Smart growth received a thrashing in the 2003 General Assembly. Builders and “property rights” lobbies beat up the odd-fellow collection of interests – municipal governments, conservationists, infill developers, growth management proponents -- that comprise the smart growth movement. Bills dealing with environmental protection, accessible housing, functional transportation and related issues all got trounced.

 

But that’s not necessarily bad news, even if you believe in smart growth.

 

For starters, the advocates of smart settlement patterns probably got as far as could be expected in the no-win legislative climate of the General Assembly this year. More to the point, even if passed, the smart-growth bills wouldn’t have done much good. In fact, success in enacting the measures might have made the prognosis for a sustainable future worse off rather than before.

 

The problems the smart-growth bills addressed are real. But the remedies do not go far enough.

 

Adequate Public Facilities

 

For the past several General Assembly sessions, and again in 2003, the hottest issue has been legislation giving towns and counties the power to consider the existence of adequate roads, schools and other urban services when deciding whether to issue building permits. The proposed legislation also would have allowed municipal governments to charge developers and builders impact fees to cover their share of the costs of urban infrastructure and services. The proposed new powers are collectively called “adequate public facility ordinances” or APFOs.

 

For years, public opinion polls have shown broad public support for APFOs. However, those who profit from the land-use status quo worry that APFOs will raise their cost of doing business as usual. For this reason, they think APFOs are a bad idea. As one Northern Virginia Building Industry Association spokesperson stated the problem, “APFOs saddle the cost of growth on a tiny segment of society.”

 

Most voters think this “tiny minority” is just who should pay. This small group, after all, profits from placing urban land uses in dysfunctional locations. Many scattered, outlying developments are not now supported by quality urban services and facilities – and there may never be any way to serve them equitably or cost effectively.

 

Builders will pass along the impact fees if they can, boosting the price of housing. APFO critics say this is unfair to new entrants into the housing market. Most existing homeowners never had to pay these fees – why should newcomers pay the full costs of growth? Such policies discriminate against the young and the upwardly mobile.

 

The aim of APFOs isn’t to load the cost of government onto new houses, however: It’s to ensure that houses built in poor locations bear the cost of providing infrastructure and delivering public services to those locations. The question is properly framed this way: Why should taxpayers subsidize projects in dysfunctional locations by extending services to them for free while responsible developers who build their houses within existing service areas – often paying more for their property -- receive no special consideration?

 

There is broad support for APFOs because there is a disjunction between those who benefit from development in scattered, dysfunctional locations and those who pay the economic, social and physical costs of serving those locations. Many so-called “property rights” advocates are really real estate speculators seeking public subsidies to justify the inflated values they paid for property in scattered and uneconomical locations.

 

APFOs are frequently blamed for the demise of “affordable” housing. But this scare tactic is the reddest of red herrings. The rhetorical ploy works because the public and policy makers fail to understand that housing must be not only affordable but accessible. Scattered, dysfunctional locations impose costs in time and transportation expense for homeowners driving to where they work, shop, run errands, go to church or otherwise conduct their lives. These costs, which don’t show up on the mortgage statement, can make so-called “affordable” housing unaffordable. (For a brief survey of the facts related to affordable and accessible housing, see our 17 February column “Affordable, But No Bargain.”)

 

After the defeat of regional sales taxes in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, which would have funded regional transportation projects, smart growth interests believed they had a chance to get APFOs passed. They went all out with mass e-mail appeals and other tactics to get legislators to pass legislation authorizing APFOs. But the bills never got out of committee – to all appearances, a loss for the good guys.

 

APFOs Without a Comprehensive Framework

 

Here’s the sad truth: If the APFO legislation had passed – especially if it had been a watered-down compromise version -- it would have not created a “great leap forward.” No matter how strong or weak, APFO would have given legislators an excuse to do nothing else for the indefinite future. Worse, APFOs would have been applied in the same government maze as existing land-use controls.

 

On one point, APFO opponents are right: APFOs are subject to blatant abuse. There is a real danger of larger, more sophisticated jurisdictions using the tool to push development out to more remote jurisdictions which lack the institutional capacity to pass or administer APFO regulations. Instead of more equitably distributing the cost of changes in human settlement patterns, APFOs might end up pushing urban land uses to less desirable locations even more remote from jobs and services. This is what has happened with “gold-plated manhole cover” regulations and lifestyle zoning masquerading as “quality construction standards,” “agriculture preservation” and “open space protection.” 

 

In this context, APFOs are similar to the package of land-use control tools already in widespread use. Existing tools include the comprehensive plan, zoning, subdivision control, the official map and capital budgeting. (See “The Role of Municipal Planning in creating Dysfunctional Human Settlement Patterns” for a glimpse at how municipal comprehensive planning has evolved to become a major part of the problem, not a solution.)

 

The problem with applying old tools or new ones such as APFOs is the total lack of a comprehensive, workable framework in which to apply them. All such tools are doomed to failure until regional and subregional land use and transportation are planned together. The problem is not the lack of any tool; it is the failure to create rational land-use plans on a regional and subregional level.

 

Transportation Funding

 

After the defeat of the sales tax referenda last fall, some legislators came to Richmond in January hoping to find ways to address citizens frustration with traffic congestion. If they couldn’t raise the sales tax, perhaps they could scrape up some state funds to pay for more transportation projects. This, they thought, would take the heat off them for not supporting the APFOs, and they could live happily ever after – or at least until after the 2003 election – without having to address the hard issues of creating functional settlement patterns.

 

Most smart-growth advocates sat out the funding debate because, in their appraisal, most transportation dollars go for roads that make settlement patterns ever more dysfunctional. (As noted in our column of 9 December 2002 , Wrong Solution, Wrong Problem, the issue is not a need for more money.)

 

As it turned out, even the most meager transportation funding proposals failed to pass. Indeed, as if to toss salt into the wound, the General Assembly ended up siphoning money out of the transportation trust fund to “balance” the budget, leaving even less money than before for new road projects.

 

Why Defeats Are Good News