Vol. 3, No. 1 Contents
Headline Back Issues
Winter 1998
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Sprawl in the Gulf (cont'd) How sprawl happens "We've got this preference to have more space, to be close to nature, to have some privacy, and to be fairly independent, so that tends to send us outward from our centers into the more rural areas," said Beth Della Valle, Co-Manager of the Maine State Planning Office's Community Planning and Investment Program. But other factors also play a role in peoples' decisions to move out of city or town centers. "Land is cheaper out there and, at least in the beginning, taxes are lower. There is clearly a financial motivation," Della Valle said. She also cited a "decline in the overall liveability of our cities," due to shrinking budgets with little money for parks and other open spaces. As people move into outlying areas, businesses follow. Then, schools, fire stations, and sewerage systems are needed to serve the growing communities. Eventually, towns and cities have to raise their taxes to pay for those services. Soon, people who left the city or village center for a rural aesthetic and low taxes find themselves living in a suburb and paying a hefty tax bill. "The old idiom that growth is going to broaden the tax base and lower our taxes simply isn't true," said Phil Auger, County Forester at the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, Rockingham County. "We are continuing to have communities chase growth to get them out of their tax woes and it just isn't working." Auger said New Hampshire's campaign to attract business to the state, which already has low unemployment, is partly responsible for sprawl there. "If you create 200 new jobs, where will the people come from if there's little unemployment? If half of them are newcomers, that's potentially 100 new homes," he asserted. Coastal Rockingham County anticipates a 63 percent population growth between 1990 and 2020 census dates, Auger said, warning, "There isn't going to be a lot of open space left if things keep going." A sprawl epidemic in fast-growing Southern Maine prompted the Maine State Planning Office, led by Director Evan Richert, to study the problem and then bring its results to communities in a series of workshops over the last year. At the workshops, held mostly in coastal communities, state planners and others explained the effects of sprawl and described how communities can foster Òsmart growthÓ by using comprehensive planning methods, protecting rural areas and service centers, and relieving fast-growing suburbs. But planners note that population growth is not always the reason for sprawl. Along with the Gulf coast's more populated southern regions, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are feeling the pressure as well. Most of their unmanaged development and the resulting environmental consequences are occurring in areas outside of cities and towns where, much as is the case in the US, residents are lured by cheaper land, lower taxes, and a more rural lifestyle. Environmental problems such as runoff are a function of improper land use, said Roger Sturtevant, Director of the Annapolis District Planning Commission noting, "You don't have to have a lot of people to do negative things to the environment." Sturtevant and others concerned about sprawl say that development is inevitable ----- desirable in some contexts. "We don't want to stop development in the rural areas, the intention is to manage it, provincially and locally," said Bill Ashton, Senior Policy Planner for the New Brunswick Department of Municipalities and Housing. Costs to coastal environments Sprawl most directly affects the coast by chopping up large habitat areas that support species including endangered plants and animals. "If we hadn't developed the beaches in Maine [piping plovers and least terns] probably wouldn't be endangered. Now we don't build on the beach most of the time anymore, but any little bit of habitat we lose is critical," said Maine Audubon Society (MAS) Biologist and Conservation Infor-mation Manager Barbara Charry. Piping plovers and least terns are on Maine's endangered species list, and piping plovers are on the federal list of threatened species. Also, as more people move into beach areas, they generate more trash, which attracts more foxes, skunks, gulls, and other animals that drive out or prey upon resident species such as shorebirds. Increased use of the beach by people also crowds out the birds that nest there. MAS is working to inform landowners about these issues, and Charry believes they are receptive to ideas about how to prevent or offset the effects of sprawl. "A lot of people who live in Maine I think enjoy the nature and would like to maintain a suite of species that represent all the diversity in Maine," Charry said, adding that MAS is not trying to prevent development. "Development is going to happen. It's not going to stop, but we can be smart about it and we can hopefully make choices that can minimize impacts and maximize diversity," she said. Often, another casualty of development is water quality. Pollution can enter coastal waters in stormwater runoff and by way of leaky septic systems. "On Cape Cod, we've seen the closure of several thousand acres of shellfish beds largely as a result of development," said John Lipman, Director of Growth Planning for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. Other development-induced problems include increased amounts of sediment deposited into rivers by erosion, affecting migrating fish; excessive water withdrawals from rivers ----- used to supply municipal water supplies ----- that also affect fish and other species; and restriction of tidal flow into saltmarshes, reducing their value as coastal water filters and wildlife habitat. Options and obstacles New England communities have tried various approaches to combat sprawl outside of their city and town centers over the years. House lot sizes were increased to keep population densities low so more schools and other services would not have to be built. But this has not worked. "A lot of people perceive that large lots give them privacy or a country feel, but once the area fills up with more lots of that size you get all the pollution, traffic congestion, lack of open space that you left to escape. It's not rural, but suburban," Lipman said, adding, "A lot of towns say they're going to three-acre [1.2 hectare] zoning to protect their character, but they end up destroying it." Emphasizing that communities need to do their short-term planning in the context of a long-range master plan, planners now favor methods that situate homes fairly close together on small parcels near common open areas. But, they say, a crucial measure in controlling sprawl will be to change regulations that, in many US and Canadian municipalities, make it harder to build these unconventional subdivision designs. On the North Shore of Massachusetts, a coalition of environmental groups, state agencies, regional planning agencies, local officials, real estate agents, and developers is promoting Conservation Subdivision Design for residential developments. The concept was developed by Randall Arendt, who has worked on Subdi-vision Design in Massachusetts, and is now with the Pennsylvania-based Natural Lands Trust. The method's premise is that at least 50 percent of a residential development parcel should be set aside as undeveloped open space. Natural Lands Trust is careful to differentiate between Conservation Subdivision Design and cluster development, which has less stringent requirements for the quality and quantity of land left undeveloped. As is the case elsewhere in the Gulf, Massachusetts regulations require towns to review non-conventional subdivision designs under a special permitting process that was initially designed to control population densities. The lengthier process provides little incentive for developers to propose innovative designs, say proponents of such projects. Members of the Conservation Subdivision coalition are pushing legislation that would eliminate the special permit requirement for subdivision designs intended to preserve open space. Conservation Subdivision Design "is a process for achieving residential growth without consuming all of the open space left in a town," according to Kathy Leahy, Advocacy Program Coordinator for Massachusetts Audubon-North Shore. "With careful advanced planning, a community can direct its growth in ways that suit that community," she said. "Communities are finding that the one-size-fits-all subdivision isn't working for them anymore. The trophy home on two acres [.8 hectares] is no longer the answer," said Andrea Cooper, Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management North Shore Regional Coordinator. Using Arendt's method, "People have a smaller lot than in traditional subdivisions but they gain open space and the feeling that they are part of a community. Over time that becomes what is valued," said developer Shep Spear, one of the coalition's members, and a builder of residential developments in northeast Massachusetts. "There are people who will tell you these will not sell as well as bigger lots, but if marketed properly they will," he said. Spear noted that smaller house lots require less infrastructure, such as roads, and that savings can show up in the homes' purchase price. Proponents of innovative development concepts assert that not all home buyers want single family homes on large lots in the first place, and that communities should strive for diversity of development. Many buyers do not want to spend a lot of time maintaining a large piece of land, said Realtor John Steiger of Hunneman Coldwell Banker in Gloucester, Massachusetts, who is also a proponent of Conservation Subdivision Design. "There are always going to be people who want a two-acre [.8 hectare] lot," said Cliff Sinnot, Executive Director of the Rockingham County Planning Commission in New Hampshire. ÒThe problem is,Ó he said, ÒthatÕs all we produce. We seem to allow nothing else.Ó While acknowledging that concepts such as Arendt's offer sound options for suburban growth, Della Valle said that communities need to address "what's causing people to move to suburbs in first place." Planners emphasize the importance of making already developed areas more attractive places to live so that people are less eager to move out of town. Along with revitalizing town and city centers, they say, these efforts must also include preserving open spaces by working with land trusts on land purchases and easements that allow public access. US President Bill Clinton's Liveability Initiative proposes tax credits in support of such goals. One way of concentrating growth in already developed areas and preserving outer rural areas is to delineate growth zones ----- a prevalent practice in the US northwestern states. Some towns in the Gulf are already establishing growth zones, and the New Hampshire legislature is considering a bill submitted by legislator Hal Melcher's committee on land use that would allow towns to create them. Layers of assistance Some support for local efforts to combat sprawl's environmental effects comes through federal policies that focus on managing coastal resources, including the US Coastal Zone Management Act and the National Estuary Program. The US Environmental Protection Agency is also developing a "Smart Growth Action Plan" to curb sprawl in its northeast region. Canada's recent Oceans Act does not specifically outline land use policy, but mandates integrated plans to protect marine environments. Both countries are also participating in the United Nations Global Programme of Action, which is working to identify and address land-based activities affecting the marine environment, including coastal development. Regional programs also play a role in controlling the effects of development. Environment Canada's Eastern Habitat Joint Venture (EHJV), which includes all of Canada's provinces east of Manitoba, works with provincial departments to address environmental issues such as the effects of water quality on waterfowl and seabird habitat. According to EHJV Coordinator Reg Melanson, the group is addressing development by working with towns to develop tertiary treatment methods for sewage discharged into tidal rivers; purchasing coastal habitat and obtaining easements on municipally owned islands; and publishing several brochures on how development is affecting coastal habitats. At the provincial level, Nova Scotia planners and environmental officials are hopeful that a new Municipal Government Act (MGA), which takes effect April 1, will offer a way to control development in the province. Under the Act, the province can adopt policy statements, called "statements of provincial interest," pertaining to land use and development. Municipalities will have to incorporate these provincial concerns into their planning processes. The province has already adopted statements addressing floodplains, watersheds that supply drinking water, housing, agricultural land, and municipal infrastructure. It could also add statements addressing other concerns, such as sprawl. "If the province expresses an interest in reducing sprawl and encouraging growth management and compact urban growth, all towns and municipalities will have to submit their plans to the province for approval," said Sturtevant, of the Annapolis District Planning Commission. New Brunswick is working on several land management policies, including a provincial policy to manage development immediately outside of New Brunswick's seven urban centers, and a provincial land use policy for coastal areas, which, according to Ashton of the provincial Department of Municipalities and Housing, "probably will be the most advanced [policy] in Canada in terms of protection for the coastal environment." The coastal areas policy would protect the province's coastal marshes, beaches, dunes, cliffs, and other coastal features with measures including setbacks. Municipalities would have to conform to the policy or develop their own policies that are at least as stringent, he explained. A provincial wetlands policy is also being developed to protect inland marshes, Ashton said. In New Hampshire's coastal watersheds, several agencies and organizations are working with communities to protect natural resources. Among them is the New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP), which is developing a management plan for the state's estuaries that will include measures municipalities can take to reduce the impacts of sprawl, according to NHEP Director Chris Nash. The Audubon Society of New Hampshire is writing the plan's habitat section, which will identify undeveloped land suitable for conservation easements or acquisitions and offers advice to municipalities on developing zoning regulations to protect habitat. Given that numerous New Hampshire agencies are working with communities on land use and watershed issues, the state is attempting to coordinate those efforts, according to Cynthia Lay of the New Hampshire Coastal Program (NHCP). She said NHCP will work directly with towns in the Great Bay watershed to help them understand how their specific local actions relate to larger issues such as regional water quality. In many towns, "There's not an awareness of the cumulative impacts of incremental change [on natural resources]," she said. But other planners note that the causes and effects of sprawl ooze over municipal borders, and that even as agencies and organizations coordinate with one another, they should also approach land use management as a regional, rather than a town-by-town issue. Personal choices Those working to control sprawl say the actions of individuals do affect the balance of development. Choosing to live in an area that is already developed helps ensure the viability of town and city centers, while protecting outlying areas, according to Sinnot, who noted that, in many cases, people find that living in a more densely developed area is less expensive in the long run. Owners of large open parcels can consider preserving them through local land trusts. Partici-pating on planning boards and conservation commissions is another way to work on behalf of sound land management. According to Della Valle, there is still time to get a handle on sprawl before it is too late. "In the Gulf I think we've been very fortunate that the rate of development is such that we can see this happening. In some areas, the rate of development is so quick it's virtually impossible for any level of government to deal with it." |
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