Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Smart Growth Has the Big Mo’ Across U.S. of A

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by

James A. Bacon
in

The smart growth movement is making significant headway around the country, concludes Keith Schneider, editor and director of program development for the Michigan Land Use Institute. Although smart growth has fizzled momentarily in Schneider’s home state of Michigan, he takes heart in the progress made in a dozen other states, including Virginia.

The smart growth package – environmental protection, transit investments, urban revitalization, curbing sprawl, collaborative planning, and land conservation – is steadily being embedded in new executive orders, Legislative policy, and new state law across the country.

In the last two years, governors in Arizona, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Ohio established new executive-level offices to oversee all or part of their smart growth programs. Governors and Legislatures, on a bi-partisan basis, embraced smart growth to help reduce emissions of global climate change gases in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Utah. Smart growth policy has been embraced as a path to urban redevelopment in Illinois, as a competitive development strategy in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Ohio, and as a means to improve transportation and curb sprawl in Virginia.

In Virginia, the measures that Schneider found most notable included:

  • All [fast-growth] counties will be required to designate specific areas for higher density development, so-called urban development areas, by 2011.
  • Inside a UDA, housing densities must reach four units per acre or more.
  • Development within UDAs should apply pedestrian-friendly “New Urbanism” design principles.

It’s remarkable, is it not? An out-of-state journalist finds more significance in Virginia’s most momentous land use legislation (like it or hate it, it is momentous) than does Virginia’s own press corps, which has yet to acknowledge that anything significant has transpired. Read Schneider’s full report here.

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49 responses to “Smart Growth Has the Big Mo’ Across U.S. of A”

  1. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Michigan, Virginia and Smart Growth:

    Unemployment rates (Sept / Oct 2007):

    1. Michigan 7.5%
    2. Virginia 3.1%

    Meanwhile, inside Virginia:

    1. Low – Arlington 1.9%
    2. High – Martinsville 8.9%

    The legislature spends its time on “[fast growth]” counties and regulating them. Meanwhile, if you are unemployed in Martinsville you’d have a better chance of getting a job if you moved to Michigan.

    Smart Growth?

    How about any growth?

    Where are the press reports of the inter-generational poverty and ceaseless unemployment caused by incompetent growth strategies in SW Virginia?

    Smart growth unemployment vs. fast growth with jobs?

    I’ll take the fast growth and the jobs any day.

  2. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    would it be reasonable to call Michigan and Martinsville examples of “dumb” growth?

    🙂

    I had this idea. If every new job actually “costs” NoVa in terms of tax money reallocated to other Va localities like Martinsville..why not use tax money to pay employers to NOT locate in NoVa and a bonus to re-locate to Martinsville?

    it might be cheaper… 🙂

  3. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Groveton, I think you’re being pretty tough on Martinsville. Southside and SW Virginia aren’t the only rural regions in the United States that are hurting. Just go to North Carolina, and you’ll find a couple of dozen mill towns going through the same trauma. Same thing in S.C., Ga., and the rest of the South.

    Their economic development strategies were viable until the world went “flat” and their core industries — furniture, textiles and apparel — decamped to other countries. That’s the result of a free trade regime in the United States that has benefited places like Northern Virginia disproportionately. U.S. economic policy since WW II has favored the educated and well off at the expense of the unskilled, semi-skilled and poor. Have a little more sympathy for the people who paid the price to create the economic conditions favorable to technology powerhouses like NoVa.

    I wonder how long it would take NoVa to adapt if the federal government cut IT spending by 50 percent across the board. Do you think the region might go through some pain?

    Yeah, places like Martinsville do need to change. And they’re trying. They really are. But there aren’t many examples of U.S. mill towns that have successfully reinvented themselves for the knowledge economy — it’s a process that takes a generation or more. Ireland managed to do it in a generation, but Ireland had key locational advantages — a position as an off-shore platform to export into Europe — that Southside Virginia will never have.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “But there aren’t many examples of U.S. mill towns that have successfully reinvented themselves for the knowledge economy — “

    How much knowledge do we really need? You would think we have an ample supply of know-it-alls as it is.

    Sooner or later someone is gong to have to make something, pick up and move something, and sell something besides knowledge.

    RH

  5. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “favored the educated and well off at the expense of the unskilled, semi-skilled and poor.”

    this is the part that those who are opposed to SOLs and NCLB do not “get”.

    Having said that, kids who might be so lucky to get a proper 21st century education in Martinsville might still have to move to NoVa for a job – anyhow.

    re: nightmare Feds leave NoVa scenario

    BIG GRIN

    the main thing that keeps Fed jobs in NoVa instead of going to India is the sensitive nature of the much of the software….

    we can’t have those folks in India writing software for the NSA or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

    If you were ever able to compare the cost per line of software code between government and private industry, you’d faint.

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Private industry is constrained to see to it that the value of a line of software exceeds its cost.

    The government can simply claim that the value of a line of NSA code is infinite because lives depend on it, in which case the costs are always insignificant.

    RH

  7. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    You mean an NSA widget that save lives is more valuable than an environmental widget that saves lives?

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Depends on what NSA values a life at compared to EPA, and how many lives the NSA widget saves compared to the EPA widget, and when.

    But since NSA and EPA are not the ones springing the money, they can claim anything they want, and the taxpayers have no basis to complain because their arguments are self serving. We should just pay whatever it is, because they say so.

    RH

  9. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Jim:

    I only picked Martinsville because that locale had the highest unemployment rate in the September report for Virginia. If it would have been Falls Church – then that would have been the discussion.

    The “world is suddenly flat” argument rings a bit hollow to me. Manufacturing and textile job losses were more a late 70s / early 80s scenario – weren’t they? I see the “flat world” problem as more applicable to the loss of white collar jobs to India, China, etc. That scenario definitely has the potential to hit NoVA in a very unpleasant way. For every line of software dedicated to the Predator I’d guess there are 10,000 lines of federal software dedicated to finance, HR, logistics and the rest of the mundane tasks performed by the largest organization in the history of the world (OK – that’s a guess on the largest org. ever). These back office tasks are increasingly performed by software purchased by third party software companies. And those companies are increasingly building and supporting their software offshore. So, the feds are supporting offshore software development each time they buy software from a company that has an offshore operation.

    And this is the real nightmare scenario for Virginia:

    1. The feds indirectly support offshore work by buying (vs. making) software.

    2. The feds continue to decentralize from Washington, DC becuase of national security risks (dirty bombs, etc).

    3. SW Virginia continues to lose jobs from the first wave of offshoring of textile mills and manufacturing with no replacement jobs in sight.

    4. The Piedmont NIMBYs stick with their “bed and breakfast” economy thesis. Only the customers for teh “beds and breakfasts” are now unemployed NoVA residents.

    5. Charlottesville continues as a nascent technology enclave but never reaches the critical mass of a city like Austin because Virginia’s universities are mismanaged and poorly located.

    6. Richmond wobbles from reduced state government spending and the continued offshoring of traditional business.

    7. Only Tidewater has economic durability as the US military continues its presence there.

    Yeah – this is “doom and gloom”. But the odds are creeping up. In the end analysis – too much of Virginia’s economic growth is coming from too few areas. And too much of Virginia’s economic growth is driven by a fickle federal government and a housing bubble that you can hear popping.

  10. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Requiring the most notable measures promotes a free market how?

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Interesting article on similar subject:
    http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010045

    Deena Flinchum

  12. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “These back office tasks are increasingly performed by software purchased by third party software companies. And those companies are increasingly building and supporting their software offshore.”

    this is true. The ‘big’ push for quite a big of the Feds is COTS – Commercial Off-the-shelf software even for generic military apps.

    At my last assignment, NMCI was just gearing up. NMCI Navy Marine Corps Internet…. standardized platforms and COTs for as much as could be accomplished (not without each stovepipe kicking and screaming about their need for “flexibility”).

    I’m not sure where we go next but I think Groveton has it right… for the near future.

    The heck of it is.. that actually making “physical” things as RH said is that more and more of it .. is not human hands in India… it is robots…

    I’m amazed with almost every new issue of the History Channels Modern Marvels and the Discovery Channels How it works…

  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    And the most interesting part is when the plants themselves are robotic: they can reconfigure themselves to manufacture different products.

    RH

  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Guys your making me depressed

    P.S. the real bubble is actually the defense industry

    Currently the Defense Budget is X and an alarming amount of non war related costs are in the supplementals.

    This spending level is just not sustainable and there is an enormous artificial bubble

    Do you know how many people in NOVA are employed by Northrop Grumman Lockheed Martin SAIC Booz Allen Boeing, Bearing Point etc.

    Lets just say its alot (yours truly included)

    novamiddleman

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Friendly amendment — the defense and homeland security spending levels will not maintain their current levels. Also, there will be some push to break-up the heavy concentration of contractors in NoVA for security reasons. The real estate lobby won’t know what hit them.

    NoVA will hardly dry up, but it won’t have the up, up, up trend it has. The spending trends of the Commonwealth and Fairfax County will come back to bite in a big way. Of course, the WaPo will call for higher and higher taxes, as its circulation continues to decrease.

    Glad we bought our house in 1987.

    TMT

  16. Freedom Works Avatar
    Freedom Works

    “Inside a UDA, housing densities must reach four units per acre or more.”

    This is really more stupid government control. Densities in the core of Reston now exceed 100 units per acre.

    There is not a vacant acre in Fairfax County’s 399 square miles that would not be developed at “four units per acre or more” were it not for government restrictions on housing.

    In Fairfax County, this legislation will actually reduce housing opportunities.

  17. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    at LEAST 4 units.

    let’s be honest.

    this is about by-right vs rezones and proffers and special-use permits.

    The law says that a UDA MUST grant a by-right of 4 units.

    If someone wants MORE than that, they will make a proposal subject to negotiation.

    The UDA grants the right to collect impact fees but there are a wide range of issues that can affect the locality that are legitimate areas of negotiation and compromise.

    To impose unlimited by-right density in a UDA, while a delight to developers would be very costly to taxpayers.

  18. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Let me give one example.

    A UDA has available water/sewer. It is a finite resource.

    Let’s say that there is capacity for 500 residential hook-ups.

    Under FW’s proposal…, a developer could “by-right” decide to build 1000 units and the locality would be forced to upgrade the water/sewer to fulfill it’s “by-right” legal obligation,

    That’s why all of this talk about outlawing zoning is not connected with realities.

    All utilities have to be “sized” for the projected use.

    If we had no zoning… we’d have chaos with infrastructure without a viable engineering and capital plan – which requires some level of projection of the use of the land.

  19. Freedom Works Avatar
    Freedom Works

    We have zoning and we have chaos with the portions of the infrastructure the government manages – like roads and sewers.

    How often do I have to repeat myself.

    More housing equals more paying customers to the utility company. The phone, gas, electric and cable companies want more customers, not fewer.

    Utilities are cheaper per unit to install at higher densities.

    Who do you think had to subsidize stringing phone and electric lines to rural homes all accross America?

    In terms of overall sewage treatment capacity, it makes no difference where in a locality you put the development.

    Larry,

    Sewage treatment is not a finite resource. You need more, you build more. Whoever uses the system pays.

    Think about it. How is there any less sewage treatment needed overall just because the density of the hook-ups varies within a locality?

    Crap is crap, no matter where it comes from.

    What you are really admitting is that government is very inefficient at responding to the free market.

    Do you ever hear Exxon Mobil argue against selling any more cars in the world because of the capital cost to build a new refinery?

    Houston manages its zoning freedom just fine.

  20. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    think of water/sewer with trunk lines.

    Now tell me how big they need to be to serve a certain land area.

    Now tell me what you will do if you guessed wrong on the size initially and have to add capacity.

    And by the way, FYI – water supplies and pollution allocations ARE finite.

    You plan a reservoir with a 30-50 year planning horizon.

    Money has to be borrowed to pay for it. You cannot get a loan based on “we might grow this big”.

    The bond markets will insist that you have the revenues to build that reservoir.

    Where do those revenues come from when you’re also bonding schools and roads?

    What you are advocating, in effect, is to raise the taxes on existing residents no matter how fast or how much growth occurs

    AND you’re advocating AD HOC planning of infrastructure which is much more expensive than planned infrastructure.

    If the electric company did business the way you advocate, the cost of electricity would skyrocket AND service would be unreliable and undependable because ad hoc changes would replace planning.

    Even Dominion, the phone and cable companies and VDOT size their infrastructure according to the expected densities.

    Go take a look at the MPO sites to see that their process of determining 6-yr TIPs and CLRPs depends totally on expected densities.

    What you are advocating … is the building of AD HOC interchanges on a road that is already maxed OR that we should plan and build roads assuming maximum density.

    Either way.. it’s not a rational approach to growth unless of course you happen to be someone who makes money off of growth.

  21. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I don’t know how Houston does business but would appreciate knowing more if FW has insights especially with regard to infrastructure planning.

    The bottom line is that localities are limited to what they can build (just as we as individuals are) – by how much they can borrow.

    The only way to borrow more on growth that has not happened yet (and thus no new money) is to substantially raise the taxes on the existing population – on the premise – that you WILL have massive growth.

    Tell me how this would “work”.

    How are you going to raise taxes and at the same time tell folks that it is for more growth?

    This is exactly why localities DOWNZONE and require rezones, proffers, and special use permits – to protect the existing taxpayers AND to insure that there is enough money to build schools and provide other necessary services for the folks who are already there.

    If developers have a better way – perhaps the way that Houston does it – let’s hear it.

    Bonus Question: Is Texas a Home Rule or a Dillon Rule state?

  22. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Alan Greenspan suggested yesterday taht we need to reduce the national housing stock by 300,000 to 400,000 units.

    What does that say about smart growth, dumb growth, or any growth?

    RH

  23. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The poor and lower middle class benefit when housing prices drop.

    Who benefits from high housing costs?

    Politicians who like to increase tax revenue without appearing to raise taxes.

    It’s all a scam to keep you poor and stupid.

  24. Accurate Avatar
    Accurate

    As someone who lives in the ‘poster child’ of ‘smart growth’ (Portland Oregon) I can tell you it has warts and flaws aplenty. However, ‘smart growth’ advocates will never acknowledge them. Take our light rail system, this mass transit system sucks more and more tax money out of businesses every year, while drawing less and less of the general population riding it (lately it has become a big crime magnet as well). While locally we’ve voted down expanding the light rail system every time it’s come up since 1989, our politicians have ‘found’ ways and money to make the expansions happen despite the voters. However, when government bigwigs get together, all they talk about is the ‘success’ of Portland’s light rail system – news flash, it’s only a success in the minds of a very few. Our ‘smart growth’ policies have driven up housing to extremely high prices (for around here) – advocates of ‘smart growth’ will say it’s just a desire of people wanting to live here, but I can point at many places (cities) much larger than Portland, with increasing populations, that haven’t seen huge price increases with housing; basically due to allowing the housing to be built rather than choke building by putting up artificial urban growth boundaries. We had a local blogger dig into this city’s finances and we are in debt to the tune of over $8,000 for every man, woman and child that lives here. Yet, many consider this city and those policies to be a ‘success’.

    As for Larry Gross’s question – one way (one big way that they work to death here in Portland) is that they declare an area to be ‘urban blight’ then they collect the tax money for that area and instead of putting the in the general city coffers, the money is strictly spent to ‘improve’ and area. After a period of time the area is suppose to come off it’s special designation and with it’s new and improved status/tax brought back into the city general fund. Two major problems, first, they never seem to come off the special status. Second, ‘urban blight’ has been applied to areas such as fields that had horses grazing on them.

    I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that my wife and I have made a very conscious decision to move out of here. In fact, the area with the most job opportunities (for my line of work) with the most affordable housing IS in fact, Texas. Can’t say I’ll miss the months and months of gray skies that we live with up here. I’m sure Texas will have it’s own share of problems, but I’ll be so happy to leave this area that embraces ‘smart growth’ – I feel it is anything BUT smart.

  25. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “This is exactly why localities DOWNZONE and require rezones, proffers, and special use permits – to protect the existing taxpayers “

    You don’t think that the people that own land to be downzoned are taxpayers? You don’t think they deserve equal protection of thier property?

    RH

  26. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “How are you going to raise taxes and at the same time tell folks that it is for more growth?”

    Wait until they are unemployed and can’t find a job or home to get the kids out of the house.

    ——————————-

    Growth costs money and so does stopping growth. It is not government’s job to spend no money, but to make the trade offs that are necessary in such a way that everyone is better off equitably.

    Your proposals ignore costs to others and equity to groups who are invisible to you, or whom you deem as not worthy.

    Your arguments boil down to nothing but selfishly designed legal stealing.

    In Fauquier county there is a new plan for yet another zoning overlay. The overlay comprises over 9000 acres and it is designed to protect the watershed to the county reservoir. The reservoir serves more than 20,000 people. Much of the land in the ovelay belongs to one person or family.

    A statement from a member of the planning board went something like (I’m paraphrasing) “Those that are fortunate enough to own land that comprises one of our most important resources should expect to be stewards of that resource.”

    Well, yes, but the 20,000 people who want them to be their stewards should also expect to pay them. Or, they can buy the land and be their own stewards.

    Under the terms of the proposal development is prohibited with 100 fett of streambeds or the 100 year floodplain, whichever is greater. So, never mind that we have an established metric (which has been incrementally increased in the past) we are going to grab more than the usual standard permits. at least one landowner would lose the use of 25% of his property.

    The proposal applies to intermittent streams, which is not allowed under Dillon’s rule. But, as long as no one sues us, we’ll go ahead and propose to break the law.

    The proposal not only prohibits development alnog the streambeds, it prohibits the use of diesel fuel and gasoline. Potentially this could mean that you could not drive your tractor over an existing bridge, over a dry stream bed to reach the other half of your farm.

    For these folks the proposal is exaclty like telling them that their taxes will be raised to support more growth. But only their taxes and not anyone else’s.
    And certainly not the users of the reservoir.

    In addition to expecting these people to work for them (be stewards), the reservoir users also want to rent, not shared, but exclusive, use of land for which they expect to pay nothing.

    This is a proposal for both slavery and theft.

    RH

  27. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “it’s not a rational approach to growth unless of course you happen to be someone who makes money off of growth.”

    Making money isn’t illegal. People who make money off of growth are citizens, too. They make their money through hard work, and the benefits of their work also accrues to their customers, who are citizens. They have every right to expect and demand that a policy to prevent growth is not so onerous that it is irrational. They have every right to expect and demand that when existing residents decide they want to keep the additional protection that open land brings, protection that was previously provided gratis by “speculators”, then they should expect to pay for the land that they now demand the use of and do not own.

    RH

  28. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Let’s say that there is capacity for 500 residential hook-ups.”

    Is that capacity limited by the physical strucure, or the discharge limits?

    If it is limited by the discharge limits then the folks in charge had no business granting by-rights they could not support.

    If it is limited by physical capacity the users are going to pay for it anyway through hook up fees and usage fees. What’s the problem?

    Once they move in they will provide customers for businesses which may be oustside the sewer zone. As you point out, those businesses effectivel act as tax collectors for the government. herefore, even if they do not pay 100% of their capital costs, there are people whou liveoutside the sewer zone who benefit. To the extent that they benefit, they have no rational reason to object to partial support.

    RH

  29. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    The 500 is the capacity left on the trunk line.

    The truck line was “sized” for 500 when it was put in.

    The pro-rata share of each hookup is based on the cost of that trunk + the bond interest.

    Once the 500 hookups are utilized there is no more capacity.

    If you have to put a bigger one in… what size should it be?

    Who pays for the NEW expanded Trunk Line designed to serve future growth and sized accordingly?

    How do you PLAN for future growth and who pays for the infrastructure that you will need to acommodate future growth?

    I had asked for an explanation of how Houston does this since they are held up as an example of a “no zoning” locality that has growth.

  30. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Who borrowed the money last time?

    It can’t be the new guys: they aren’t here yet.

    It sounds like the guys who “sized” the last one screwed up. If you’ve got enough groth to fill the thing up, what’s the problem with a new one?

    The people who pay for it should be everyone that benefits from the growth. Sure enough, there are disbenefits to growth too, but you can’t pay for the sewer with disbenefits.

    And, if you think growth is a problem, go check out some of the places that are dying, where 100 people have to pay for a sewer designed for 500.

    RH

  31. Accurate Avatar
    Accurate

    Larry –
    I have a problem with your scenario – typically a service, let’s make it a sewage plant, is sized for a population plus some growth. Let’s say it does reach it’s capacity – 500 hookups. Now we have those folks who embrace ‘smart growth’ – they come in and instead of SFH they build townhomes and condos. Or where gentrification has taken place, old SFH are torn down and condos are put in their place. So now what do we do about a system that was designed for 500 hookups that has 3 times that many people on the system?

    To be fair, SOME of this is actually thought out by the powers that be … but not all of it. In the end, they have to rebuild, redo, build on and build extra to accommodate the extra people. However, if ‘smart growth’ wasn’t allowed to happen, and/or if ‘smart growth’ had to pay it’s own way; as in paying for a new sewage plant when they build the new condos – then it would be fair AND I think ‘smart growth’ wouldn’t seem like such a good deal.

    Until then, we’ll just keep having to put up with the lies that ‘smart growth’ hands out (or at least the half truths).

  32. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Now we have those folks who embrace ‘smart growth’

    It further demonstrates my point.

    First, reservoirs and sewage treatment discharge volumes are both finite resources.

    Recognize that geography plays a big role in where water supplies can and cannot be developed. The same is true with rivers. Rivers with lower volumes are limited as to how much sewage can be dumped. The only realistic alternative in those situations is tertiary treatment which is close to being potable at the discharge pipe – almost tantamount to recycling.

    So – you cannot run water/sewer everywhere because it would be ungodly expensive to do so for lower densities.

    water/sewer is a density multiplier and where it is put requires making some calculations of predicted capacity in order to be able to build the trunk lines.

    You can build multi-use, smart growth, or 15 story buildings but no matter what you build – you ARE limited by the capacity which converts to a finite number of future connections.

    This is why I say that if you have a zoning process where ANY density can be built – no matter where – just wherever a developer proposes it that you’ll end up with a mismatch between where trunk line availability is and where is is not.

    You just cannot build infrastructure EVERYWHERE to be able to accommodate density wherever it might occur and in the process have infrastructure left over and unusable because the capacity was used up on one trunk line.

    The process works opposite. Planners decide where the density is going to utilize the allocate and finite resource and then fund and build accordingly.

    When folks talking about allowing developers to build as dense as they want where ever choose.. it’s rhetoric. Developers most frequently go where the water & sewer already is rather than proposing to go where it is not and for good reasons.

    First, the locality is not going to build new water/sewer lines just for one developers.

    Second, the developer does have the option of running their own lines to the trunk line – IF the trunk line already has excess capacity and is not already allocated.

    When I say already allocated, I mean where the locality has already committed to by-right development and developers are ENTITLED to the hookups so the locality MUST provide capacity for land that IS by-right as first priority.

  33. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “Who borrowed the money last time?”

    The existing taxpayers did and this is my precise point.

    You are not going to have more growth unless the existing taxpayers are willing to pay for the infrastructure that will be needed.

    Do you now understand that?

    When the BOS tells the voters that their taxes are going to go up so they can obtain a loan to build new water/sewer and the roads and schools are already overcrowded, the BOS gets shown the door.

    Existing taxpayers are usually willing to pay for a REASONABLE rate of growth, 1% or 2% that only requires a few cents of the tax rate. But they usually will not go along for a big tax hike for new growth especially when existing levels of service and quality of life are already deteriorated.

    The only way that the BOS can borrow the money to build that infrastructure is to show the bond lenders how it will be paid back – from hook-up fees from new homebuyers.

    The only way around this is to approve growth and not plan on viable planning and funding and that leads to obvious problems – sewage overflows and water shortages.

    So… RH.. once again it’s the folks who are impacted who decide and not the folks who think they are entitled to development rights.

    Development rights give you the right to develop but not the right to taxpayer-funded infrastructure.

    And if you think it is a Virginia “thing”, read this:

    “The Montgomery County Council gave preliminary approval yesterday to a hefty increase in taxes for developers and builders …

    The council backed plans that would, for example, increase the transportation tax that pays for roads or transit on a new single-family detached house from $6,264 to $10,649 and increase the schools tax that pays for classrooms on the same house from $9,111 to $20,456.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110602190.html?hpid=topnews

    then check this out:

    “Eight candidates sharply critical of Loudoun County’s record-setting growth won seats yesterday on the nine-member Board of Supervisors, in the first election since Loudoun became the nation’s fastest-growing county.

    Four Democratic challengers defeated pro-growth Republican incumbents. In addition, slow-growth incumbents won their races,”

    http://loudounextra.washingtonpost.com/news/2007/nov/06/early-election-returns-pour/

  34. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “You are not going to have more growth unless the existing taxpayers are willing to pay for the infrastructure that will be needed.”

    So the existing taxpayers are entitled to make decisions that will take money out of other peoples pockets, is that it?

    Existing taxpayers get the benefit of previous taxpayers that raised bonds, but they have no obligation to pass the favor forward, is that it?

    Existing taxpayers are entitled to take money out of other peoples pockets, even when the evidence shows that growth makes all residents, existing and new, better off, is that it?

    Existing taxpayers are entitled to take money out of other peoples pocket even when the other people are previously existing residents(the same ones that approved the earlier bonds), is that it?

    Existing taxpayers don’t have any obligation to give a flying fig about anybody else, is that it?

    Existing taxpayers should expect to pay for 2% growth, no matter what actually happens, is that it?

    How do I get to be an existing taxpayer, instead of a previously existing taxpayer, so I can get the existing taxpayers out of my pockets?

    RH

  35. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    John Harrison invented the chronometer by marrying the chronograph and the thermometer. It made the device more accurate by using the mass of the climbing mercurey to counteract the expansion of the pendulum with temperature.

    A prize of 20,000 britsh pounds was offered for the invention, but after Harrison met the terms the government board tried to renegeon their promised reward.

    Yep, the Loudoun pendulum has swung once again. And wouldn’t everyone have been better off if they had found some way to modulate the pendulum to counteract the political temperature? And if the government had kept their promises of reward?

    RH

  36. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “So the existing taxpayers are entitled to make decisions that will take money out of other peoples pockets, is that it?”

    Yup.

    If the choice is money out of their pockets to spur more growth when they already feel they have more than they need and it is harming their own quality of life.

    Yes.

    People could really care less about growth as long as:

    * – it doesn’t cost them money
    * – it’s not ugly
    * – it doesn’t deteriorate their quality of life

    Most folks don’t mind paying for the scope/scale of growth that preceded them.

    But when growth goes high order and has significant impacts then yes.. people will use the power of the ballot to make changes.

    You keep talking about the folks who paid for growth earlier.

    They did but it was a small amount out of their pockets and it did not end up outstripping their ability to build the infrastructure to keep up – and maintain quality of life.

    When growth accelerates – all bets are off. You’re basically saying that folks should pay the costs of growth – no matter how much.

    they disagree with you and they have a vote to back it up.

  37. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “”So the existing taxpayers are entitled to make decisions that will take money out of other peoples pockets, is that it?”

    Yup. “

    But you claim no one has that right: to cause damage to another.

    ????

    It comes down to who got their first?

    And not even who got there first, but who developed first?

    So existing taxpayers can claim the value associated with nondevelopment, and not pay for it?

    ?????

    RH

  38. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “People could really care less about growth as long as:

    * – it doesn’t cost them money
    * – it’s not ugly
    * – it doesn’t deteriorate their quality of life”

    and as long as they, not you, get to say what counts as costs against them, what is ugly, and what counts as deterioration of their life.

    and it is OK if thay disagree with you and steal from you, because they have the votes.

    And it is OK to benefit from forebears and not pass the favor along.

    Whew, you are a piece of work.

    The way you describe it, it is a matter of too much growth at one time and place. Evidently you don’t care if it deteriorates quality of life if it happens over time, or someplace else. If it is too much growth in one place, then what we need is more sprawl, or more places, right?

    You say they can prohibit growth, but those people have already happened, and they are going somewhere. If you prohibit them here you are treating people like pollution, and shipping them off to someone else’s back yard, to cause them expense.

    But you already said no polluter has the right to do that.

    If my neigbor has a drainage problem which is flooding my property, I didn’t cause the problem, but I still don’t have the right to divert it to the next neighbor by creating an artificial barrier.

    That is what you are proposing to do.

    RH

  39. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Development rights give you the right to develop but not the right to taxpayer-funded infrastructure.”

    And what did Montgomery county do? they raised the price of infrastructure. No problem there.

    But those prices only apply to a third of the county, the other two-thirds is off limits.

    If you live here you can buy infrastructure, but there you can’t, you don’t get any, you have no development rights, because we took them away to provide quality of life for others, you are required to wait in line and watch others clean up, until we need your land, and we aren’t going to give you squat in the meantime: you are scum on the bottom of the communities communal swimming hole.

    My, my, how civic minded.

  40. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: politics

    you need to recognize that we have a system where people can vote and will vote in their own best interests and when it comes to growth – taxes and quality of life are central to many.

    It’s not whether you like this or agree with it or not – as much as you need to acknowledge that this drives much of the issue about growth and development.

    I’m not a “piece of work” simply because I understand this and urge you to accept it also.

    There ARE difference between your views of how the world should work – and how it actually does work.

    “If my neigbor has a drainage problem which is flooding my property, I didn’t cause the problem, but I still don’t have the right to divert it to the next neighbor by creating an artificial barrier.”

    This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.

    You don’t get to break the law because your neighbor has.

    That’s what you seem to advocate over and over is that if someone else gets away with something then you too are entitled – and then you build an entire philosophy on that concept… am I wrong?

  41. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “If you live here you can buy infrastructure, but there you can’t, you don’t get any, you have no development rights, because we took them away to provide quality of life for others,”

    Yes. That’s the way the system works.

    If a water/sewer line is maxed – the answer is NOT to continue to allow hook-ups to it.

    What you’re advocating (in concept)is that quality of life, and even health be damned in a trade-off with development.

    You think development is a right no matter what the situation is with infrastructure and you’re entitled to your point of view but the real world requires that whoever already lives in a place have priority before newcomers are accommodated.

    Remember – all the folks who already live somewhere ARE landowners ALSO and have rights also.

    A owner of vacant land does not have any more rights than owners of developed property have.

  42. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “If a water/sewer line is maxed – the answer is NOT to continue to allow hook-ups to it.”

    Right, for like 30 years, which is what happened in the town of Marshall.

    I am not advocating that health or safety be damned, and you know it, so please don’t say such things.

    What I am saying is that a statement such as this is a dead end. For residents of Marshall, it was a dead end for thirty years. Not because there wasn’t demand, not because there wasn’t a town, not because of environmental concerns, but simply for one reason, the powers that be did not want development. They used your argument to prevent it, and they used it aganst their own citizens.

    “A owner of vacant land does not have any more rights than owners of developed property have.”

    You are absolutely right, and the owner of developed property does not have any more rights either. But the fact of the matter is, that the owner of developed property is already enjoying one of his rights, the same one he is now denying to others.

    By exercising his right earlier, he has (in your language) degraded the environment (whether it is the infrastructure environment, the social environmnet, the political environment, or the legal environment does not matter) to the extent that it is no longer habitable by others.

    He has no right to do that. By your own argument.

    Either your argument leaves some way for him to do something, someday, and that plan and its costs are explicitly spelled out, or else the existing owners have truly taken possession of property they do not own, and worse, they require work from others for which they do not pay.

    I’ll agree that there needs to be a reasonable amount of time to plan and execute, but when your argument is used to keep people in the dark ages for 30 years as happened in Marshall, then it is an idea that is overspent and bankrupt.

  43. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    You know… if Fairfax, Prince William, Stafford and Spotsylvania was like Marshall – you might have a point.

    If you want to debate the issue on a macro basis – you have no clothes guy.

    The areas I mention are not devoid of growth at all. They have approved so much growth that they are now having trouble providing the necessary infrastructure to serve it.

    What has happened in Marshall and Facquier is that the folks who live there do NOT TRUST new development to offset/mitigate and so they just say “no thanks” to it.

    The counties I mentioned above did NOT say “no thanks” and because they did not – all of them have infrastructure deficits and are trying to figure out how to balance the costs between newcomers and existing residents.

    Facquier and Marshall basically said.. they did not want these kinds of problem to start with.

    But when you try to extend the Facquier/Marshall experience to these other counties – there is no basis for what you are saying and in fact, it’s clearly false.

    Your claim that growth has been outlawed seems laughable when you look at the amount of growth that already has ocurred. If growth had been outlawed as you claim.. these counties would, instead, look like Marshall/Facuier – and they don’t.

  44. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “If you want to debate the issue on a macro basis – you have no clothes guy.”

    Touche. I concede your point.

    On the other hand, Fauquier got the jump on these other counties, so it is a better predictor of what can happen. Just beecause a lot of growth happened, or even continues to happen, doesn’t mean that some people won’t get absolutely hammered by what is euphemistically and cycnically called “growth management”.

    In Fauquier there are a few individuals who are anti-growth professionals. They show up at every meeting and oppose everything: without fail.

    In Fauquier it has nothing to do with costs: they just don’ want growth, period. Th county had decades to do something about the situation in Marshall. It was a disgrace and a public hazard. If the water system had been a private home, it would have been condemned. My opinion is that some officials should have gone to jail for dereliction of duty.

    Marshall is a small lesson, but it shows what is possible. We had growth because there were areas where it was possible. The the growth lynching mob gains ascendency everywhere, it is going to raise the level of tension and the pressure, everywhere.

    The winners will be the big developers.

    RH

  45. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Don’t kid yourself. What prevented growth here was big money.

    RH

  46. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    gee… isn’t that the same thing that those concerned about growth claim .. causes too much growth?

    How can that be ?

    What haven’t the “big money” developers who ran amok in Fairfax and NoVA succeed the same way in Facquier?

    Don’t you have, in fact, famous developers and other pro-growth elite types living in Facquier?

    Are you.. in fact, blaming the same developers for “restricting” your development rights?

    explain that…

  47. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    You misunderstand.

    Here, the money was big money conservation interests. It turns out they care as little about happens to the regular guy as the big developers.

    And it isn’t even my opinion, I learned this from a Michigan Land Use web site.

    RH

  48. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Don’t you have, in fact, famous developers and other pro-growth elite types living in Facquier?

    Yes, and some of them have their own property under conservation easements. Which does not mean that they do not have other properties they would like to develop. One well known contractor in Fairfax is also one of Fauquiers largest and most sucessful farmers. His farm properties seem to be clustered along the major roadways…….

    By and large though, the plan is to turn the northern half of the county into large estates for the wealthy elite and put the riff raff in the south. It is too bad, because the southern end has the far better farmland.

    RH

  49. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    so the guys who make money from developing properties in NoVA are the same ones who live in Facquier an support restricting land in Facquier from being developed like the land they develop in NoVa?

    And then they band together under the banner of a Conservation Group to influence land-use policies in Facquier?

    COOL!

    but you tend to blame the anti-growth folks for restricting your ability to develop. Shouldn’t you be blaming the developers who live in Facquier but develop NoVa?

    In other words, how can you call the developer types who live in Facquier – “anti-growth”?

    🙂 inquiring minds would like to know!

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