The 100-year gamble to save our quality of life
King County put up some money 29 years ago, when it bought development rights to scattered agricultural land. Farmers got chunks of money that they could use as working capital — or use to stop farming. The public got the land preserved for farming — or at least open space — in perpetuity.
That agricultural bond issue cost King County voters $50 million, which represents a pittance compared to what the Cascade Agenda would cost. The Conservancy sees a price tag of $7 billion, some coming from existing funds for parks and open space. Some of the up-front money would be repaid over the long haul with income from forests and farms. Duvernoy explains that if you can get a large-enough lump of capital up front with a long-enough payoff time, you're home free.
The most problematic part of the Agenda is buying development rights to rural land that isn't self-funding because it won't produce much of an income stream. Under a program of transferable development rights, or TDR, a rural land owner sells the rights, which ultimately enable a private developer who buys these rights to exceed the underlying zoning limit some place else.
There's nothing revolutionary about transferring development rights. Seattle has been using TDRs to preserve affordable housing and historic structures since 1985. (Saving the Paramount Theater penciled out only because the City bought development rights to the property.) But it's easier said than done. It requires not only a willing buyer and a willing seller, but also a willing jurisdiction, meaning a town that accepts higher-than-zoned density in its own neighborhoods so that society can save open space somewhere else. Not many jurisdictions have been that altruistic.
Let's take three examples. In Pierce County last year a unanimous council passed a landmark ordinance, introduced by County Executive John Ladenburg, that requires anyone who wants an upzone to buy rights for additional density from rural landowners. No takers so far. The executive has subsequently introduced an ordinance that would taxes so that the county itself could get money to buy and bank the development rights. This way, a developer could just go to the county to buy rights. At present, a developer basically has to drive around and find a willing seller. But even if Pierce County acquires the funds to bank development rights, it has no authority to force new development into incorporated areas, which is where most of it should go.
Homeowners can get pretty clever at avoiding densities they don't want (and few ever do, absent a compelling batch of new urban amenities that few jurisdictions can afford). In King County, communities during the 1990s used the maneuver of opting out of the county's unincorporated areas explicitly to avoid the densities that the county would otherwise have forced on them.
For instance, the 1998 voters' pamphlet statement in favor of incorporating the city of Sammamish said: "King County designated the East Sammamish community as an urban growth area. A drive down 228th reveals the devastating impact of explosive growth. Although everyone agrees that some growth must be accepted, local control by our own city council will better determine how, when, and where this growth will go and what it will look like."
A third example is Maple Valley, which last year marked its tenth anniversary, and where city manager Anthony Hemstad wrote in The Seattle Times that the community's "desire for self-determination of how the Maple Valley area would develop, and frustration and disagreement with the vision that King County held for this area, were some of the major drivers behind incorporation."
Can such communities ever be convinced that higher density is OK after all? It seems a long shot, but Duvernoy argues that there are ways we can make density attractive, if we can find ways to fund them. To make the point, he shows people a series of images. The first is a broad, tacky Aurora-like street with no trees or sidewalks, lined on both sides by one-story commercial buildings. Ask people if they'd like to live there, Duvernoy says, and virtually everyone says no. Then, Duvernoy adds a few trees. The answer is still no. The picture goes through progressive changes. Finally, it winds up with lots of trees, more pedestrian amenities, narrower traffic lanes, and multi-story buildings. Virtually everyone says yeah, he could imagine himself or at least his kids living in a place like that. To Duvernoy, the message is clear. Most people don't dislike density per se. In Seattle terms, they don't like Aurora Avenue North but they do like Columbia City.
Of course, some don't want to live in a city, period. The Conservancy assumes that some growth will leak through the urban boundaries no matter what. Large-lot development — each house set behind a long, paved driveway amid acres of grass — maximizes the negative impacts of rural population growth. It creates the largest possible footprint on the land, destroying habitat, disrupting natural water flows, making mass transportation impractical and infrastructure expensive. As an alternative, the Cascade Agenda would cluster new rural houses in relatively dense "conservation villages." A developer could buy up development rights for rural land all around the new village or perhaps elsewhere, and then get the right to build dramatically more housing units in the once-sleepy crossroads.
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Comments:
Posted Thu, Jul 3, 3:43 p.m. inappropriate
Planning for 100 years out: a long stretch: It's commendable that someone is thinking about this region's future beyond a few short years or even a few decades. The GMA was premised on plans that would look just 20-30 years out, and would be regularly updated based on experience and new information. Yet 100 years is a long time, especially in a world that is on fast forward.
Predicting the future and how people will want to (and need to) organize their lives is a very problematic exercise. Forty years back, regional planner's models did not foresee the enormous changes in lifestyles that were to come. Are today's models any better, given the forces at work that are currently shaping the built environment and those that may come down the pike?
Predicting that gas prices will stay high is probably a safe bet, but does anyone know what personal vehicles will run on say 50 years from now? Might they all be plug-ins fueled by the electricity grid and powered by a new generation of nuclear generating plants? What will the price of that fuel be? And if it is comparable to the price of gas per vehicle mile before the recent run-up, will people be more or less inclined than now to opt for dense "walkable" neighborhoods?
Taking a large swath of land to the foothills of the Cascades out of the market might be doable if a spare $7 billion can be found, but is that enough to force a fundamental change in land use patterns in the greater Puget Sound region, an area that covers 12 counties and extends west to the Olympics, south to Olympia, and North to the Canadian border? And then there are the folks that find it desirable to live east of the Cascades and commute in.
So here's a question for Mr. Duvernoy's organization: wouldn't it be better to focus on all of the bad habits of people living here now that damage our special environment so that they aren't adopted by the new arrivals? Habits such as clear-cutting every tree to get an unobstructed view, polluting the waters with waste from cheap and failure-prone septic systems, privatizing shorelands that should be available to all for recreation, tearing down structures that could have a longer life if rehabilitated and upgraded, not providing the full panoply of recreation spaces for kids of all ages, etc. Perhaps someone has run the tab for all of this -- things we will probably need to do regardless of what is done to preserve the Cascade foothills. Can we afford the monetary and political investment to do both?
Posted Fri, Jul 4, 3:47 p.m. inappropriate
Duvernoy's group nothing but an NGO HAMMER for the State: Duvernoy's group is the same bunch that wants to make TDR's mandatory for development instead of a voluntary transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller. If you want to live in higher density areas it is certainly available to you. If it isn't dense enough for you, build more. Just don't force everyone to adopt the cookie cutter condo livestyle you are offering.
Anyone familiar with the Maple Valley situation cited in the story knows that was more about political pay-offs and sweetheart deals and corruption than anything else. It had nothing to do with proper density or a livable, sustainable, green buzzword community . Martin Durkin Jr. acting as an agent for Plamer Coking Coal and Yarrowbay development tried to swing a no-bid sale of a public asset ( County held land) that is completely surrounded by the City of Maple Valley and within it's UGA ( urban growth area) and allow it to be built out to over 2,000 houses on 156 acres with out telling the City of Maple Valley. Building to County Reg's and paying the County all of the development fees and NOT PROVIDING adequate (ANY) infrastructure for transportation. The County in the form of Ron Sims was willing to sell this property on a no-bid basis for some property held by Durkin and Yarrowbay on an option and owned by Palmer Coaking Coal who would recieve more than market value for their land if it was a part of this proposal. The Donations were flying, private fundraisers for Rons Sims held at Yarrowbay corporate offices.
The topper is that the very TDR program that Duvernoy want to make mandatory was going to be used tto increase the allowable density of the Maple Valley project by 600-800 units. That's right an additional 600-800 units out in Maple Valley with no additional Transportation resources to get those people to employment centers. This is the kind of abuse we can expect if Duvernoy and hiis group get their way. The rules will apply to every little guy in the County, but the "players" will always find a way around. Their latest stab at making TDR's madatory was a "test" case that Executive Sims imposed in Snoqualmie for their Hospital Dist., it would have added Millions to the price tag for the taxpayers simply trying to build a new hospital. No thanks Gene, why don't you try implimenting CAO inside the City limits of Seattle to make the place more livable.?
Posted Sat, Jul 5, 2:42 p.m. inappropriate
Any chance of links to the aerial photographs...: ...mentioned in the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth grafs?
Posted Sat, Jul 5, 10:18 p.m. inappropriate
Make Growth pay for Growth -- the hypocrisy of King County: Under GMA density is mandated. Anyone who drives through most new neighborhoods in Sammamish and/or Maple Valley (cited as boogeymen by the author) would be hard pressed to say they aren't strikingly dense -- homes are only a few feet apart. Older homes that are pre-GMA seem to have a premium as they have bigger lots and you don't have to hear your neighbors like in the semi-apartments that single family homes have become in the GMA era.
Very unfair for Chasan to look down his nose at Sammamish and Maple Valley. Both of these cities are among the fastest growing in the State. They are by no means anti-growth, but have accepted growth more than most. Also they are much more responsible than King County which charges a pittance for a traffic impact fee (about $1,000 per trip). Sammamish is the highest in the state at about $16,000 and Maple Valley is one of the higher @ $6,000. That is one of the flash-points about the strikingly hypocritical (from King County) challenge about the Donut Hole in Maple Valley, in which a developer would be given freedom to develop at very high densities and pay a fraction of the impact fees than they would if they were in incorporated Maple Valley (despite being in a bizarre situation of being in the middle of Maple Valley but in unincorporated King County). Whatever happened of growth paying for growth? Sammamish and Maple Valley are still trying to make up the infrastructure deficit they inherited from King County. King County is now trying to make it vastly worse (in Maple Valley's case).
Posted Sun, Jul 6, 12:17 p.m. inappropriate
Rising cost of oil is already slowing down sprawl: I think the article is well written and agree with it.
One question I have: "Is the Cascade Land Conservancy overestimating the future extent of sprawl in light of how high oil prices are already putting a damper on sprawl?"
I expect that even with high oil prices and the likelihood that it will be at least 10 years before we start to get a sustainable alternative transportation system (plug in hybrids making use of renewable generated electricity, more mass transit, etc.)in place that we will still have some sprawl. But a number of articles have appeared recently that point out that Americans are driving less and the demand for homes with long commutes is shrinking and those homes are losing their value more rapidly.
I wonder how well Cascade has taken this future into account into their estimates of the size of the sprawl problem.
I agree that support for affordable housing is a big part of the solution.