Articles from Voter Impact

This article was shortened for the printed copy, but is printed here as written by Kenton so that all might read the full text. Other articles on controlled growth will appear on these pages as the articles are submitted.

ELECTIONS 99: A MANDATE FOR CONTROLLED GROWTH

By Gary Kenton

A good way to gauge public concerns is to listen to the topics that are raised most persistently during the candidate forums that precede local elections. Along with raising the level of political participation and education, this barometer of public opinion is one of the important benefits of the forums conducted by the League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad. This past year, regardless of which forum you attended, the concern raised most consistently had to do with sprawl: the negative effects of current patterns of development. The specifics varied, but the overall message was loud and clear: the majority of Greensboro residents want the City Council to adopt a comprehensive, long-range, land-use plan and stick to it.

What should be in the plan?

Stopping sprawl is easy. First, you stop building new roads, water lines, and sewer lines. Second, you put modest impact fees on development, and prohibitive fees on "green field" development (building on land that was previously undeveloped). There are some other things that would certainly add to the mix, like expanding mass transit and offering additional incentives for downtown redevelopment, but this would just about do it. Unfortunately, we currently lack the political will to do these things.

Everyone seems to agree on what we don’t want – more traffic, overcrowded schools, strip shopping centers, loss of open space, air and water pollution – but there is little consensus about how to achieve these goals. The difficulty is that sprawl is not only the result of land speculators and developers, but is also market-driven. Enterprising capitalists are making lots of money giving the middle class what it wants – large, single-family detached houses; secure, antiseptic suburban subdivisions; 70-mile-an-hour highways with convenience stores at every exit; drive-through food and drugs; and a mind-boggling choice of material goods at a wide range of chain stores, each with enough parking to accommodate the Christmas rush.

The simple fact is that nothing serious will be done about sprawl without placing certain limits on our own appetites. We will need to acknowledge our finite resources and demonstrate our willingness to live within our means, even if some of our media-fed notions of the "American Dream" (house, picket fence, three-car garage, swimming pool) have to be revised.

How will the plan be developed?

Just as important as what is in the plan, perhaps even more so, is the process that will be followed to produce it. On one hand, we needn’t reinvent the wheel: both the Greensboro Visions and Forecast 2015 plans provide models for garnering broad community input. The 2015 plan, in particular, is still fresh enough to provide both a barometer of public opinion and specific recommendations for action. On the other hand, Greensboro needs to develop a plan that is particular to the needs of the City, drawing on the wisdom and deliberations of its citizenry.

In addition to creating a process that will solicit the broadest possible input from citizens, there are a number of professionals, agencies, and volunteer groups for whom sprawl and its attendant effects are a constant focus. Foremost among these is the Sierra Club, which was researching the issue of sprawl on a statewide and local level before anybody else. The Sierra Club must also get credit for creating the Smart Growth Committee, a group of environmentalists and local developers that has been meeting for the past few months. (Gail Scullion, Jackie Hammond, and I are privileged to represent the League on this Committee.) Since many of the underlying issues related to sprawl are hotly contested between these two factions, the Smart Growth Committee should provide some indications of where compromise can be achieved.

How will the plan be implemented and enforced?

Of course, the development of a plan is the easy part. All it takes is 5 votes (the majority of City Council members) to override any local plan or policy. Historically, economic development interests have had inordinate influence on the political process in Greensboro, dominating the Zoning and Planning Boards and raising fears of economic disaster anytime the City Council considers anything "radical" like protecting watersheds or adopting a tree ordinance. The citizens have not only called for a plan, but are looking to this City Council to provide leadership. This means letting the plan serve as a true guidepost to action, establishing new standards for development, and saying no to projects that do not meet this standard. City Council will have to stop overriding the Planning and Zoning Boards on those rare occasions when they vote against the wishes of the real estate lobby. Regulators will have to be given greater powers to levy fines and enforce existing laws.

It will make some people unhappy, of course, if restrictions are placed on new building, impact fees are enforced, or funds are shifted from road building to mass transit. Demagogic developers and their henchmen will cry that the sacred principle of private property rights is being violated, but what we are really talking about is a necessary correction to years of exploitation and abuse. Less profit on land speculation is the small price that must be paid to assure a reasonable quality of life for future generations.