Re-drawing a line in the sand

Apparently concerned our community doesn’t have enough sprawl, our local planning commission is considering expanding the county’s “growth boundary,” the imaginary line that divides the zone where additional development is encouraged from rural areas where development is discouraged. Albemarle County, like many areas experiencing growth pressure, has opted to emulate Portland, Oregon’s 1973 decision to designate a boundary for future growth.

Unfortunately, as DPZ noted in their 2000 book Suburban Nation *, growth boundaries are usually drawn well ahead of the current limits of sprawl, leading to free-for-all development inside the border. As a result, growth boundaries have produced some of the worst sprawl in the country (witness Albemarle County). As our local situation illustrates, growth boundaries are just lines on paper, subject to political pressure. Portland, for one, has seen several boundary adjustments since the growth area was defined almost 40 years ago.

Using a growth boundary, it would appear, shifts the primary focus of planners from the nature of development within the growth area to limiting the extent of sprawl. This sacrifice-zone approach to planning suggests we have to throw in the towel on some areas in order to preserve other areas, hardly an encouraging vision for the future.

A better solution, suggests DPZ, is to preserve rural land using strategies that can’t be undone, such as conservation easements in exchange for tax relief, and then focus on increasing density and improving the character of the built areas. While Albemarle County actively encourages conservation easements, they are strictly voluntary, and there is never enough money available to make the program fully effective.

Still, there is good reason for political bodies to resist the pressure to re-draw the line: keeping the boundary intact will eventually shift development pressure from sprawl to infill and redevelopment, and perhaps begin to transform the character of our [sub]urban environment.

* Duany, Andres, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. North Point Press, 2000, p 143