"Plan Maryland"
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2012-01-30/plan-maryland
Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley is pushing an ambitious statewide plan to bring a comprehensive "smart growth" strategy to Old Line State -- a plan he hopes will reduce sprawl and empower environmental efforts. But detractors of "Plan Maryland" are calling it a "power grab" by Annapolis, stripping local governments of authority. We chat with Maryland Planning Secretary Richard Hall.
Guests
Richard Eberhart Hall
Secretary, Maryland Department of Planning
Comments
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Opponents of smart growth often say that the infrastructure for any given project will be paid for by the developer. However, multiple life-cycles are never accounted for. This trades short term income, in the form of tax dollars, for long-term maintenance of that infrastructure. We're hitting the end of the life-cycles for much of what we've built and the bills are due now. The question becomes, do we just abandon what we've already built and build more, or do we use are limited resources to preserve and improve what we already have?
Opponents of smart growth often say that the infrastructure for any given project will be paid for by the developer. However, multiple life-cycles are never accounted for. This trades short term income, in the form of tax dollars, for long-term maintenance of that infrastructure. We're hitting the end of the life-cycles for much of what we've built and the bills are due now. The question becomes, do we just abandon what we've already built and build more, or do we use are limited resources to preserve and improve what we already have?
1). Promoting more dense development under smart growth plans amounts to a transfer of wealth or a subsidy from those rural persons who are prohibited from development to thoseswho win the land use lottery by having land that is designated for development. Persons in the designated growth areas will be able to fill those homes partly because their more rural competition has been stifled. Smart Growth appears to have as a primary objective the preservation of rural lands, but the focus on the growth areas obscures that objective. While there is nothing wrong with rural conservation, the benefits of smart growth need to be more equally distributed to the rural areas or smart growth will have saved nothing: instead they will have stolen from the very rural areas they hope to preserve.
2). At several times Hall mentioned Agriculture, but there are many places where the profits from agriculture can never pay for the land under it. Where such circumstances exist, having land that is restricted to agriculture is futile and non - sustainable. It would be like having a shop or storefront zoned only for buggy whips, or more recently, film developing. Once it fails, nothing can replace it except the same kind of enterprise, which is bound to fail again. This is hardly smart growth.
3). Hall even referred to agriculture as a better use of land than development. As an active farmer I can tell you that the rent from my small tenant home far exceeds the income from the rest of the farm, so his claim seems far-fetched to me.
4). After several rounds of downzoning and other growth restrictions applied as a result of smart-growth initiatives, my farm has lost several million in property value and income potential, which has had a devastating effect on my ability to borrow money to run the farm, and on my retirement prospects. From my perspective, there is little point in pointing out how much money county citizens will save in taxes through ostensibly lower infrastructure and service costs, if they do not also consider how much citizens will lose in property and income values.
5) Hall also denied that his agency deals with lot level consequences, yet it is exactly such consequences that can have devastating effects on individuals. This affects their support for smart growth. In one case, a man bought property sufficient that it was zoned for three lots. Subsequently the setback requirements were increased, such that he was limited to one. The other lots had been planned for his children. He was able to buy a strip of land from a neighbor, sufficient to meet the setback requirement. The result was the same number of houses built on the same amount of land with the same amount of runoff space. Only the lot lines changed, at a cost of $244,000. This is not smart growth, this is mesing with peoples lives.
6). Hall was also accused of not being forward looking. I agree. Rural lands are predisposed to being taken under eminent domain, for projects such as power lines, which benefit developed areas. When this happens, the landowner is paid for the current use, maybe a cow pasture, and he gets no credit for uses that he might have developed had he not been prevented, nor for uses that will never develop as a result of the intrusion. Even worse, the landowner may get paid only for an easement, and be stuck owning and paying taxes on the land. A smart growth plan with any smarts is going to have to address such inequities.
7). Smart Growth is said to be for the public good. If that is the case, then the public ought to be willing to pay all of the costs, not just some. There is plenty of wealth transfer in the smart growth plan to ensure that the winners can fully compensate the losers, and still come out winners, but there is no recognition of this anywhere in the smart growth plan.