I'm a proponent of real UGBs. Not Oregon's Metro mutation nor Maryland's BANANA rules. Real UGBs neither prohibit nor direct growth. Real UGBs establish limits to local government to permit/prohibit or direct natural growth patterns.
Got that? Real UGBs limit government not development. Examples include Napa and Ventura Counties in California.
I am constantly battling the misperceptions of Ventura Counties' process, Save Open space and Ag Resources. SOAR only changes the venue of land use change approval from the Board/Council to a public majority vote. Serious proposals are likely to be Santa Paula Canyons and Moorpark again. The last Moorpark attempt to expand and urbanize was fully supported by the city council who smuggly proclaimed that the people they represented were behind the proposal. Lost 3 to 1 despite being outspent 15 to 1.
I do, however, resent any Smart Urban Growth (SmUG) parallel advocacy claim. SOAR is in no way an UGB. SOAR does nothing in the way of Nurbanist rezoning agendas. I would separate the causal truism that SOAR prevents outward urbanization from the unassociated effect that the urbanization -must- turn inward. NURBs would like that to be the case but it is not part nor intent of the SOAR plan.
No deep thoughts here. Just that the methods of land use and zoning adopted in Oregon have been hijacked by politicians and planners. Of course they like the old status quo where politicians could pick winners in the land use lottery and planners could use zoning to force their preferred development patterns.
Oregon does not have the best record, it merely has the most controlled process. Napa and Ventura Counties in California have had far better success at achieving the stated goals of anti-sprawl. I say "stated goals" because anyone familiar with Oregon in practice will tell you there is an anti-mobility agenda that really drives their development processes.
My favorite example of Oregon's failings is the UGB. Urban Growth Boundary that in fact merely allows existing central cities to prohibit any exurban competition. It gives cities control over land that isn't expected to become urban for as much as 20 years and by exclusion prevents anyplace outside their sphere to develop as well.
We'll examine the differences in subsequent posts.
5 comments:
Rob Dawg,
I'm a long time Austinite that for a short two year hitch lived in the Portland, OR region and loved it. Compared to the Texas "Sprawl all you want in everydirection" method of development, the Portland UGB seemed to be a good idea.
I'd never heard of Neourbanism before, until I bought a house in Orenco Station (Hillsboro, OR). From everything I've read Orenco isn't a pure NU development, but I got spoiled... I could walk to my office, there was a grocery store, dentist and restaurants less than 900 feet from my front door, and being a short walk from a light rail station meant that my car got at most 5000 miles a year (mostly driving to Mt Hood to go skiing).
I loved the area... too bad the economy sucked so bad that I booked it back to Austin first chance I got. (My Orenco Station neighborhood had a lot of Intel employees, and from my second story window I could see three different big Intel sites. Intel gets a sniffle, this neighborhood is going to pneumonia)
It sounds like your problem with UGBs is that it gives central cities power over the outside areas, but doesn't the UGB just solve the "no taxation without representation" issue? Those exurban regions aren't going to sprout fully formed, but rather are going to suck off the infrastructure of their central cities for years... bringing traffic, population, social service issues, etc.
(Don't beat me up to bad here... I only lived under the UGB for a couple of years, can't say that I've given the whole concept too much thought)
-Roastbeef
Roast Beef,
That is exactly why Oregon's "Metro" regional planning Agency is so key. Quality of life is maintained and negative externalities to growth on a metro are are shared instead of swept under a rug. Upside you get to ride a light rail to work and know your neighbors. Downside, real estate gets pretty expensive due to government meddling and slow action in expansion. Portland is the grand US experiment and it has its warts. I mentioned housing costs, but that also has a ripple effect in the economy to where younger talented people just dial on and essentially say f you to the region. I say if you are going to be so heavy handed as a government agency you need more input from business interests and more frequent. Especially when deciding how to expand the boundary.
Robert, say what you want but the the very pretty and fertile Willamette Valley would be paved over if not for the UGB. And alot of exurban houses would have been nestled up into the foothills of the Cascades and Coastal Range. I for one am grateful someone had the foresight to protect it. I must confess I am currently fighting for landowners in Northern NJ right now against the Highlands Legislation. It is similar yet very different.
The Portland UGB looks even better after moving back to Austin. The Austin area has been growing by leaps and bounds since at least '98, and there's been zero cooridination among the different cities and counties.
The traffic has been so bad that for years now they've been talking about adding light rail, except there's a freaking huge problem: There is sprawl in every direction, so unless you did tracks in 12 different directions from downtown you'd never serve a decent chunk of the population. The only "solution" they've come up with is more roads and making them tollways to try and disincent people from driving. But if your job is on the opposite end of town, nothing short of an oppressively brutal tax/toll is going to keep you off the road.
Plus the Hill Country used to be gorgeous, and it still has it's places, but the sprawl is pushing further and further west into areas that were untouched a decade ago.
Kinda off topic, but I first discovered Christopher Alexander's "A Pattern Language" through Object Oriented software engineering. When I first moved to Orenco I had a lot of eyeopening "Ahh... so this is what he was talking about" moments.
-Roastbeef
2robdawg
Thanks for the info..I learned some new stuff.
A couple of points:
It's easy to knock any growth plan with the benefit of hindsight. Well, that's true of any decision a person or group makes. Point being, is that is seems somewhat silly to come back and knock a growth plan after the fact.
To me, the bigger issue is the citizenry itself. Even when given the opportunity to work, live, and play in a given community, most people opt out.
Why?
Post a Comment