|
Smart Growth
Twenty years ago a bi-partisan Governor’s Commission
on the Future of Virginia made a prediction for the Commonwealth
in the year 2000 if current trends continued and concluded
by stating “the magnitude of these and other problems
will place unprecedented stress on local governments.”
Current trends did in fact continue, and Virginia is
now suffering the consequences predicted. Like many other
parts of the nation, Virginia is grappling with sprawl
-- land use that spreads new development farther and farther
from existing communities and consumes more land than
ever before. This type of development is costly to taxpayers
and is leading to loss of our natural, historic, and cultural
resources, and to a deteriorating quality of life for
many Virginians. The state is rapidly losing rural land
to development.
The Commonwealth of Virginia spends millions of dollars
every year in economic development grants to attract and
retain job-creating businesses in the state. However,
these economic incentive programs do not take into consideration
their effects on patterns of growth. In practice, some
of these investments generate sprawl by subsidizing land
acquisition, requiring public expenditure on additional
infrastructure, and establishing business sites without
regard to existing communities, transit resources, farmland
and open space.
Sprawling development rarely brings about the economic
benefits anticipated and can cost taxpayers money. The
cost to Virginia of providing infrastructure and services
to newly developed areas potentially outstrips the revenue
generated. A summary of 40 years of fiscal impact studies
showed that smart growth consumes 45% less land, costs
25% less for roads, 15% less for utilities, 5% less for
housing, and costs 2% less for other fiscal impacts than
current trends of sprawl development. By not tying economic
incentive programs to smart growth policies, Virginia
is missing an opportunity to save taxpayers money.
Simply spending more money won’t solve the problem. It
is more expensive to provide infrastructure for spread-out
development than for more compact and traditional towns
and cities. As population and jobs shift from already
developed areas, the existing public infrastructure such
as water, sewers, schools and roads is neglected or abandoned.
Simultaneously, the expenses for new infrastructure increase
exponentially as these public utilities have to be extended
further and further out into the former countryside. A
Brookings Institution survey of national studies found
an average 11% savings on infrastructure costs with smart
growth development.
What is needed is a new partnership between state and
local governments to better manage and direct growth in
Virginia. Yet, the General Assembly has refused requests
from local governments for more authority to manage growth
and has instead reduced the authority of local governments
at least a dozen times in the past 12 years. At the same
time, the state itself contributes to the problem through
economic development subsidies to companies locating outside
towns and cities, through an overwhelming focus on highways
that generate more sprawl, and through failure to invest
in existing communities.
- Support Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance Enabling
Authority. Such authority would allow localities to
provide that approval of a subdivision or site plan
be contingent upon the availability of adequate public
facilities. An Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance
(APFO) allows for the staging of development to enable
localities to time development to a rationale financial
plan and program to provide services such as schools,
sewer and water.
- Support Broadening the Impact Fee Enabling Authority.
Currently, Virginia allows the use of impact fees only
for roads and only for a few localities. Broadening
this authority so that it may be used by any locality
and increasing the potential uses of the fees would
help local government deal more effectively with the
impacts of growth. Such authority would allow localities
to impose impact fees for schools, water, sewer and
other services and to set them at a realistic percentage
of the public cost of new development. Impact fees are
charges imposed on new development to help pay for the
capital costs of public facilities necessitated by such
development. Unlike proffers (which are offered, or
“proffered”, by the developer and apply only to rezonings)
they are set by the locality and applied across the
board to all new housing construction. To make impact
fees meaningful, they should not be capped by the General
Assembly. Localities must be able to set fees at some
realistic percentage of the cost of new development.
- Oppose actions that would further erode local governments’
existing land use authority. This session may see another
effort to take away authority as a reaction against
local government efforts to develop comprehensive plans
and zoning ordinances that reduce infrastructure costs,
protect more open space, and create more compact, walkable
communities. Possibilities include reducing localities’
ability to change their comprehensive plan or zoning
designations. There may be an attempt to take away or
unduly restrict proffer authority, which provides for
some financial payment by developers for public costs
created by new development. Any efforts to weaken local
control over the placement of telecommunications facilities
should also be opposed; such control enables local governments
to lessen the negative impact of these structures on
communities.
- Support State actions to direct state investment to
towns, cities and areas of contiguous development where
public infrastructure is already in place. Funding for
state programs such as brownfields redevelopment, Governor’s
Opportunity Fund, Enterprise Zone Program, and the Main
Street Program should be increased and directed to towns,
cities and areas of contiguous development where public
infrastructure is in place. Transit, bike and pedestrian
projects should receive a larger share of transportation
funding. School funding should fairly support the repair,
maintenance and expansion of existing schools.
- Support efforts to improve local and state partnerships
in planning. The state should analyze long term development
trends, including total land planned and zoned for development,
to better assess taxpayer costs. State funding and technical
assistance should be provided to improve local planning
and support studies such as build-out analyses (for
localities or transportation corridors) and water supply
assessments.
- Support State action that allows cities and towns
to revitalize urban or older suburban areas. Under current
law, cities and towns must have the same tax rate on
both land and buildings. In recent years, other states
have allowed their municipalities to use a lower tax
rate on buildings. This lower tax rate has stimulated
real estate investment and development because it reduces
the property owner’s tax liability on the improvements.
By removing tax disincentives, it encourages investment
where towns and cities already have infrastructure,
rather than having investment leave for the countryside.
In Virginia, only Fairfax City has this authority, recently
granted.
|
