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One of the ways that some urban areas, notably Portland, Ore., contain
sprawl is by drawing a circle around the metropolitan area and limiting
development outside it.
"Urban growth boundaries in Oregon have not been used to stop
development, but to redirect it within existing urban areas," says
Scott Chapman, chair of the Columbia Group's land use and
transportation committee. Legislating such boundaries is a daunting
challenge, however, because most urban areas comprise dozens of cities
and several counties that are sometimes competing for development
dollars. Unless the state steps in, as it did in Oregon, growth limits
can only be realized in a piecemeal fashion.
Without urban growth boundaries, farmers and other landowners on the
periphery of developed areas are often under tremendous pressure to
sell their land, which is worth much more as a potential subdivision
than as a farm or natural area. One innovative way of addressing this
is for the community to buy the development rights from landowners, so
that incentive to sell out to developers is no longer there. (See
sidebar "Keeping Farmers Farming.")
Another obstacle to preserving farmland outside towns and cities is the
pervasive myth that development along the periphery increases revenues
for local governments. In reality, many communities see property taxes
rise in response to the increased costs of roads, fire departments,
sewers, schools and other critical government functions. This is
especially true in fast-growing areas like Dane County, Wis., where the
Sierra Club Midwest Office and John Muir Chapter (with the support of
the Joyce Foundation) published a report titled "Sprawl Costs Us All"
cataloging the costs of sprawl in Wisconsin and what local activists
can do about it.
"Development in Wisconsin may cost state taxpayers $10,000 per home and
over $4.4 billion over the next 15 years," says report author and Club
Midwest Regional Representative Brett Hulsey. The Club is calling for a
"property tax impact statement" akin to the environmental impact
statements required for many developments.
The village of McFarland, Wis., compiled a property tax impact
statement and found that for each $1 million spent on new homes,
taxpayers would have to pay an additional $30 apiece in property taxes.
The city of Franklin, south of Milwaukee, estimated that each new home
cost city taxpayers over $10,000 for schools and services in 1992 but
that builders paid only $813 in impact fees in 1995, and the new
homeowners paid less than $5,000 in property taxes.
"We're just asking for truth in advertising," says Hulsey. "If
taxpayers realize they're paying millions of dollars to subsidize
sprawl, they're more likely to support cost-effective urban
development."
The Maryland Chapter has adapted the Sprawl Costs Us All model for
their state, giving an "Ostrich Award" to 14 counties that do not track
the costs of development to taxpayers. "These counties have their heads
in the sand," says Janet Pelley, principal author of the report.
"Sprawl development in Maryland costs more to service than it pays in
revenues."
More Sprawl
For contacts, publications and more information,
see the resource box
on the following page.
http://www.sierraclub.org/planet/199704/sprawl.asp
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