Defining "smart" growth

New Mexico Business Journal, July-August, 1999 by Ned Farquhar

The head of 1,000 Friends of New Mexico has a few things to say about growth management

Growth is "smart" when it's a net contributor to our overall quality of life - our economy, community, and environment. It isn't as smart when it simply moves the pieces around, creating windfalls for some and wipeouts for others.

Around the country more and more business, chambers of commerce, and developers are understanding the distinction between growth-as-usual and smart growth. The president of the new Bank of America, Hugh McColl, is giving speeches around the country saving that new development patterns will help create a stronger economy and more profit.

He's not alone. The National Association of Homebuilders has recently jumped on the bandwagon, calling for revitalization of dying urban cores and reinvestment in neighborhoods previously ravaged by sprawl-driven disinvestment.

But myths and misconceptions about growth management persist. Here are a few:

* You can't stop suburban growth. That's where people want to live.

It's true. Most new homebuyers are buying in the suburbs. In the Albuquerque area, fewer than 10 percent of the new housing permits are within the 1960 city boundaries (generally Tramway to the river and Montgomery to Gibson). Most of the housing that just won't sell or is losing value is within these boundaries.

On the other hand, people don't buy suburban homes because they love driving and traffic, uniform (and increasingly cramped) housing styles, vast shopping malls, and other suburban amenities. They often buy suburban homes because they don't like what's often available in the cities: deteriorating schools and streets, crime, skimpy open space, and used housing stock.

In recent Albuquerque market surveys, lots of potential homebuyers expressed strong interest in buying in town, particularly downtown. To accomplish successful revitalization, cities must attract homebuyers back to the core. The first step is to deal with public safety and crime. The schools and streets must be improved. Investors must be brought back. Existing businesses must be supported. The community must think twice about new roads and highways that will allow more and further growth in the suburbs.

With this strategy, a community can comfortably and enjoyably achieve 20 to 30 percent infill, instead of the less than 10 percent we have now. The benefits: more efficient infrastructure, investment in existing areas (and homes and businesses), less traffic and air pollution, and a stronger economy.

* The free market should decide where growth will occur. Planning is just governmental interference in the marketplace. What's so "free" about a market where windfalls and wipeouts are the inevitable result of government investment in infrastructure and services? The rampant talk about the "free market" deserves to be strapped down and tested.

In May an Albuquerque developer complained about the government's failure to provide flood control in an area where he owned significant land. Quoted in The Albuquerque Journal, he said, "We're tired of being slapped around. (The city) is trying to take almost all of my profit away."

"Profit"? It's only developable if the public underwrites the development?

Many developers want more roads across the West Side: new loop roads, new bridges across the Rio Grande, extensions of Unser Boulevard and the Paseo del Norte. These are projects that will be expensive (especially since the City often foots the entire bill without federal assistance because it doesn't want to get embroiled in federal environmental review). Without public support for these projects, and new public schools, and new water systems, they simply will not happen.

Smart growth doesn't say the public shouldn't chip in for growth. Infrastructure doesn't come free, and the homebuying public can't and shouldn't carry the full load. Public investment will be needed wherever growth occurs: in the city or in the suburbs.

The decisions about where to build and spend are crucial, and they should be efficient and planned rather than provided ad hoc in response to multiple developers' requests. And they should be balanced with regular investment in our multi-billion dollar maintenance and rehabilitation backlog.

* Any limits on suburban growth will make housing unaffordable. Again and again, people say that growth management has caused explosive increases in home prices in Portland, Oregon. The National Association of Homebuilders says Portland is now the sixth least affordable market in the nation (down from second least affordable last year).

But blaming growth management is wrong. First, Portland's affordable housing coalition supports growth management, partly because it reduces major household costs such as transportation and driving time. Second, compared to other fast-growing western cities (Reno, Denver, and Salt Lake City), Portland has had similar increases in lot and housing prices in recent years. Third, Portland's economy has been super-hot. Last, Oregon enacted dramatic reductions in property taxes in 1990, making private ownership of housing relatively more affordable over the past few years.