependent on cars. … The communitiesare also more livable because they tend to havecleaner air and water and more protected openspace.”

Goldstein says the study should show naysay-ers that Smart Growth is effective when it comes tocrafting urban designs that offer people efficientand convenient places to live while simultaneous-ly reducing traffic congestion and significantlyslashing the pollution problems that accompanyhigh auto use.

Smart Growth is a neighborhood planning styledevoted to preventing urban sprawl by consideringseveral key land-use issues. Those issues ofteninclude housing, transportation, and utilities as wellas agricultural, natural, and cultural resources.

The four variables the Goldstein team usedwhile studying the transportation costs and habitsof those in sprawl areas were income, householdsize, compactness of the neighborhood, and avail-ability of transit services. “These four explain 90percent of the difference between zip codes,”Goldstein says, referring to the driving data col-lected per zip code in the metropolitan areas. “Itcan be the difference between spending $9,000 ayear on driving or only $3,000.”

A homebuyer or renter can determine howmuch he or she will spend on transportation uponmoving to an area and weighing those four factors.Goldstein notes there is an online service avail-able to assist consumers in making that precisecalculation for four metropolitan areas. It’s avail-able at www.locationefficiency.com, which alsohas information about Fannie Mae’s LocationEfficient Mortgage®.

Goldstein says the program, while currentlylimited, may be expanded, and remains a valuabletool in showing consumers the sometimes-hiddentravel costs of living in the sprawling suburbs.

“It’s not immediately apparent,” Goldsteinsays. “Almost every family owns a car—maybe youhave one or two cars and you moved out to thesuburban sprawl. And now you have two or threecars. That’s hard to notice but it is a real cost overthe years and it has contributed to feeling less eco-nomically secure.”

For example, he says, if you are a suburban resi-dent and you lose your job, you’ll still need the carsto search for new employment. An urban resident ina Smart Growth community can job hunt by usingpublic transit, cabs, or walking. “You could sell yourcar and keep your house,” Goldstein says. “You coulddo that until you get back on your feet. You havemore flexibility as well as lower costs in the more effi-cient neighborhoods.”

It’s all about options aimed at helping con-sumers and the environment alike, and theresearchers are hoping the nation’s policy makersand planners are listening.

Joanne M. Haas is a freelance reporter covering govern-ment, politics, business, agriculture, and education.

The combination ofhousing and transporta-tion expenses demandedmore than 50 percent ofall consumer spending.

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Zonal Transit Density

Hh/Res Acre

Impacts of Density and Transit on Auto CostsSan Francisco Bay Area

This figure displays how the cost of driving is affected by neighborhoodcharacteristics. The height of the surface represents annual drivingcosts: a family in the small, light violet region at the top of the graph—a family living in urban sprawl—would spend about $8,000/year to ownand operate their cars. Moving to the left from this area, as the com-pactness of the neighborhood increases, driving cost decreases rap-idly. Moving from the violet triangle to the right along the edge of thegraph shows the effect of increasing transit service levels; from notransit service in the violet area to high levels of service (such as liv-ing within walking distance of a metro station) in the purple areawhere costs drop to $6,000/year. This graph applies to a family with atypical level of income.

Fuels Vibrant Urban Villages

Smart Growth

By Brad Broberg



Inspired by a variety of forces—notably the dwin-dling supply of undeveloped land—successfulSmart Growth undertakings continue to mount.

New projects are springing up from coast to coast asgovernment, developers, and consumers are findingthat Smart Growth is more than a buzzword. In theright time, place, and form, it can be the most effectiveand marketable approach to development.

REALTORS® in Pasadena, California, and ArlingtonCounty, Virginia have found this to be especially true.Fueled by strong support from local government, devel-opment in those two communities reflects numerousSmart Growth principles. And buyers are eating it up.

“There’s a tremendous market for it,” said DominicDeFazio, a REALTOR® with Coldwell Banker inPasadena.

REALTOR® Tom Meyer, president of Condo 1 Inc. inArlington, said, “There’s been a little overbuilding withapartments in the last couple of years, but the condomarket is extremely hot. In 15 years here, I’ve neverseen it this crazy.”

As attractive places to live within large metropolitanareas, Pasadena and Arlington shared pressure to grow.Yet as established communities, any vacant land hadlong since disappeared. The answer was redevelop-ment using Smart Growth principles as the buildingblocks.

Arlington, one of the first communities to embraceSmart Growth, and Pasadena, one of the latest, bothadopted infill strategies that increased density at keylocations, encouraged a mixture of uses and, mostimportantly, took advantage of the arrival of rail lines.The result? A series of vibrant urban villages wherepeople can live, work, and play—all without having tobattle growing congestion in their cars.

“There is a nice mix of retail, offices, and multi-family residential at each Metro stop,” said Meyer.“You can walk up out of a Metro station and find any-thing you want.”

Metro is the transit network that serves theWashington, D.C., metropolitan area. Its extension ofrail service west into Arlington County 25 years agogave county planners the perfect tool to prepare for thegrowth they knew was coming.

“At a certain point, several decades ago, the peoplein power said, ‘We know growth is coming to our area.We know we’re going to get a Metro line here. How canwe [plan] to make sure the county doesn’t get allclogged up with cars,’” explained Meyer.

50 ON COMMON GROUND SPRING 2004

A compact and highly urbanized county,Arlington had gotten a taste of what might be instore if it didn’t act aggressively when Rosslyn, agritty neighborhood just across the Potomac Riverfrom D.C., began to redevelop in the 1960s as anoffice center.

“It was occupied during the day and dead atnight,” said Tom Miller, planning commissioncoordinator for Arlington County. “There was verylittle housing and not much retail. People viewedRosslyn as something they didn’t want to seeduplicated.”

Thanks to farsighted planning, that style ofdevelopment did not continue. As plans weremade in the late 1960s and early 1970s to extendMetroRail into Arlington, the county fought tobuild the Orange Line underground along theaging Rosslyn-Ballston commercial corridor ratherthan along a new freeway. And instead of relegat-ing transit stations to roles as glorified parking

lots, it targeted areas surrounding the stations forhigh-density, mixed-use growth with plenty ofpublic amenities, offering incentives to enticedevelopers to participate.

“A lot of thought went into where the rail stopswent,” said Meyer. “There’s a small communityaround each stop. Arlington is very vibrant now.The night life is exciting in these places” (seephoto at right).

By focusing growth within a quarter-mile radiusof the transit stations, Arlington not only pre-served the surrounding single-family neighbor-hoods, it enhanced their value.

“As you get a few blocks away from the Metrostop, you see density go down from high-rise tomid-rise to single-family homes, which are nowextremely valuable because they’re near theMetro line,” said Meyer. “The prices have goneout of sight a few blocks from Metro stops.”

Kristin and Wayne Westbrook, both profession-

Arlington is proof that you can have quality oflife and growth if it’s planned right.


als in their mid-50s, live in The Atrium, a 13-storycondo in Rosslyn. “I like the energy of the neigh-borhood,” said Kristin. Not only is their condo two blocks from a Metro rail station, but restau-rants, shops, and theaters are all within walkingdistance.

“It’s a wonderful way of getting the body mov-ing,” said Kristin. “When I relied more on a car, Iwalked a lot less. This is a healthy alternative.”

Arlington is proof that “you can have quality oflife and growth if it’s planned right,” said Miller.Arlington’s success has not gone unnoticed.Miller said other communities are constantly ask-ing the county how to make Smart Growth workfor them.

“It doesn’t happen overnight,” said Miller. “It’sdifficult to create a strong sense of place and aplace that people want to be. You can start on itand build the foundation ... but you can’t makedevelopment go where it doesn’t want to go.”

In Pasadena, a community known for its grace-ful architecture, creating a sense of place was nota problem for the city as it wrestled with a need toaccommodate growth. The problem was how topreserve the existing sense of place while open-ing the door to redevelopment.

Mission accomplished, said Hans Hagen-mayer, a REALTOR® with Team Provident Realtyin Pasadena. “Pasadena has done a good job ofseeing that these projects keep in character withthe city,” he said. “The new projects don’t standout because they look like they’ve always beenthere.”

For many years, Pasadena was a sleepy citywhere change occurred slowly—if at all. “When Istarted, Pasadena was still ‘The little old ladyfrom ... ’” said DeFazio, who has been selling realestate in that community since 1981.

By the 1990s, however, Southern California’sgrowing population, squeezed by a chronic hous-ing shortage, caught on to the charm ofPasadena’s leafy neighborhoods and elegantarchitecture—especially after the heart of the city,Old Pasadena, was revitalized and the Metro-politan Transportation Authority announced plansto build a new rail line linking Pasadena to LosAngeles. The little old lady has been kicking upher heels ever since.

“We had almost zero development for so manyyears and now there’s a development on everycorner,” said Maggie Navarro, a REALTOR® withColdwell Banker in Pasadena.

Well, maybe not every corner. FollowingArlington’s example, Pasadena chose to channelgrowth, which had been leaking into single-family neighborhoods in the form of small apart-ment complexes, to the areas surrounding the rail

Arlington, VA


stations for the Gold Line, which opened last year.The city created incentives to attract high-

density, mixed-use developments to transit stationsites that add urban spice to Pasadena’s predomi-nantly suburban flavor. “They’re creating transitvillages ... where people can live, work, and go toa cool restaurant without leaving their neighbor-hood,” said Navarro.

The strategy has been wildly successful. “Everydeveloper in Southern California is trying to buildhere,” said Brian League, senior project managerwith the city of Pasadena.

Pasadena developers find their projects in highdemand. “People want to be able to live close toshopping, close to theaters, and keep their cars athome,” said DeFazio. “People are flocking here.”

With help from his parents, recent college grad-uate Sean Saraf is buying a unit in MissionMeridian Village, a mixed-use development neara rail station in the adjacent city of SouthPasadena. “I’m looking forward to being able towalk out of my loft and take the train to LosAngeles ... without having to get in my car,” saidthe 23-year-old. “Plus there are a lot of things to do

within walking distance ofMission Meridian.”

Sean’s mother, Janine,thinks the family is making awise investment. “People inCalifornia are getting tired of[driving],” she said. “I thinkthis type of development willbe the rule for the next 10years at least.”

Given the community’sdeep desire to preserve itsheritage, some Pasadena res-idents now wonder whetherthe city’s Smart Growthapproach is working too well.“It’s raising people’s eye-brows,” said League.“They’re asking when isenough enough.”

Developments in Arlingtonand Pasadena are vividexamples of the market’sappetite for Smart Growth,but they are not the only

ones. Post Properties can point to several SmartGrowth apartment communities it has builtaround the country—including Pasadena andArlington but also Denver, Dallas, and Atlanta—that have received similar responses.

“Without question, the reception has been verypositive,” said John Mears, executive vice presi-dent of the Atlanta-based development company.“People want to be closer to where they’re workingand closer to the cultural amenities of the metro-politan area and not spend inordinate time in theirvehicles,” said Mears.

Post Properties had specialized in building gar-den-style apartment homes outside the urbancore. “They were gated communities, strictly resi-dential,” he said.

That changed about six years ago. “It was afinancial strategy as opposed to something thathad a greater social conscience,” said Mears. “Wethought if we could find well-located propertieswithin the city, it would be hard for our competi-tion to find properties that would provide immedi-ate competition to what we were building.”

The role and scale of retail in Post Property

“We had almost zero development for so manyyears and now there’s a development on everycorner.” Maggie Navarro, REALTOR® with Coldwell Banker, in Pasadena


developments varies from location to location. Insome, it is ancillary to the residential component.In others, it is an attraction in its own right.

“The destination retail, as an amenity, has beentremendous,” said Mears. “Where we have donethat, the retail is in fact a huge selling point andclearly distinguishes us from our competitors andenables us to achieve premium [rents] for thatconvenience.”

While Smart Growth advocates have plenty tocheer about, Smart Growth remains a “woefullysmall” percentage of overall development, saidTodd Zimmerman, co-managing director ofZimmerman/Volk Associates, a developmentanalysis firm specializing in New Urbanism. “It’sgrowing by leaps and bounds, but it’s growing offsuch a small base,” he said.

Despite its many advantages, New Urbanism,one element of Smart Growth, comes with noguarantee of success, said Zimmerman. “Like anyother real estate development, it depends on howwell it’s executed and positioned,” he said. “Thereare several failures out there, but they’re not fail-

ures because there’s a lack of a market. They’refailures because they were very poorly executed.”

Perhaps the biggest mistake is trying to dupli-cate a successful development at a different loca-tion without taking into account the unique needsof that location. “The principles of New Urbanismapply everywhere, but it takes its physical formfrom the characteristics of the location,” saidZimmerman. “It’s not a style. It’s a complete sys-tem.”

Looking ahead, Zimmerman says the NewUrbanism expression of Smart Growth is the per-fect response to a looming “demographic impera-tive” in which both aging Baby Boomers andMillennials—the generation that is currentlybetween the ages of 7 and 27—simultaneouslyseek alternatives to traditional suburban living.

“It is clearly the future,” said Zimmerman.

Brad Broberg is a Seattle-based freelance writer special-izing in business and development issues. His workappears regularly in the Puget Sound Business Journaland the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.

�The combination of New Urbanism and mass transit is

a match made in Smart Growth heaven and the knotis being tied more and more often, said Andy Kunz.

“Transit-oriented development (TOD) is happening in alot of places to varying degrees,” said Kunz, director ofNewUrbanism.org, a nonprofit organization that promotesurban living and mass transit—twin hallmarks of SmartGrowth.

TOD uses rail and bus stations as magnets to attracthigh-density, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly develop-ment, which in turn stimulates mass-transit ridership.Atlanta, Portland, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Washington,D.C. are among the metropolitan areas experiencing sig-nificant transit-oriented development, said Kunz.

“It’s just about exploding around D.C.,” said Kunz. “Newhousing in D.C. is selling faster than they can build it andmost of it is within walking distance of rail stations.”

What’s exciting to see, said Kunz, is that transit agen-cies are taking the lead in soliciting TOD proposals fromdevelopers—not just for new stations but for existingones as well. “They are looking at their parking lots andseeing potential [commercial] gold mines as well as a wayto increase ridership,” he said.

In the Los Angeles area, TOD is underway up and downthe rail lines of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.In South Pasadena, Creative Housing Associates (CHA) isputting the finishing touches on a showcase example.

Mission Meridian Village features 53 courtyard condo-miniums and 14 lofts combined with 4,000-square feet ofneighborhood retail and a 324-stall parking garage—allwithin a short stroll of the South Pasadena Gold LineStation.

Developer Michael Dieden founded CHA in 1997 withthe express purpose of pursuing TOD. “Our mission is tobuild places where people can live near transit and usetransit and leave their cars in the garage,” said Dieden,who began planning Mission Meridian Village before itwas even certain the Gold Line was coming.

Dieden’s faith did not go unrewarded. “Every unit hasbeen pre-sold,” he said. “It just shows how much of ademand there is for this type of living.”

The key to successful TOD, said Dieden, is cooperationbetween cities, transit agencies, and developers. That’swhat happened with Mission Meridian Village. “SouthPasadena is very progressive in terms of transit-orienteddevelopment,” he said. On the other hand, Diedenbacked away from two potential TOD projects in the BayArea after he and the cities failed to agree on develop-ment strategies.

“Transit development is difficult because you’re dealingwith multiple public agencies, and they often have differ-ent objectives that can conflict with the objectives a pri-vate developer is going to have,” said Dieden. “It’s notfoolproof, as I have learned the hard way.”


Five Communities Receive National Award for Smart Growth Achievement

Read more about Smart Growth at EPA’s website: www.epa.gov/smartgrowth.

And theWinner Is ...And theWinner Is ...

TSMART GROW

TH

WINN

he votes have been tallied and the winners announced forEPA’s 2003 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. Inthis second year of the national award program, entries wereup more than 10 percent, with 112 entries from 31 states andthe District of Columbia.The Award recognizes outstandingachievement in Smart Growth by state, local, or regional gov-ernments in five categories: Built Projects, Policies andRegulation, Community Outreach and Education, PublicSchools, and Overall Excellence in Smart Growth.

The program was expanded from four to five categories in2003.The newest category highlights Smart Growth innova-tions in a specific area that will change annually.This year’s chosen area was Public Schools, which demonstrates howK–12 schools can adopt smart growth approaches and meetthe educational needs of students.

Each award recipient has incorporated the principles ofSmart Growth to create places that respect community culture and the environment, foster economic development,and enhance quality of life.The award is made by the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency Office of Policy, Economics,and Innovation, with advice provided by a range of constituen-cies with interest and expertise in the built environment andSmart Growth.


Metropolitan CouncilMinneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota

Consistently ranked among the top locations in the country to raise afamily or establish a business, the Minneapolis-St. Paul region is experi-encing rapid population growth … and with that growth comes stress:

increasing traffic congestion, rising housing prices, dwindling open space.

But instead of limiting growth, the Minnesota State Legislature triedsomething different. It provided the Metropolitan Council—the region-al planning organization for the seven-county Twin Cities area—with avoluntary, incentive-based approach to help communities growsmarter. The Legislature passed the Livable Communities Act (LCA) in1995 to get innovative projects off the ground. The LCA underwritesthree grant programs: Tax Base Revitalization (brownfield cleanup),Local Housing Initiatives (lifecycle and affordable housing), and theLivable Communities Demonstration Account (mixed-use projects).

From 1996 to May of 2003 the council awarded 292 LCA grants totaling nearly $100 million. Metropolitan Council chair Peter Bellsays Smart Growth principles are widely supported and effect realchange. “They embrace efficient use of existing resources, economicvibrancy, preservation of open space, choices in housing and trans-portation, and consensus building. They are principles that promotecommunity, livability, and quality of life.”

AFTER

BEFORE

SM

ART GROWTH

WINNER

1

LIVABLE COMMUNITIES PROGRAM OVERALL EXCELLENCE

The honor of the Built Projects Award was given to the Department of theNavy for creating a traditional neighborhood of military housing. The Villageat the Naval Training Center adjacent to Point Loma, California (near San

Diego) is the location of this award-winning community.

According to Tony Megliola, public/private venture team leader, success of theundertaking can be measured in the fact that The Village enjoys 100 percentoccupancy and has a waiting list. “It’s the best military housing in the U.S.,” hesaid. “It’s a huge increase in the quality of life for military families that enablesthe sailors to better focus on their jobs knowing that their families live in a goodneighborhood and are well cared for.”

The Village offers 500 affordable housing units, based on the principles of NewUrbanism, and features well-designed public spaces, pedestrian-friendlystreetscapes, and regional architectural styles. It integrates smoothly with theexisting residential and commercial surroundings of historic Point Loma. The tra-ditional neighborhood design creates a place where families can live and play,and have easy access to employment and shopping.

Department of the NavySouthwest Division Naval Facilities EngineeringCommand, San Diego, California


SM

ART GROWTH

WINNER

2

BUILT PROJECTS THE VILLAGE AT NAVAL TRAINING CENTER


Working with private banks and local municipali-ties, the Cuyahoga County Treasurer’s Office hashelped finance more than 4,700 home improve-

ment loans worth in excess of $57 million. The programhas been successful in stemming out-migration, helpingresidents stay in their homes, and strengthening com-pact, diverse, and livable neighborhoods—for less than$1 million a year. The program, named HELP—HousingEnhancement Loan Program—has improved residents’quality of life and encouraged thousands of families toremain in older Cleveland neighborhoods and inner-ringsuburbs.

Under HELP, participating banks make home improvementloans at 3 percent below market rate. The CountyTreasurer’s Office then purchases CDs at these banks,accepting 3 percent less return than market rate. Homesvalued up to $250,000 and multi-family homes of threeunits or more are eligible in the 33 targeted cities.

The cities have noticed a “halo effect”; that is, improvedhomes encourage other homeowners to make improve-ments, even without HELP loans. Treasurer Jim Rokakissays that even with current low interest rates, the pro-gram appeals to many—they make about 100 loans amonth.

The success of this program has convinced two otherOhio counties to enact similar programs. And Rokakissays the success of the program has spurred the CountyTreasurer’s office to create a program designed especial-ly for “heritage,” or old housing, working with theCleveland Restoration Society.

Cuyahoga CountyTreasurer’s Office Cuyahoga County, Ohio

HOUSING ENHANCEMENT LOAN PROGRAM

SM

ART GROWTH

WINNER

3

POLICIES &REGULATIONS

Georgia communities looking for better ways to plan for Smart Growthcan turn to the Georgia Office of Quality Growth (OQG) for advice andplanning services. Communities can request the assistance of OQG

resource teams or consultants who will evaluate local ordinances, offer directtechnical assistance, share success stories, and more. An OQG website listsand illustrates many ways in which Smart Growth ideas can be implemented.

The OQG program, active since 2000, has two goals: (1) direct assistanceefforts to those communities that are ready to implement Smart Growth and(2) educate communities about Smart Growth success stories in Georgia.

The program has provided $350,000 in grants to 27 communities. Withthose funds, communities have, for example, created neighborhood masterplans, written infill design guidelines and development regulations, conduct-ed corridor studies, and written new ordinances.

Program director Jim Frederick says OQG has a field staff of four who “keeptheir hand on the pulse of local government so we know which [communities]are ready to go with a Smart Growth operation.” While OQG has a marketingprogram but limited resources, Frederick says, “We focus on the bestprospects, and we rely heavily on peer-to-peer interaction to publicize thebenefits of the program.”

Georgia Department ofCommunity AffairsOffice of Quality Growth, State of Georgia


GEORGIA QUALITY GROWTH PROGRAMSM

ART GROWTH

WINNER

4

COMMUNITY OUTREACH & EDUCATION AWARD

Wake CountyPublic School System

City of Raleigh, North Carolina

In the heart of the Raleigh, North Carolina, cultural and artsdistrict is a new magnet school. This school—Moore SquareMuseums Magnet Middle School—occupies a mere four

acres near downtown Raleigh, rather than going along with theprevailing trend of big schools on big sites. The school’s build-ing site was assembled from disused and blighted buildings,and has been transformed into a fully equipped school with twoplaying fields.

George Chapman, city of Raleigh planning director, revels in theproject’s glow. “The school has been well received in the neigh-borhood: it has reached out to the community, and the commu-nity has responded in kind.”

Nearly 500 students attend the magnet school in grades 6through 8, many who applied specifically to attend this school.The revitalized area is attracting new residents, new businesses,and other redevelopment, all of which has helped to stabilizethe community. The school is within walking distance of a buscenter and close to cultural attractions and several neighbor-hoods; it is a source of pride for students and residents. It hasalso set a standard for building smaller schools that studentswant to attend and re-invigorating neighborhoods.


MOORE SQUARE MUSEUMS MAGNET MIDDLE SCHOOL

SM

ART GROWTH

WINNER

5

PUBLIC SCHOOLSAWARD


smartGrowthinthestates

Voters in the Los Angeles sub-urb of Inglewood rejected a bal-lot measure that would haveallowed the construction of anew Wal-Mart store. The meas-ure would have allowed theconstruction of a new Wal-MartSuperCenter without the nor-mal zoning, traffic, and envi-ronmental reviews. Opponentsof the measure, who won with61 percent of the vote, claimedthe SuperCenter would hurt thecommunity by driving out smallbusiness and encouragingurban sprawl.

The state of Delaware joined TheNature Conservancy and The Conser-vation Fund to announce two landpurchases that will lead to preserva-tion of more than 1,150 acres of forestin Sussex County. The land, made upof two tracts, was purchased from aPennsylvania lumber company foralmost $14 million dollars. Plans forthe land include reforesting with amix of hardwood and evergreen treesand, eventually, limited public accessand recreational use. Governor RuthAnn Minner praised the purchase asan example of her proposed “GreenInfrastructure” program, which seeksopportunities for state government towork with environmental groups topreserve some of the state’s mostimportant natural habitats.

The city of Dania Beach and BrowardCounty are expected to enter into an agree-ment to fund redevelopment of the DaniaBeach downtown. This agreement repre-sents a change from how other CommunityRedevelopment Agency (CRA) plans in thecounty have been handled. For other CRAs,Broward County returns the increase in theCommunity Redevelopment area’s growingtax base to the district for improvements.The new agreement would allow DaniaBeach to apply for up-front funding forindividual redevelopment projects in thatzone. Broward County has set up a pool of$10 million for several cities in need ofrejuvenation, including Dania Beach.Improvements being considered by cityofficials include adding cafés and otherretail establishments, better lighting, andreducing Dania Beach Boulevard by twolanes to create a more intimate atmosphere.

CALIFORNIA DELAWARE FLORIDA


The Boise City Council voted unani-mously to approve a transit plandesigned to prevent traffic jams onState Street, one of Boise’s main traf-fic corridors. The plan requires theAda County Highway Commission tospend upward of $57 million over thenext 20 years, and includes a widenedState Street of seven lanes, expandedbike lanes, landscaped medians anddetached sidewalks and pathways tomake the street more pedestrian-friendly. The plan calls for the affectedcities—Boise, Garden City, andEagle—to make sure their compre-hensive plans allow for developmentof mixed-use “nodes” that would per-mit more people and better transituse.

Three bills approved by theLouisiana legislature relating tocoastal restoration and protectionwere signed by Governor KathleenBabineaux Blanco. House Bill 531authorizes use of police power toprotect the Louisiana coastline andspecifies that compensation must bepaid “for property taken for publicpurposes related to coastal conserva-tion, management, preservation,enhancement, creation, or restora-tion.” House Bill 766 provides thatstate and political subdivisions shallbe held harmless from any claimsrelating to coastal restoration.Finally, Senate Bill 504 establishes afund for coastal restoration projects.The bills are viewed as tools to pro-actively manage the coast and totake steps to repair the coast once itis harmed.

The Maryland General Assembly gavefinal approval to Governor Robert L.Ehrlich Jr.’s brownfields redevelop-ment reform bill. The program, devel-oped in 1997 and praised by the envi-ronmental community, has lagged inrecent years. Only 90 polluted proper-ties, averaging about 30 each year,have been redeveloped to date.Changes to the brownfields programinclude streamlining the applicationprocess, increasing the types of eligi-ble properties to include sites with oilcontamination, shortening waits forcleanup plan review from 120 days to75 days, and shortening applicationprocessing from 60 days to 45 days.New public participation requirementswill make it easier for residents tocomment on redevelopment proposals.

MARYLANDIDAHO LOUISIANA


smartGrowthinthestates(continued)

A $200 million redevelopment proj-ect was recently announced on thesite of a failed mall in the city ofWorcester. The plan for the site, for-mally known as the Worcester Com-mon Outlets, will include razing themall and building 900 housingunits, 300,000 square feet of retailspace, a medical office building,and a connection to the city’s com-muter rail stop. The site was devel-oped as a mall in 1971, but fell onhard times in recent years due tothe influx of other shopping centersin the area. Mall demolition isexpected to begin in early next year,with occupancy projected for 2007.

Bozeman has embraced SmartGrowth principles and will reject“cookie-cutter” housing and hous-ing without parks and businesses,according to its planning director.Major development projects will berequired to have a central area,defined as some kind of commercialcore or a park. City planners arecalling for a return to “neighbor-hood development,” consisting ofsidewalks, trees, and safe routes toschool, all of which are found inBozeman’s oldest neighborhoods.

Meadowlands planners are rollingout a blueprint for a mixed-use“transit village” that officials saywill transform 145 acres of ware-houses, trucking companies, andold dumps into a “classy” destina-tion for residents willing toembrace a mass transit–friendlylifestyle. The Secaucus TransitVillage Redevelopment Plan callsfor 1,850 residential units; a 500-room hotel and conference center;and up to 750,000 square feet ofrestaurants, boutiques, coffeeshops, professional offices, andother commercial uses within ashort walk of the recently openedSecaucus Junction railroad station.

MASSACHUSETTS MONTANA NEW JERSEY


UTAH

Bismarck began implementation of a“Renaissance Zone” in late 2003. Thepurpose of the Renaissance Zone,enacted by the State Legislature in1999, is to revitalize the business com-munity, building structures, or both in adefined area of a municipality limitedin size, in accordance with state law.The goals for the Bismarck RenaissanceZone include establishing the Zone asa center of business life, government,and cultural opportunity, promoting theZone as the preferred location for com-mercial uses, maximizing the accessi-bility of the Zone, and upholdingBismarck’s heritage. Those who devel-op projects in the Zone may be eligiblefor exemptions from property and salestaxes.

By a slim majority, Houston resi-dents approved a $7.5 billionregional transit plan that willresult in regionwide rail expan-sion. Texas legislators are nowseeking federal matching funds,without which the project cannotproceed. Voters approved a $640million bond issuance that willpay for 22 of the projected 73miles of new light rail. The planalso includes 44 new bus routes,a doubling of HOV lanes, andextension of the MetropolitanTransit Authority’s participationin local road projects for anotherfive years.

Work has started on the largest develop-ment project in Utah’s history. TheDaybreak project, a 4,126-acre commu-nity to be built on land once contaminat-ed by waste from an open-pit miningoperation on the east slope of theOquirrhs Mountains, will include a towncenter, a school, 1,200 acres of parks, alake, commercial space, and 13,000homes to be built over 15 years. Theproject comes after years of discussionby groups like Envision Utah about theconcept of “walkable communities,”where residents can work, shop, live,and play within a reasonably close area.Eventually, the community will link to anumber of transportation options,including a proposed Light Rail Spur,the Mountain View Corridor, and walk-ing and biking trails.

NORTH DAKOTA

Compiled by Gerald L. Allen, NAR Government Affairs

TEXAS