Smart Enough for Smart Growth?

At Ventura County’s Smart Growth Conference, sponsored by the Air Pollution Control District last month, I observed that the basic tenants of smart growth proposed by the Clinton / Gore administration, various planning organizations and the National Assn. of Homebuilders are the same:

Provide choice of housing types; plan, finance and provide infrastructure that includes schools, roads, water and sewer facilities and open space for commercial and residential development; site high-density and mixed-use development in urban centers and transportation corridors; reuse troubled infill sites, such as brownfields, with appropriate environmental remediation; use high-quality design; promote sustainable development principles; and protect the environment.

Why, then, do we have suburban development patterns and “urban sprawl”-- not only in Ventura County but across the United States?

The first reason is personal preference. In a 1999 national survey, consumers were asked the following question: You have two options: buying a $150,000 townhouse in an urban setting close to the public transportation, work and shopping, or purchase a larger, detached single-family home in an outlying suburban area with longer distances to work, public transportation and shopping. Which would you choose? Eighty-three percent chose the detached home in the suburbs; 17% chose the townhouse in the city.

Second, local government and engineering standards do not encourage high-density development. Requirements for large street widths, parking spaces, sidewalks, parkways and setbacks between buildings reduce density. Current homeowners often actively oppose higher density in or near their own neighborhoods. And, there is a trend in many local jurisdictions in residential subdivisions to increase setbacks between homes and to mandate a minimum percentage of single-story homes, thereby reducing the number of lots allowed.

In Ventura County, many feel that we have embraced smart growth through the SOAR (Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources) initiatives, directing development and density toward the cities while establishing the green space between them. In fact, development in our cities is low density and suburban in nature. Specifically, in the city of Ventura, the last 10 residential subdivisions processed were approved at 44% of the density they were zoned for: Properties designated in the city’s comprehensive plan for 2,353 units were actually approved with a total of 1,030 units.

Third, environmental protection requirements have been enacted without the appropriate technology to allow smart growth. For example, newly proposed water quality requirements necessitate retaining all water runoff on-site in new development projects, and the currently acceptable method for doing this is installing landscaping and retention basins on-site, thereby reducing density. And the conflict between protecting endangered species and providing appropriate transportation infrastructure in the form of roads, railways, subways and airports has contributed to the infrastructure deficit and corresponding air quality deterioration. New technology, whether in engineering solutions or ways to protect endangered plants and animals, must be integrated with the enactment of environmental standards for new development for it to be smart.

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Fourth, the large number of construction dispute lawsuits over the past 10 years has had an unintended effect: elimination of housing choice. Because of increased costs and lack of availability of insurance, builders in California are not able to produce condominiums and other attached for-sale products. These are the very housing types that are a hallmark of smart growth in other communities.

Fifth, funding sources for implementation of smart growth principles has been inadequate on local, state and national levels. Transportation improvements, environmental remediation, new technology, code and standards reform, public acquisition of open space, municipal services all have lagged behind population growth due to a lack of investment.

In Ventura County, past development patterns, current regulations and personal preference have led to low-density, suburban development within our cities at the same time we have maintained open space corridors between them. Therefore, we have been unable to develop significant mass transit opportunities for our residents.

And with the increasing cost of the limited land designated for development combined with low-density preferences, affordable housing opportunities are scarce. We are already experiencing increased traffic on our roads because of long commutes from more affordable areas.

If we truly want smart growth, we must support it personally, financially and at all levels of government.