Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Blog Spottings

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Trade associations and lobbying groups have been strangely slow to adapt to the blogging revolution. Policy Soup, the first-rate policy blog maintained by the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, is one of the few I can think of. But now comes Growth is Good, published by the Richmond Home Builders Association.

Tyler Craddock, who runs the blog, is off to a promising start with a series of punchy posts relating to growth, development, land use and, of course, affordable housing. Let’s hope he can keep up the quality commentary.

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9 responses to “Blog Spottings”

  1. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Developer/homebuilder rep Craddock sez: (exerpts)

    “Our future should consist of mixed-use communities that allow people to live closer to work by allowing for significant densities near employment centers.

    This type of development, however, requires density, and density is an issue that scares many people.

    … density is a tool that allows for more variety in housing choices and price ranges. Lots of less than 10,000 square feet are not a bad thing, especially when developers have the regulatory flexibility at the zoning and permitting stages to create high quality, family-friendly mixed-use communities.”

    note the concept of building mixed-use NEAR employment centers.

    My observation on these words is first that they sound very familiar to those folks who sometimes oppose the development community who happen to be the very same folks who lobby in Richmond to oppose measures to assure than adequate infrastructure be part of any equation involving land-use development.

    How do we reconcile their words with their actions?

    The reasons “why” people “fear” density is as TMT has pointed out… these folks want to build the development.. make their money.. and clear out… leaving taxpayers to suffer degraded levels of service or pay increased taxes to provide adequate infrastructure or both.

    I think this issue is the same issue as transportation and land-use decisions.

    When we have laws that allow/support/incentivize development (more intensive land-use) .. independent of infrastructure, it doesn’t really matter is the development itself is 1/4 acre SFH or high-density mixed-use – the outcome .. more traffic, crowded schools, etc is the same; In fact, with high-density, mixed-use – it is worse.

    People are not DUMB.. they see clearly that the best mixed-use plan ever to be invented will end up being a bad deal for the folks who live near it.

    Until we change this equation.. the “nice words” from the pro-development folks.. need to reconcile the undeniable realities. Otherwise.. the developer folks are just another greedy self-interest group who really are not after solutions.. but just money like so many others.

  2. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    People are not DUMB.. they see clearly that the best mixed-use plan ever to be invented will end up being a bad deal for the folks who live near it.

    Until we change this equation.. the “nice words” from the pro-development folks and the anti-development folks.. need to reconcile the undeniable realities. Otherwise.. the developer folks and the anti-development folks.. are just another greedy self-interest group who really are not after solutions.. but just money like so many others.

    Now that we have that settled, can we all go home now?

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Here in Richmond…

    I hear “density is good” when developers want to put high rises along downtown riverfronts, obstructing public, historic views.

    I don’t hear it when parking, environmental issues are brought up.

  4. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “Smart Growth” and “Sprawl” are VERY co-optable words ..

    Density – on the other hand – is clearly understood by the different interest groups.

    Density to developers means $$$$ …

    Density to existing residents means *&$%#

    and Density to environmentalist means potential runoff damage… and more air pollution for autos…

    AGREE.

  5. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: “greedy anti-development folks”

    Okay.. I’ll bite.. if the anti-development folks prevail… what kind of money do they get?

    Is it .. the developer types get profits and anti-development folks get to keep their taxes from going up?

    Do we characterize those who do not want their taxes to go up as “Greedy”?

    If I got this wrong.. please advise.

  6. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Developers should not get get unearned profits at the expense of others or cause taxes to go up more than they would otherwise.

    Conservationists should not get unearned benefits or lower taxes at the expense of others.

    How we reach Nirvana is open to question.

    If the antidevelopment folks don’t want their taxes to go up, they should be able to set a price on development that will prevent that, and then step out of the way.

    Obviously that isn’t the problem.

    The anti-development forces want something else, and they are not willing to pay for it.

    Their biggest direct benefit is that their houses are worth more as a result of less competition. They also get to feel good about their environmental causes while they cover their greed with green camoflage.

    They also “get” less runoff, less pollution, less sewage, less garbage in the dump, and more space on the highways. But THEIR runoff, their pollution, their poop, their garbage, and their contribution to congestion is reduced not a bit.

    THEIR contributon to the savings realized is zero.

    All of that “savings” comes at the expense of someone else, who isn’t allowed to have what they have. They achieve those savings by holding someone else’s land in abeyance. By renting it to provide those benefits, but at no cost to themselves.

    It is just as greedy as the developers, and it is fundamentally no different. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.

    At least the developers will come to the table and negotiate. They don’t expect to use your property without payment. And now, we hear that the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Folks are coming around to my ideas. Albemarle has a plan to pay for downzoning.

    Maybe there is some hope, but we stll have to figure out how to negotiate the prices.

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Thanks for the plug, Jim. I truly hope that as we go forward we can live up to the high standards set by folks like you and Conaway.

    In responding to some of the comments above, I would point out something that one of our members is fond of saying: We know that growth is happening; people are moving here (in our case, Richmond). The real questions are: Where will they live, what will it look like, and how much will it cost?

    The point is that growth can occur in one of two places: infill or greenspace. My intention with several of our early blog entries was to point out that we can do more to promote mixed-use infill development. I agree with the observation that has been made that infill is not a be-all, end-all. But, good, high quality, high density infill is an important part of the puzzle.

    Infrastructure to support development, be it infill or greenspace, is certainly something that cannot be overlooked. Indeed, much opposition to development is rooted not in an inherent opposition to growth itself but instead in concerns about the presence or lack of school and road capacity to serve the development. The question is in how you pay for it, and that is where there are differing views.

    One question that bears asking is what the state and local governments are doing with all of the revenue generated by development, and by that, I mean more than simply the real estate taxes. The development process itself generates other general revenue streams such as sales and income taxes that could be used to provide the infrastructure needed to support the development. Moreover, residential development leads to increased sales tax and other revenue streams from new residents and it normally begats commercial development and thus yields ongoing revenue streams that can be used for infrastructure.

    And yes, we have traditionally opposed APF legislation. In a nutshell, we believe that this type of scheme would allow localities (and to some extent the state) to simply shirk their responsibility to provide the infrastructure needed to support its citizens by simply saying “no” and pushing development further out and exacerbating sprawl.

  8. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: “Indeed, much opposition to development is rooted not in an inherent opposition to growth itself but instead in concerns about the presence or lack of school and road capacity to serve the development.”

    … and without an acceptable solution – dysfunctional outcomes continue… doesn’t the development community itself have a dog in this hunt?

    re: who pays.. then a list of the “proceeds” (taxes) from development.

    What is being advocated is that consumers pay ultimately for the infrastructure by alluding to other “tax” streams as if those revenue streams were net pluses rather than higher taxes on those already taxed.

    In other words. .the same folks who advocate less taxes so that folks can have more of their own money to spend as government policy – feel quite unrestricted to have that same outcome imposed on those same people as a result of development.

    In other words – taxpayers pay for development – no matter whether it is smart or efficient or dumb and inefficient.

    If the development community doesn’t like APF – then what are they putting on the table instead?

    How about per home impact fees?

    If not that – then what?

    I think the development community has a responsibility to put something viable on the table both from a good corporate citizen point of view – but also from a practical point of view.

    Trying to develop in a turbulent and unpredictable political environment simply cannot be good for business.

    Spending thousands of dollars jumping through countless hoops.. only to be shot down at a hearing full of angry people .. can’t be what I would think developers would want…

    and I suppose as long as many of them can find alternate paths to success.. that a pragmatic person would have to accept that explanation.

  9. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    Tyler – You make some good points in a candid manner. I only wish that we had a few of you in Fairfax County. but we seem to have attracted only those from the bottom of the barrel up here.

    We never hear rational discussions about infrastructure issues from the local real estate industry. Rather, legitimate citizen concerns are ignored, belittled, or simply “explained away” by the argument that we simply need to pay higher taxes to keep the growth going. The Fairfax County real estate industry has too many members who think that campaign contributions, golf outings, and slick PR answer all citizen concerns.

    We hear “stories” about how we are being benefited by increased density or this or that. Instead of addressing real issues about traffic or cost overruns in connection with the proposed super-sizing of Tysons and the building of the Silver Line, we hear trite phrases, such as TOD and walkable communities. Instead of addressing issues of why we have 7th graders eating lunch before 10 am because of crowded facilities, we see the local real estate industry negotiating cash proffer targets that provide discounts because students use trailer and that assume there are no land acquistion costs for building new schools. Then, of course, the local real estate people are first in line in Richmond to plea for higher taxes.

    Development issues are complicated and the “truth” probably lies somewhere in the middle of an honest discussion. The trouble is we never see those in Fairfax County.

    Under these circumstances, it’s pretty hard not to fight for APF, mandatory impact fees, rezoning moratoria, etc.

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