Since its inception just over a year ago, the Northeast State Planning (NESP) Leadership Retreat has been a valuable professional development tool for state planners from Maine to Maryland. This collaboration between Lincoln Institute and Regional Plan Association (RPA) brings together high-level state officials to discuss current state planning issues. After only two annual meetings the participants from 11 northeast states already have implemented ideas discussed with their peers, and a few states have initiated and built smart growth planning and community development schemes inspired by this interstate exchange.

At the second retreat held in March 2000, the participants shared new ideas and success stories, addressed “the do’s and don’ts” of building state planning programs, and took steps toward establishing an economic development program for the northeast corridor. They compared state growth management initiatives in the Northeast to those occurring in the rest of the country, and traded caveats and suggestions on how to sustain political support in the face of a changing economy, bipartisan politics and conflicting interests.

Smart Growth Across the Nation

According to John M. DeGrove, Eminent Scholar of Growth Management and Development at Florida Atlantic University, a new and bipartisan commitment to smart growth is developing across the United States. No longer is the nation enshrouded in a “no-planning” or “planning in isolation” mindset by state and local governments.

As the keynote speaker at the retreat, DeGrove outlined prerequisite factors crucial to a sustainable smart growth program. A primary realization is that the protection of natural systems and the revitalization of urban systems on a local level should happen concurrently with support and coordination from state agencies. Executive leadership can strengthen state legislative initiatives and is usually crucial to program development and implementation. The involvement of diverse coalitions can also be critical in accelerating a smart growth agenda at the state level.

For a progressive smart growth program to survive, there must be an impetus to place growth management in a state or regional framework bolstered by strong incentives and disincentives. State actions linked to federal programs-TEA 21, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the possible renewed funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund-can enhance the success of strategic, comprehensive planning. Finally, bottom-up coalition building, grassroots efforts, and state agency coordination should be used in place of or in conjunction with top-down approaches. Experiences in Maryland and Pennsylvania have shown that such processes are effective.

Patricia Salkin, associate dean and director of the Government Law Center of Albany Law School in New York, is also at the forefront of growth management research. She has compiled and analyzed information about state planning programs across the country, citing gubernatorial support and legislative reforms as the primary factors driving smart growth programs. She reported that gubernatorial support is generally strong in the Northeast and is growing in such states as Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin.

Salkin mentioned three main categories of legislative reform: 1) recodification and tightening of existing laws, 2) authorization for innovative and flexible controls, and 3) major overhauls. As examples, Oklahoma’s Senate Bill 1151 created a Planning and Land Use Legislative Study Task Force to evaluate the effectiveness of current laws, review model legislation, and identify public information needs; California’s Assembly Bill 1575, encourages innovative land use policies such as unified county plans; and Tennessee is undertaking a study to overhaul its planning and growth management framework and replace it with a smart growth program.

Sustaining Political Support

Sustaining political support for smart growth plans is a challenging task. Bipartisan politics, influential lobbying interests, changes in administration, and home rule are just a few of the most commonly mentioned obstacles to comprehensive, regional programs that address urban, suburban, rural and conservation issues. Arguably, the current strong economy may be facilitating smart growth incentives as many states, especially in the Northeast, offer monetary and capital rewards to municipalities whose policies are consistent with state and regional plans.

A number of common practices on this topic were outlined at the retreat. State agencies such as the office of planning or the department of community affairs may develop coalitions with entities other than fellow state agencies, especially if the “state” is seen as a meddling force in local issues. Some success stories tell of coalition building with elder communities, religious leaders and faith-based communities. Others have tried the silent partner approach in a public/private venture. Most importantly, the political force of local voices can be potent in getting local officials, state congressional representatives and agencies involved.

One key area that requires cautious handling is the presentation and dissemination of information. When plans move from general to specific, care must be taken to allow a broad range of interests to perceive personal and community benefits at the present time and through continued participation in the future. The use of proper terminology is also crucial. For example, in a politically driven world, executives may strive to separate themselves from counterparts with original ideas and phraseology. A state can gain distinction by interchanging the prevalent term “smart growth” with “community preservation,” or “locally designated growth areas” with “urban growth boundaries.”

Political support also can be sustained by creating educational programs to address the planning needs of a community. Training and curricula can be developed for elected public officials and for citizens appointed to planning boards, board of appeals and historic preservation committees. Some efforts have even begun to institutionalize planning studies at the elementary, middle and high school levels. Stamford, Connecticut, for example, is engaged in a program modeled after the recycling movement to encourage school children to bring home planning issues and initiate their family’s involvement in the development and growth of their communities.

Revitalizing the Northeast Corridor

Numerous areas around the globe have adopted the regional corridor concept of economic development. Major capital campaigns are in the process of feasibility analysis or implementation in such diverse locations as California’s San Francisco to San Diego corridor and China’s Beijing to Shanghai corridor. Representatives from several northeast states reported that they are working collaboratively to encourage the economic development of their corridor. Transportation, especially the utilization of rail, is an essential component of the strategy to move goods and people more efficiently throughout the Northeast. Of particular interest is linking the economies of mid-sized cities with the region’s megalopolis anchors-Washington, DC, New York and Boston. The intermediary cities include Providence, RI; Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport and Stamford, CT; Newark and Trenton, NJ; Philadelphia, PA; Baltimore, MD; and Wilmington, DE.

This planning group, led by the Regional Plan Association, will create a vision and mission statement for the project and then conduct an economic analysis to quantify the benefits. Once a plan is formulated, its cost will be calculated and a timeline will detail the phasing-in of each segment. The participants will then begin an outreach effort to gain backing from various state and local officials, as well as advocacy groups and community representatives. Amtrak, the main source of passenger rail in the corridor, plans to have its high-speed regional train service on-line in late 2000, and a number of partnerships could evolve from the already active advocacy efforts of several groups, such as the National Corridors Initiative/NCI, the I-95 Corridor Coalition, and the Coalition of Northeastern Governors (CONEG). A diverse coalition of business, civic and nonprofit organizations may be instrumental in advancing a regional economic development instrument.

A Southeastern Massachusetts Case Study

The planning retreat culminated with an exercise that looked at the rural southeastern region of Massachusetts where the Commonwealth and the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) are planning to cultivate a bioreserve. Now in its initial stages, this program seeks to preserve vast tracts of valuable land, including forests and wetlands, and curb haphazard and uncoordinated development. The area of concern is the largest high-yield, sole-source aquifer in Massachusetts, with close to 70,000 acres of cranberry bogs, areas of endangered habitat, and a cluster of pine barrens. The Commonwealth is exploring various avenues to preserve these natural resources.

Through a statewide Community Preservation Initiative, the Commonwealth has begun to provide technical assistance to towns in the region by helping them forecast their commercial/industrial buildouts based on current zoning and population estimates. The EOEA hopes this information will help the communities make better decisions regarding future development and put this knowledge to use on a cooperative regional level to create beneficial growth plans for all nearby cities and towns.

The participants emphasized three considerations that specifically addressed the issues raised by the EOEA, and that are transferable to other regional planning initiatives. First, negotiated processes, whether between state government and a municipality, between municipalities, or between a community and a state agency, are effective in consensus building and cutting costs. Investing in consensus building at the beginning of the planning process can preclude litigation costs and the costs of stalled development due to community opposition. Second, technical assistance must be provided in a manner that keeps communities engaged throughout the entire analysis stage. Engagement increases support for the results and demystifies the “technical experience,” thus giving a sense of empowerment and control to those most affected by the final plan. Finally, local government involvement is key to any planning process, since local officials usually have their fingers on the pulse of community vitality and needs, and can use that knowledge to ensure effective programs.

Alternatively, participants mentioned a few pitfalls that need to be avoided in the context of this southeastern Massachusetts case. The original mapping of the bioreserve maximized the layout of open spaces and land in need of protection. However, in the desire to classify maximum acreage for protection, some new boundaries would have cut through municipalities, leaving the potential of an insider/outsider dichotomy. In areas where home rule is a coveted prize, as in Massachusetts towns, government programs are often met with suspicion and resistance. Further, if state government presents an agenda for preservation with lines drawn and boundaries sited without local input, communities will often react adversely to any plans, regardless of the goodwill and intent of the program. The ideal action to preclude these problems is to offer technical assistance to achieve through collaboration the preservation that the state ultimately wants. Preferably, the entire municipality should be represented in any regional framework for southeastern Massachusetts to facilitate inter- and intra-muncipal support for the desired program.

In conclusion, the discussions at the Second Annual NESP Retreat offered a great deal of insight into the experiences of the 11 states represented. Though they share a common geographic location, they have taken many approaches to address future growth and development. The retreat offered instructive lessons on the common theories, practices and principles that are useful in building a diverse array of programs appropriate to each state’s local conditions, and it underscored the value of continuing such meetings.

Robert D. Yaro is executive director and Raymond R. Janairo is senior research associate of the Regional Plan Association, based in New York City.

In Santo Andre and all Brazilian cities, the value per square meter of land is fixed by law, thus hindering the capacity of the city administration to tax real estate property according to its market value. In 1993 the Santo Andre city administration passed a law to grant a 40 percent discount on the property tax, which was to be valid only for that year. However, this reduction has been maintained as a result of several legal clauses that determined that the value of the tax in the current year could not exceed its value in the previous year, thus establishing a tax cap.

Value capture in Santo Andre

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Municipality of Santo Andre in Sao Paulo State organized a three-day program on “Instruments and Techniques for Land-based Finance for Urban Development” in May 1998 where organizers and participants shared their expertise on zoning instruments, value capture, and local economic development in such diverse settings as New York City, Mexico City and Colombia. Their discussions addressed three broad topics: value capture and urban finance; urban planning and the land market; and negotiations and public/private partnerships.

This article explores the lessons learned from the Santo Andre program and the need to develop better measurements of land value increments resulting from zoning changes to promote value capture through more efficient taxation systems.

In many Brazilian cities, land and building taxes are significantly underutilized. According to data from the Brazilian Institute of Municipal Administration (IBAM), for example, in half of the municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants the property tax represents less than 30 percent of total tax resources. Considering that for most of these municipalities, local tax revenues represent less than 30 percent of total resources, the property tax does not amount to more than 10 percent of financial resources (including intergovernmental transfers). These percentages are even less in smaller municipalities. Other land-based taxes, such as the real estate transfer tax and betterment tax, show a similarly disappointing pattern.

Especially since Brazil’s new constitution of 1988, when the major responsibility for land use planning was transferred to the local level, municipalities have become increasingly aware that land use regulation and public investments in infrastructure create changes in land values. Many public officials are now looking for planning strategies aimed at capturing part of the “unearned” benefits that may result. In addition, local governments are facing problems with traditional planning instruments such as the Plano Diretor, a constitutional provision that requires cities with a population of 20,000 or more to develop a master plan. These cities have become increasingly involved in the debate about the flexibility of the regulatory framework on land use. Consequently, the idea of flexible zoning in exchange for developers’ contributions has also become popular.

To investigate the economic, financial and urban planning aspects of these negotiated land use changes, the Lincoln Institute and the Municipality of Santo Andre in Sao Paulo State organized a three-day program on “Instruments and Techniques for Land-based Finance for Urban Development” in May 1998. During the first two days, municipal officials from Santo Andre met with invited guest speakers who shared their expertise on zoning instruments, value capture and local economic development in such diverse settings as New York City, Mexico City and Colombia. Their discussions addressed three broad topics: value capture and urban finance; urban planning and the land market; and negotiations and public/private partnerships.

The program ended with a public debate involving a regional audience of some 200 planners, developers, and representatives from non-governmental organizations, the private sector and local communities within the Greater ABC region-(seven municipalities around Sao Paulo, including Santo Andre, which constitute the densest industrial core area in Latin America). A panel discussion on the effectiveness of land-based negotiations and public/private partnerships in the Brazilian context included the participation of guest speakers from the University of Sao Paulo, the real estate sector and the local governments.

A number of conclusions were drawn from this program. First, negotiated land use changes typically proliferate in an environment where property taxes do not work well. In Santo Andre, for example, existing legal and operational restrictions make it difficult to overhaul the property tax system. (See Figure 1.)

Second, negotiated land use changes in Santo Andre seem to accompany the ongoing shift from industrial land uses toward uses associated with the tertiary and modern service sector. Through the negotiation process more flexibility is brought to the existing legal framework, as is seen in recently completed negotiations between the Plaza ABC shopping center and Pirelli, the multinational tire company.

Third, although land use negotiations apparently fulfill expectations in terms of complementing the dynamics of the local economy, there is no well-established methodology and framework to allow transparent and stable rules based on solid cost-benefit analysis. Compared with international experiences, for example in New York, it remains difficult to predict what monetary compensations can be expected in Brazilian cities and whether these compensations are really Pareto efficient compared to situations where the development permit would have been denied.

Finally, negotiated land use changes should be seen as an essential element of the overall local economic development strategy. In the Greater ABC region, various strategic partnerships among key stakeholders from the private and public sectors are increasingly important in light of the ongoing process of local and regional economic restructuring that has had dramatic negative effects on employment and income levels.

Among the lessons to be learned from the Santo Andre program is the need to develop better measurements of land value increments resulting from zoning changes in order to then develop the means to capture those values through more efficient taxation systems. The New York experience further shows that it is better to collect taxes at a lower rate through a universal and stable system rather than on an arbitrary, case-by-case negotiated basis that can be susceptible to abuse and corruption.

Jeroen Klink, an urban economist, is the adviser to the mayor of Santo Andre. He is a former Lincoln Institute Dissertation Fellow who is completing his Ph.D. thesis on “Sources of Urban Finance: The Applicability of the Standard Economic Model to the Brazilian Case” at the School of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Luis Carlos Afonso, an economist, is the secretary for finance in Santo Andre. Irineu Bagnariolli Jr., an urban sociologist, is the secretary for housing and urban development in Santo Andre.

Figure 1: Restraints on Revising the Property Tax

In 1993 the Santo Andre city administration passed a law to grant a 40 percent discount on the property tax, which was to be valid only for that year. However, this reduction has been maintained as a result of several legal clauses that determined that the value of the tax in the current year could not exceed its value in the previous year, thus establishing a tax cap.

Another restriction on a more aggressive use of the tax, especially as a way to promote more equity, is the interpretation given by the Supreme Court that the tax cannot be progressive. The only exception is its application as punishment for unused or underutilized property, a clause that itself depends on additional federal lawmaking and has not even been discussed by Congress. (See Claudia M. De Cesare, “Using the Property Tax for Value Capture: A Case Study from Brazil,” Land Lines, January 1998.)

During 1990 and 1991, a previous Santo Andre administration had tried to give discounts on the property tax based on the physical characteristics, current use and size of the property, but that effort was subsequently rejected by Court rulings because of its supposed hidden progressive character. Thus, the cap on the property tax, despite being formally revoked by a subsequent law, remains basically unchanged because if taxes were increased the poorer segments of the population would be most negatively affected.

Finally, in Santo Andre and all Brazilian cities, the value per square meter of land is fixed by law, thus hindering the capacity of the city administration to tax real estate property according to its market value.

Most urban areas are experiencing significant disinvestment in older industrial-warehouse areas, along with a net loss of employment, tax base and related activity. The few recent surveys done to measure vacant industrial land suggest that, in Northeastern and Midwestern cities, 15 to 20 percent of industrial sites are inactive. In major cities such as Chicago or Philadelphia, vacant land can amount to several hundred parcels comprising several thousand acres. Often there are significant financial liabilities associated with the ownership of these “brownfield” sites due to the high incidence of contamination and related safety and environmental problems.

Vacant or underused properties are often located in areas suffering generally from physical decline, concentrations of low-income households and high crime rates. Thus, older cities are faced with the dual challenge of improving the capacity of the resident population to participate productively in the labor force and restoring the competitive market standing of areas with declining fiscal capacity.

While recent economic changes have resulted in a net decline in business activity in older industrial areas, many of these sites have the potential for residential, commercial or office reuse, with varying degrees of investment required. However, reuse is often constrained by factors including fragmentation in ownership, risks associated with the ownership or use of contaminated property, and the high market risks associated with front-end investment in environmental assessments, market studies, land assembly and area planning.

Currently, federal laws and regulations dealing with contaminated sites add to the high risk for new owners, investors and users who might otherwise contribute to reinvestment in and reuse of these areas. Also, federal and state clean up programs tend to operate independently of concerted area-wide redevelopment strategies and programs.

Special Situations for Industrial Reuse

Unfortunately, examples of successful reuse approaches which effectively orchestrate federal, state and local government policies and actions with private landowner, investor and business development actions are limited and tend to be concentrated in a few special situations. One circumstance involves a strong private owner such as a financially healthy major corporation which cannot avoid the liabilities associated with the site yet cannot afford the adverse publicity of simply abandoning it.

Another situation is when a strong private reuse market for the site creates a high reuse value relative to the current “as is” value. This typically involves waterfront or other property adjacent to growing downtowns or sites which happen to fit the development needs for a major, publicly subsidized facility such as a new stadium or convention center. In these situations, the private or public reuse benefit calls forth the financial and political resources necessary to acquire, clean up and redevelop the land.

However, most vacant or underused former industrial-warehouse properties do not meet these conditions. Generally the demand for reuse is weak or declining, in part due to deteriorating neighborhood conditions. Because of low land values, even for clean, ready-to-develop sites, finding investors for either equity or debt investment in acquisition, renovation or new development is problematic. These areas typically require more concerted efforts involving business, government and civic group participation.

Site-Specific vs Integrated Redevelopment

While interest in brownfields reuse has increased over the last several years, policy discussions at the national level and programs in the states tend to approach brownfields as a site-specific contamination cleanup problem rather than an area-wide reuse problem within the context of the metropolitan economy.

The case for integrating site treatment into a broader redevelopment strategy can be argued from several angles. One is simply that giving priority to cleanup expenditures may do little to foster area reuse and may preclude the more effective use of public funds. If the contamination is contained within a small area and the public can be protected from any potential harm, then area reuse may be more effectively fostered by focusing on the removal of other constraints to investment. These constraints may include improving access, removing unsightly buildings, installing landscape improvements, clearing sites of obsolete structures, and subdividing the area to better meet current facility demands.

Another argument for integrating site cleanup into an overall redevelopment strategy is that the cleanup costs are difficult to finance in a situation where the value of clean sites is very low. If an area-wide redevelopment effort focuses initially on increasing the overall demand to reuse sites, putting vacant clean sites into use will improve the demand/supply balance. Then, the cleanup costs can in most cases be funded out of the increased site value, and private owners of such sites will be motivated to clean up the sites voluntarily. Area-wide financing schemes using tax increment financing (TIF) and special taxing and benefit districts can also facilitate the funding required for remediation and indemnification against any future liabilities.

New Models and Strategies

The Lincoln Institute, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is undertaking a research project to explore the problem of recycling urban industrial areas which fall outside of the special situations described above. The study builds on recent work conducted by the Lincoln Institute, the Northeast-Midwest Institute, the author and others who have researched reuse potential and demand/supply constraints in industrial areas. Some examples are the American Street industrial area in Philadelphia, the Collinwood area in Cleveland, the Southwest industrial area in Detroit, the south side of Chicago and several areas in Pittsburgh.

Research directed at discovering common opportunities and constraints and the related strategies most effective at addressing different types of situations is very limited. Therefore, our approach is to conduct a broad survey of industrial reuse markets based on a review of existing reports and interviews with local experts, and then to develop a series of in-depth case studies to assess alternative reuse strategies appropriate to common types of situations.

Each case study will include a survey and assessment of the city-wide situation and the conditions in various industrial subareas. Model solutions will focus on a single subarea chosen to represent a combination of factors, including the relevance of that case to other cities and the relative importance of the subarea to its city’s overall reuse plan. In each case, a group of development professionals familiar with the local real estate market will be involved in assessing opportunities and constraints, alternative strategies and implementation measures. Ultimately, our objective is to identify changes in federal, state and local techniques, policies and programs that would support the implementation of the strategies being developed.

J. Thomas Black, visiting fellow of the Lincoln Institute, is an urban development economist and the principal investigator for this project. The study is in its early stages and the author invites your insights, ideas and suggestions on the subject, particularly for case examples demonstrating opportunities, general strategies, particular techniques, financing methods or organizational structures that work well.

FYI

The Collinwood Yard in northeast Cleveland is a 48-acre, mainly vacant industrial site which has lost 20,000 jobs since 1970. Its access to Interstate 90 and the rail lines is a key element in the revitalization of the area.

The Union Seventy Center in St. Louis is a multi-tenant industrial/warehouse facility occupying a remodeled 2.7 million square foot General Motors assembly plant. It is part of a 171-acre redevelopment project which demonstrates the reuse and investment potential of older urban industrial areas.

The Lincoln Institute’s Latin America program pursues education and research projects with universities and local governments throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean. These activities are especially salient now given many political and economic changes affecting Latin American land markets. For example, the (re)democratization of the continent is engaging a larger segment of the society in designing viable, innovative programs for local administrations of competing political parties.

In addition, institutional and in many cases constitutional reforms are affecting land values and landownership rights and regulations. Structural adjustment programs to curb inflation and overcome the economic crises of the 1980s are changing attitudes regarding holding land either as an investment or a reserve of value. Frequent speculative switches between land holdings and other financial assets according to the caprices of the prevailing ‘economic environment’ have been a planner’s nightmare in Latin America.

The forces of globalization and urbanization also contribute to significant and changing pressures on the use of land. More and more, Los Angeles-style landscapes can be found in certain suburbs of Sao Paulo, Santiago or Mexico City. While loss of the region’s biodiversity is well documented, Latin America is also at risk of losing its land use diversity.

In spite of these common themes, Latin America is hardly a homogeneous entity. Its diversity emerges clearly when examining the landownership and land market structures of different countries. For example:

The Chilean glorification of land markets contrasts with Cuba’s virtual elimination of land markets and resulting residential segregation.

Mexico had a unique experience with communal (ejido) lands that are now being privatized with important implications for new urban expansion.

In Brazil, frequent land conflicts, many with tragic consequences to the landless, can be attributed to a long-promised land reform yet to be implemented.

In Paraguay, until its recent democratization, land was traditionally attributed by the hegemonic political party, simply by-passing the market. In Argentina, on the other hand, the state uses its considerable stock of fiscal land to facilitate international investments in property developments directly through the market.

Nicaragua’s past land redistribution is probably responsible for the vigor of the recently liberalized property market and the strong land reconcentration processes now under way.

The booming land markets of Ecuador and Venezuela have often been attributed to the ease of laundering drug money from neighboring Colombia, where regulations are stricter.

Given this diversity, the Institute’s Latin America program is focusing its education and research efforts on building a network of highly qualified scholars and policymakers. Representing different countries and a variety of academic and professional backgrounds, they help identify topics of proven relevance for the region. Some examples of current topics grounded in public officials’ actual and anticipated needs are: rekindling the debate on the functioning of urban land markets; closing the gap between formal and informal land markets; and implementing new land policy instruments.

Access to land by the low-income urban population is the issue that best captures the hearts and minds of many researchers and public officials. Two connected research themes are 1) the mechanisms that generate residential segregation or exclusion through the market by private or public agents; and 2) the strategies of ‘the excluded’ to access land and subsequently formalize their ‘inclusion.’ Most of the Institute’s education programs being developed in Latin America to deal with land management and instruments of public intervention are informed directly or indirectly by this issue.

For many public officials in the region, land reform is a sensitive issue and capturing land value increments generated by public action is still seen suspiciously as a subversive idea. Thus, the Lincoln Institute is in a unique position as a neutral facilitator capable of collaborating with Latin American scholars and public officials as well as experts from the United States to provide a comparative, international perspective on land policy ideas and experiences.

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Martim Smolka, Senior Fellow of the Institute since September 1995, is on leave as associate professor at the Urban and Regional Research and Planning Institute at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

I am pleased to report that the Lincoln Institute has signed an agreement of understanding with the Ministry of Land and Resources in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to work together on researching and teaching about land and tax policies. Many places in the world face fundamental problems in land allocation and land taxation, but it is difficult to imagine a place and time where the resources of the Lincoln Institute could be more influential and could help more people than in China during the early twenty-first century.

Land and tax policy makers in China are faced with enormous challenges as a result of the extraordinary urbanization of the past two decades. The number of established cities in China grew from 182 in 1982 to 324 in 1985, and reached 666 by 1996, and the average urban population grew by 227 percent between 1957 and 1995. Some cities grew by 200 percent from 1985 to 1995, and the urbanized area of Beijing doubled from 1985 to 1992. However, the extent of urbanization in the future will dwarf that of the recent past. Based on forecasts of population growth and migration, China must provide enough urban land and infrastructure to accommodate more than 450 million persons over the next 20 years. If all of the additional urban population were put in new cities of 10 million persons each, China would need to develop and finance 45 such cities.

China initiated fundamental and revolutionary land use reforms during the mid-1980s. The first reforms established privately held land use rights. The second set of reforms included multiple elements, such as land banking, land trusts, land readjustments, and development of land markets in both urban and rural areas. We believe that the Institute can make a real difference in assisting these reform measures by sponsoring education and training for government officials, supporting research and publications by U.S. and Chinese scholars, and facilitating more in-depth interactions through workshops and conferences.

Over the past two years the Institute has led two training programs in Beijing and participated in meetings between Chinese officials and scholars and Institute board members, faculty and staff. The Institute also sponsored several sessions on land and housing markets in the PRC at the First World Planning Congress in Shanghai in 2001. We anticipate several more training and exchange programs this year, but we believe this is still just the beginning of an expanded effort by the Institute to have a positive impact on land and tax policy in the world’s most populous country. In this issue, Institute faculty associates Chengri Ding and Gerrit Knaap examine some of the recent reforms and current trends in urban land policy in China.

The twenty-first century will witness record growth in the number and distribution of private residential communities. Collectively referred to as common interest communities (CICs) or common interest developments (CIDs), these communities rely on covenants, conditions and restrictions to privately govern and control land use, design decisions, services and social conduct. The communities own, operate and manage the residential property within their boundaries, including open space, parking, recreational facilities and streets. Although CICs historically have been the domain of the affluent, they are now becoming a viable choice for both suburban and urban residential development. Taking the form of condominiums, cooperatives, and single- and multifamily homes, both gated and nongated private communities are spreading among diverse economic and social classes.

A Worldwide Phenomenon

The proliferation of private communities in the United States is causing an unprecedented transition from traditional individual ownership to collective governance of property, signaling a remarkable shift in the American political and economic landscape. This trend establishes a new micro-scale level of governance beneath existing municipal structures, and highlights other tensions between the public and private sectors.

Indeed, the numbers provide a clear indication of this movement’s strength. At the end of the twentieth century, about 47 million Americans lived in condominiums, cooperatives and homeowner associations (HOAs). Growing from only 500 in the 1960s to an estimated 231,000 in 1999, HOAs now comprise almost 15 percent of the national housing stock, with an estimated addition of 8,000 to 10,000 private developments each year. In the 50 largest metropolitan areas, more than half of all new housing is now built under the governance of neighborhood associations. In California—particularly in the Los Angeles and San Diego metropolitan areas—this figure exceeds 60 percent (Treese 1999).

Recent press coverage and research from Europe, Africa, South America and Asia suggest that CICs are rapidly being popularized in other parts of the world as well. Although gated communities are still rare in Britain, former prime minister Margaret Thatcher reportedly moved into such a community in South London. In South Africa, where secure communities were an unavoidable consequence of racism, post-apartheid gated developments are inhabited by all races, and not only by the wealthy. In Saudi Arabia private compounds of linked houses provide extended families with privacy and identity. Those compounds seem to be a reaction to the single residential typology imported from abroad during the country’s modernization period.

Since the economic reforms of the early 1980s, many residential areas in Chinese cities have walls to improve security and define social status. Often these developments are designed by U.S. companies and based on U.S. planning and design standards. Private communities in Southeast Asia, such as in Indonesia, are marketed as places that allow the differentiation of lifestyle and give prestige and security to their inhabitants. In Latin America sprawling gated communities at the metropolitan edges of Santiago, Chile, Bogotá, Colombia, and other cities have become the norm for a growing professional class in need of a secure lifestyle in an environment dominated by social and economic poverty. The deteriorating political and economic state of affairs in Buenos Aires, Argentina, has resulted in situations where developers and private companies provide privatized “public” services that attract large sectors of the population to private developments housing up to half a million people (Environment and Planning B 2002).

Dual Governance, Rules and Outcomes

The spread of CICs in the U.S. is driven by the mutual interests of developers and local governments, including planning officials. Developers benefit because they can maintain profits—despite the high costs of land and infrastructure—by introducing efficient land design schemes and, often, higher densities. Local governments prefer CICs because they privatize infrastructure and reduce public costs. At the same time, consumers see a way to protect their property values through the ability to control their neighborhood character by using compliance and enforcement mechanisms. CICs also provide consumers greater infrastructure options, recreational amenities and community services.

The growing fiscal crisis experienced by many local governments means they are often unable to respond to such traditional community demands as building and maintaining streets, collecting garbage, snowplowing and other services. The establishment of a separate legal mechanism within a private neighborhood association allows collective control over a neighborhood’s common environment and the private provision of common services. Perhaps more important, this trend creates a de facto deregulation of municipal subdivision standards and zoning, because cities and towns allow for a different, more flexible set of standards to be implemented in private developments. Often, the results are innovative spatial and architectural layouts and, sometimes, unusually sensitive environmental design. This shift in neighborhood governance enables a resultant shift in the design of residential developments that heretofore has not been fully appreciated.

A recent nationwide survey of public officials and developers gauges the impacts of subdivision regulations on the design of residential developments and the practices of developers in rapidly growing regions of the country (Ben-Joseph 2003). It assesses attitudes and perceptions and identifies the issues regarding subdivision regulations that members of the housing industry and the regulatory agencies feel are affecting housing development.

Excessive Regulations

As early as 1916 Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., commented on subdivision standards and regulations.

While such regulations are intended only to guard against the evil results of ignorance and greed on the part of landowners and builders, they also limit and control the operations of those who are neither ignorant nor greedy; and it is clear that the purpose in framing and enforcing them should be to leave open the maximum scope for individual enterprise, initiative and ingenuity that is compatible with adequate protection of the public interests. Such regulations are, and always should be, in a state of flux and adjustment—on the one hand with a view to preventing newly discovered abuses, and on the other hand with a view to opening a wider opportunity of individual discretion at points where the law is found to be unwisely restrictive. (Olmsted 1916, 3)

Indeed, developers in the 2003 survey clearly expressed their frustration with the excessive and often unwarranted nature of physical improvements and standards associated with subdivision development. When asked to indicate which types of requirements present the greatest expense in conforming to regulations, an overwhelming majority (80 percent) pointed to requirements associated with site design. When asked to indicate which specific requirements they perceived as excessive, 52 percent of the respondents indicated those relating to street design and construction, with almost 45 percent indicating land dedication and 43 percent storm sewer systems (underground piping for storm water mitigation). When asked about which physical standards within each category were seen as excessive, those most frequently cited were street widths (75 percent of the respondents), street rights-of-way (73 percent) and requirements of land for open space (73 percent). Most developers also mentioned water and sewer hook-up fees (85–90 percent) and payments in lieu of land dedication (79 percent) as being excessive monetary requirements associated with physical improvements (see Table 1).

While one might expect that developers would criticize regulations as interfering in their business, it is important to note that most respondents were selective in their answers to the survey. Out of 29 requirements listed in Table 1, only 13 were considered excessive by the majority of developers, while 16 others were deemed reasonable. Such results indicate that many developers are tuned in to construction and design performance, and their attitude toward regulation cannot always be assumed to be negative.

Furthermore, the surveyed public officials (town planners and town engineers) often concurred with the developers’ observations. Generally these officials agreed that the regulatory process, such as the enforcement of subdivision regulations, has become more demanding and complex. Over the past five years, for example, 70 percent of the jurisdictions where these public officials work have introduced new requirements, and 57 percent have increased specifications, such as those for setbacks and lot sizes. Only 16 percent of these jurisdictions have decreased their specifications, mostly by reducing street widths.

Relief from Subdivision Regulations

Two-thirds of residential developers consider government regulations, particularly those pertaining to the design and control of subdivisions, the main culprit in prohibiting design innovation and increasing the cost of housing. More specifically, they see these regulations as an impediment to increasing densities, changing housing types, and reconfiguring streets and lots.

One way developers try to relax these regulations is through requests for relief in the form or zoning or design variances. More than half of the surveyed developers (52 percent) had to apply for some sort of relief in at least half of their projects, while 37 percent had to apply in at least three-fourths of their projects. When asked to point to the type of changes they requested, many indicated higher-density single-family projects, more multifamily units, and more varied site and structural plans. The majority of the developers in the survey responded that they sought to increase the density of housing units on their sites, but 72 percent noted that because of existing regulations they had to design lower-density developments than they wanted. Some developers reported that regulations forced them to build in greenfield locations away from major urban areas, where restrictions and abutters’ objections were less onerous.

Although almost all of the public officials (83 percent) reported that their jurisdictions require private developments to follow established subdivision regulations, the enforcement of these standards through the approval process is malleable. In some cases, when such a development is classified as a condominium, which may include attached and/or detached dwelling units, no formal review of street standards is required. In fact, the majority of public officials surveyed (61 percent) indicated that their jurisdictions allow for narrower streets to be constructed within private developments. One respondent stated, “Variances are more easily granted within private road systems since the county will not have any maintenance responsibility or liability.”

The practice of building narrower roadways and offering smaller building setbacks within private subdivisions has become widely accepted over the last decade. A street standards survey completed in 1995 showed that 84 percent of the cities responding allowed for different street standards in such developments, and that they more readily accepted the introduction of different paving materials, changes in street configurations, and the employment of traffic calming devices (Ben-Joseph 1995).

Design Benefits

Both public officials and developers acknowledge the design benefits associated with private subdivisions (see Table 2). Fifty-seven percent of officials indicated that private developments are introducing innovative design in the form of building arrangements and unit clustering. Forty-one percent felt that such developments permit the introduction of housing types not found elsewhere in their communities, and 61 percent indicated that they allow for narrower street standards to be incorporated.

While public officials see the benefits of pushing the design envelope within the confines of the development itself, many are also concerned about the social implications and impacts of these private developments on their surrounding communities. “As a matter of policy,” a survey respondent wrote, “gated private communities are discouraged as they are not in keeping with the urban form, which calls for an interconnecting network of vehicular and pedestrian movement. In addition, the walling of neighborhoods from arterial roadways should be avoided by alternatives such as the placement of other compatible uses along the periphery.”

Both developers and public officials believe that common subdivision regulations restrict alternative solutions, and they see privatizing subdivisions as a vehicle for simplifying the approval process and introducing design innovation. As one of the developers remarked, “Regular subdivision codes don’t allow flexibility. Lots are too standardized and streets use too much area. If I could build narrow streets and small lots, developments controlled by covenants and HOAs will not be necessary.” The ability to provide design choices and efficient layouts and to avoid a lengthy approval process drives both public and private sectors to offer CICs rather than typical subdivisions. Indeed, it seems that in the last decade most innovation in subdivision design has sprung from within the private domain and under the governance of community associations rather than within the public realm through traditional means.

Toward Better Subdivisions

The proliferation of CICs, with their ability to plan, design and govern outside of public boundaries, can be seen as an indicator of a failed public system. When developers and public officials resort to privatization to achieve a more responsive design outcome, and when local jurisdictions acknowledge that privatized communities provide a straightforward way to grant variations and innovation, then something is wrong with the existing parameters of subdivision codes and regulations.

For the last 25 years the subdivision approval process has increased in complexity, in the number of agencies involved, in the number of delays, and in the regular addition of new requirements (Seidel 1978). Both developers and public officials acknowledge that the application for variances and changes in subdivision regulations are lengthy and cumbersome. Therefore, it is not surprising that developers see private projects governed by HOAs as not only responding to market demands and trends, but also introducing planning and design concepts that are often not allowed or are difficult to get authorized under the typical approval process.

CICs are enabling developers to maintain profits and keep the design process relatively open-ended and flexible. The ability to operate outside the regular, common set of subdivision regulations allows developers to offer various design solutions that fit the local setting, the targeted site and the prospective consumers. In some cases these can be attractive, high-density yet affordable single-family developments, and in others low-density, high-end yet ecologically sensitive construction (McKenzie 2003).

The concept of private communities as environmentally sensitive developments may seem a contradiction in terms. However, some of these developments provide examples of responsible construction that minimizes environmental impact while maximizing economic value. In Dewees Island, South Carolina, there are few impervious road surfaces, allowing full restoration of the underground aquifer. Only vegetation indigenous to the local coastal plains is allowed. This xeriscaping approach removes the need for irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides. In addition, homes are required to use water conservation fixtures, reducing water consumption by 60 percent.

Paradoxically, while CICs are often controlled and managed by strict covenants and regulations, their initial design is very much outside the mainstream regulatory apparatus. It is precisely for this reason that they prove to be more flexible in their design solutions and more agreeable to developers, consumers and local governments.

How can such flexibility be integrated in the regular planning process? Can subdivision regulations be made more accommodating and less prescriptive? Will such an approach level the playing field and allow for more housing choices and greater design variety in the public domain? Will such changes promote developers to plan subdivisions endowed with CICs’ design qualities without their restrictive covenants and privatized shared spaces? And conversely, can CICs, while exhibiting great variation in architecture and site design features, be made less controlling in their management policies?

There are many issues raised by the spread of CICs, but none is more important than the realization that public policy and subdivision regulations must allow and promote more variety in housing styles and development options. Consumers should not be forced into CICs because they are the only type of development that offers a lively choice of features. CICs should be seen as a catalyst to change subdivision standards and regulations and as a vehicle to create a bridge between public officials and developers. Through the use of CICs developers are not only able to circumvent existing regulations, lower development costs and in some cases produce quite innovative community design solution, but also enable jurisdictions to secure new taxpayers with less public expenditure.

Not all CICs are created equal, and many are far from perfect. But, in terms of design efficiency, utilization of space, and integration of social and environmental amenities, private communities illustrate the shortcomings of many standards applied to typical subdivisions.

References

Ben-Joseph, Eran. 1995. Residential street standards and neighborhood traffic control: A survey of cities’ practices and public officials’ attitudes. Berkeley: Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California at Berkeley.

———. 2003. Subdivision regulations—Practices and attitudes: A survey of public officials and developers in the nation’s fastest growing single-family housing markets. Working paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design. 2002. Theme issue: The global spread of gated communities 29(3).

McKenzie, Evan. 2003. Common-interest housing in the communities of tomorrow. Housing Policy Debate 14(1/2):203–234.

Olmsted, Frederick L., Jr. 1916. Basic principles of city planning. In City planning: A series of papers presenting the essential elements of a city plan, John Nolen, ed., 1–18. New York: D. Appleton and Company.

Seidel, S. 1978. Housing costs and government regulations: Confronting the regulatory maze. New Brunswick: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Treese, Clifford. 1999. Community associations factbook. Alexandria, VA: Community Associations Institute.

Eran Ben-Joseph is associate professor of landscape architecture and planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. This article is based in part on his survey and research that were supported by the Lincoln Institute.

The prevailing land use regulation and land tax laws in the United States make the Kelo case and the use of eminent domain for private development particularly dramatic, especially compared to other countries.

Like many schoolchildren, I learned that years ago a squirrel could cross the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean never touching the ground, using our magnificent forests as an aerial highway. After massive clearing and development for agriculture, cities, and roads, those forests are now a tattered patchwork, and are nonexistent in many places. More than a squirrel’s dilemma, though, the loss and altering of America’s forests have created both an enormous challenge to climate health and an opportunity for climate policy and action.

Sustaining local communities will require mechanisms to envision and plan for the future and to engage residents in the process. Scenario planning is an increasingly effective way to address these efforts, and Western Lands and Communities, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s joint venture with the Sonoran Institute, is working to advance the necessary tools.

Scenario Planning to Address Uncertainty

Land use decisions and planning efforts are critical as communities look 20 to 50 years into the future to guide policy choices and public investments that are sustainable across economic, social, and environmental dimensions. As uncertainty increases and available resources decrease, it becomes ever more important to consider the full range of emerging conditions and to strive to ensure our ability to respond to those changes, adopt policies, and pursue investments that will be resilient across a variety of potential futures.

Key areas of uncertainty include population and demographic changes, economic trends, climatic variability and change, resource costs and availability, land markets, housing preferences, housing affordability, and the fiscal health of local governments. Simultaneous with increasing uncertainty and decreasing resources, or perhaps in part because of them, decision makers face conflicting perspectives on desired futures and on the role of government in providing services and infrastructure as well as regulation and planning.

Increased polarization means that more civic engagement and an informed and supportive public are needed to ensure stable policies and adequate investments in a community’s future. Scenario planning offers a mechanism to address these needs and issues of potential uncertainty and conflict. Fortunately, as the scope and complexity of planning and the demand for broader engagement have increased, advances in computing power and public access to technology are making new and more powerful tools available.

The Lincoln Institute has a long history of supporting the development of planning tools and publishing the results (Hopkins and Zapata 2007; Campoli and MacLean 2007; Brail 2008; Kwartler and Longo 2008; Condon, Cavens, and Miller 2009). This article covers lessons learned from the use of scenario planning tools in several projects undertaken by Western Lands and Communities (WLC), as well as mechanisms to expand their application.

Superstition Vistas

Superstition Vistas is a 275-square-mile expanse of vacant state-owned trust land on the urbanizing edge of the Phoenix metropolitan area (figure 1). State trust lands such as this site in Arizona are key to future growth patterns because the state owns 60 percent of the available land in the path of development. Colorado and New Mexico to a lesser degree face similar opportunities with their state trust lands (Culp, Laurenzi, and Tuell 2006). Creative thinking about the future of Superstition Vistas began to gain momentum in 2003, and the Lincoln Institute, through the WLC joint venture, was an early proponent of these efforts (Propst 2008).

Initial WLC objectives for Superstition Vistas scenario planning included capacity building, tool development, and opportunities to catalyze a planning process. More specifically, we sought to:

• look at the land in a bold, holistic, and comprehensive manner;
• advance the Arizona State Land Department’s capacity to conduct large-scale planning and establish an example for other state land agencies facing urban growth opportunities;
• design a model sustainable development;
• advance scenario planning tools and illustrate their use;
• catalyze and inform debates about modernizing state trust land planning and development management; and
• stimulate a larger discussion about the Arizona Sun Corridor megaregion.

WLC, along with regional partnerships, neighboring jurisdictions, the regional electric and water utility, two private hospital providers, and a local mining company, formed the Superstition Vistas (SV) Steering Committee to advance the planning effort, secure funding, and hire a consulting team. The consultants, working with the committee over a three-year period, conducted extensive public outreach and values research, assembled data on Superstition Vistas, developed and refined a series of alternative land use scenarios for the development of a community of 1 million residents, evaluated the impacts of the different scenarios, and produced a composite scenario for the site.

The Arizona State Land Department (the landowner) adapted the consultants’ work to prepare a draft conceptual plan for Superstition Vistas in May 2011 and submitted a proposed comprehensive plan amendment to Pinal County. The county is now considering the proposed amendment and its Board of Supervisors is expected to act in late 2011.

Sustainability Lessons

The scenario analysis, utilizing enhancements supported by WLC, identified the most important factors in shaping development patterns and potential conflicts among desired outcomes (figure 2). The inclusion of individual building and infrastructure costs for the alternative scenarios facilitated examining the sensitivity of varying these key factors and the cost effectiveness of four increasing levels of energy and water efficiency in each building type.

The scenarios also examined the impact of urban form on vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Scenario model outputs included land use indicators, energy and water use, VMT, carbon emissions, and construction costs. This analysis revealed the “low-hanging fruit” for sustainability improvements. The consulting team, working with the Steering Committee, identified a number of lessons that illustrate the value of scenario planning tools and can be applied to other efforts to design more sustainable and efficient urban areas (Superstition Vistas Consulting Team 2011).

1. Create mixed-use centers to reduce travel times, energy use, and the carbon footprint. Mixed-use centers along public transportation routes and close to homes and neighborhoods are one of the most effective ways to reduce travel times, energy use, and the resulting carbon footprint. Smaller homes, more compact forms of urban development, and multimodal transportation systems all create similar benefits (figure 3). However, the scenario modeling for Superstition Vistas demonstrated that mixed-use centers would be substantially more important than increased density in affecting transportation choices, energy use, and the carbon footprint.

2. Foster upfront investments and high-quality jobs to catalyze economic success. A strong local economy and a diverse balance of nearby jobs, housing, and shops are critical for a sustainable community, especially when high-quality jobs are provided at the beginning of development. Significant upfront public investment and public-private partnerships can supply critical infrastructure and have an enormous impact on shaping development and increasing the value of state trust land. State owned trust land could also provide unique opportunities for patient capital, with enhanced trust land management authorities providing access to resources for upfront capital investment and the ability to recapture these investments when the land is sold or leased later at a higher value.

3. Provide multimodal transportation infrastructure and regional connections to facilitate efficient growth. Another critical step is determining how to phase transportation improvements as the region grows and the market can support increased services. Phased components may include buses first, then Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), with rights-of-way set aside for eventual commuter or light-rail corridors. Identifying and building multimodal transportation corridors and infrastructure prior to sales for residential and commercial development should establish the cohesiveness of the entire area and enable the evolution to more capital-intensive transportation infrastructure as the community matures.

4. Design efficient buildings that save water and energy resources and reduce the community’s carbon footprint. Incorporating construction costs and return on investment (ROI) data in resource planning allows for financial feasibility and cost-benefit calculations. The consulting team modeled four levels of water and energy use (baseline, good, better, best) for each scenario and building type. Results demonstrated that investments in energy efficiency would be better spent on residential than commercial and industrial buildings. An additional finding showed that building centralized renewable power generation may be a better investment than extreme conservation.

5. Offer housing choices that meet the needs of a diverse population. Ensuring a viable community means meeting the needs of all potential residents with a broad variety of development types and prices that local workers can afford and that allow for adjustments under future market conditions.

6. Incorporate flexibility to respond to changing circumstances. A challenge for large-scale master plans that will take shape in multiple phases over 50 years or more is how to plan so the development itself can evolve and even redevelop over time. Plan implementation needs to include mechanisms to limit future NIMBY (not in my back yard) problems for necessary infill and redevelopment projects.

Procedural Lessons

The visioning process for Superstition Vistas involved planning a completely new city or region of communities in a vacant area with a single public landowner and no existing population. Given the recent economic downturn, as well as the limited capacity of the state agency to bring land to market, development of this area will likely be postponed for a number of years. Despite these particular conditions, procedural lessons learned in the project to date are relevant to other long-term and large-scale efforts, and to the expanded use of scenario planning for community decision making in general.

Agreed-upon procedures and planning processes become increasingly important as the planning and development time period grows and the number of stakeholders increases. Significant changes in participants, perspectives, and external factors, such as the recent collapse of the development economy, should be expected in any long-term, multiparty project. Such challenges need to be considered and incorporated into project tasks.

1. Design for change. Long-term projects need to accommodate changes in stakeholders, decision makers, and even political perspectives during the course of planning and implementation. Projects would benefit enormously from anticipating such changes, agreeing on mechanisms to transfer knowledge to new participants, establishing certain criteria and decisions that new stakeholders would be expected to follow, understanding how to deal with political or market conditions that will change, and building resiliency for such factors into the alternative scenarios themselves.

2. Consider governance. This is an issue for planning and implementation efforts and for the political decision-making structure of a new community. In building a new city it is important to consider how to create a governance system capable of implementing a consistent, comprehensive vision for a community that does not yet exist.

3. Incorporate new community designs into local and regional comprehensive plans. It is also critical to consider how a project at the scale of Superstition Vistas, with up to 1 million residents and a buildout plan of 50 years or more, can be incorporated into the framework of a typical county comprehensive plan. Scenarios and visions must reflect ideas and plans that local jurisdictions will be politically willing and administratively able to incorporate into their planning processes.

4. Phase development. Communities need to establish mechanisms that allow the adoption of a long-term buildout vision and then incorporate a series of flexible and adaptable phased plans to implement that vision in appropriate stages.

5. Plan for market changes. Market conditions, housing preferences, and employment opportunities will evolve, and large-scale projects with creative and compelling visions may even create their own demand. No one knows what future markets may offer, so consideration of alternative markets and adaptable community designs are critical. Projected housing mixes and estimates of development absorption need to be flexible and not based only on current preferences and trends.

6. Connect to common values. Demonstrating how development proposals connect to common visions and values that are shared and stable over time is also important. For Superstition Vistas, values such as an opportunity for healthy lifestyles and choices for residents across the socioeconomic spectrum were found to be broadly accepted. Planners also need to recognize values that are more controversial or may be transient and likely to change.

Challenges and Opportunities

The WLC experience in planning for Superstition Vistas has been successful in several respects. The community came together through the Steering Committee to develop a consensus vision that represented multijurisdictional cooperation around sustainable “smart” growth. Neighboring communities, at the request of the state land commissioner, deferred any consideration of annexation. In addition, the Arizona State Land Department developed a plan for a geographic scale, time horizon, and level of comprehensiveness well beyond anything attempted previously. However, the proposed comprehensive plan amendment for Superstition Vistas is at best a first step toward a vision for a community of up to 1 million people.

The Arizona State Land Department has been unable, at least so far, to push the envelope very far on new and more creative ways to conceptualize large-scale developments that could enhance the economic value of state trust lands and improve regional urban form. The recent collapse of land and housing markets throughout the country has also impacted this project and local perceptions of future growth potential. Since the overall effort to conceptualize and implement development plans for Superstition Vistas is just beginning, initial on-the-ground development is not expected for at least a decade. There will be multiple opportunities to build on these planning efforts to bring bolder and more comprehensive visions forward as the real estate economy recovers and the land becomes ripe for development.

Scenario planning and effective visualizations become both more important and more challenging to achieve when conducting larger and longer-term visioning exercises. Visualizations that provide compelling depictions of activity centers and higher-density, mixed-use neighborhoods can help to gain public acceptance. Effective mechanisms are also needed to convey to current participants that the planning process is imagining community characteristics and housing and lifestyle preferences for their grandchildren or great-grandchildren many years in the future.

As noted earlier, upfront investments in transportation, economic development, education, and utility services can significantly shape a community, serve as a catalyst for higher-level employment, and earn high returns. To achieve this potential, mechanisms are needed to facilitate these investments, whether on private lands or state trust lands. Continued work on the contributory value of land conservation, infrastructure investment, planning, and ecosystem services, as well as the integration of this information into scenario planning, would greatly aid efforts to address uncertainty and advance community sustainability.

Other Projects and Lessons Learned

WLC conducted three additional demonstration projects to further enhance scenario planning tools and apply them in different situations.

Gallatin County, Montana

Sonoran Institute staff worked with Montana State University (MSU) to engage local stakeholders in a workshop where each of four teams produced scenarios for concentrating projected growth within the currently developed “triangle” region of Bozeman, Belgrade, and Four Corners. This effort successfully integrated Envision Tomorrow scenario planning with housing unit projections from the Sonoran Institute’s Growth Model and demonstrated the value of ROI tools as a reality check on proposed land use and building types. The project also demonstrated the value of scenario planning to local experts.

Lessons learned include recognizing that (1) for many participants working with paper maps was more intuitive that the touch screen technology we had employed; (2) additional information on land characteristics, such as soil productivity and habitat values, should be used in preparing growth scenarios; and (3) more effective techniques are needed to visualize the density and design of different land use types, as well as to incorporate political and market realities that are not typically captured with scenario planning tools.

Products from this Montana project will include the creation of a library of regionally appropriate building types for use with ROI and scenario modeling and a report examining the costs and benefits, including sustainability impacts, of directing future growth to the triangle area of Gallatin Valley. With WLC support MSU has been able to incorporate the use of scenario planning tools in its graduate program.

Garfield County, Colorado

Sonoran Institute’s Western Colorado Legacy Area office, with support from the Lincoln Institute, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and other local contributors, utilized the Envision Tomorrow tool in a new way to advance implementation of previously adopted plans calling for mixed-use infill and redevelopment in target growth areas. This project focused on stakeholder education regarding the mechanisms necessary to implement recently adopted comprehensive plans calling for town-centered development, rather than on scenario generation for a comprehensive plan.

Examination of policy and market feasibility for redevelopment in downtown Rifle, Colorado, was one of three separate efforts undertaken. The City of Rifle project successfully utilized an ROI tool to identify financial and regulatory factors that could impact revitalization efforts and engaged the key parties necessary for implementation, including property owners, developers, realtors, planning commissioners, local officials, state transportation representatives, and local staff.

Among the lessons learned from this project was the importance of grounding bold visions with market reality. For example, previous planning efforts in Rifle had focused on six-to-eight-story mixed-use buildings, but in the current market even three-to-four-story projects are not considered feasible (figure 4c). Most attention now is given to two-story mixed-use projects and townhomes. Visualizations for an underutilized parcel in the center of town illustrated the type of one-story option that may be most feasible for initial commercial development (figure 4b). Constraints related to parking requirements and high minimum lot coverage requirements were also identified as limits on investment. In addition to pinpointing changes in Rifle’s building code, these findings spurred discussion about the role of public-private partnerships in catalyzing downtown development.

Morongo Basin, California

This area of high open space and wildlife habitat values between Joshua Tree National Park and the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Southern California may be impacted by spillover from regional growth. This project with the Morongo Basin Open Space Group involves an innovative effort to link results from the ongoing conservation priority-setting efforts with both a GIS tool to analyze and predict how land use patterns impact wildlife habitat and the scenario planning capability of Envision Tomorrow.

We are evaluating the environmental impacts of the current and potential alternative development patterns and location-specific planning and land use options. The tools being developed for this effort will be useful to land trusts throughout the country that are interested in engaging partners on local and regional planning issues and incorporating larger landscape conservation and wildlife habitat goals into their projects.

Open Source Planning Tools

Western Lands and Communities has recently been focusing on efforts to develop open source planning tools as a mechanism to increase the use of scenario planning. Key factors that hinder their use include: (1) the cost and complexity of the tools themselves; (2) the cost and availability of data; (3) a lack of standardization, making integration of tools and data difficult; and (4) proprietary tools that may be difficult to adapt to local conditions and may impede innovation.

Proponents of open source modeling tools believe open and standardized coding will facilitate increased transparency and interoperability between models, ultimately resulting in faster innovation and greater utilization. As a result of our work with Envision Tomorrow on the Superstition Vistas project, WLC and other members of an open source planning tools group are continuing to advance scenario planning tools and pursue the promise of open source tools that can foster sustainable communities in many more locations.

About the Author

Jim Holway directs Western Lands and Communities, the Lincoln Institute’s joint venture with the Sonoran Institute, based in Phoenix, Arizona. He was previously assistant director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources and a professor of practice at Arizona State University.

References

Propst, Luther. 2008. A model for sustainable development in Arizona’s Sun Corridor. Land Lines 20(3).

Superstition Vistas Consulting Team. 2011. Superstition Vistas: Final report and strategic actions. www.superstition-vistas.org

Lincoln Institute Publications

Brail, Richard K. 2008. Planning support systems for cities and regions.

Campoli, Julie, and Alex S. MacLean. 2007. Visualizing density.

Condon, Patrick M., Duncan Cavens, and Nicole Miller. 2009. Urban planning tools for climate change mitigation.

Culp, Peter W., Andy Laurenzi, and Cynthia C. Tuell. 2006. State trust lands in the West: Fiduciary duty in a changing landscape.

Hopkins, Lewis D., and Marisa A. Zapata. 2007. Engaging the future: Forecasts, scenarios, plans, and projects.

Kwartler, Michael, and Gianni Longo. 2008. Visioning and visualization: People, pixels, and plans.

For planning processes to resolve the pressing issues of our day—such as climate change, traffic congestion, and social justice—plans must be made at the appropriate scale, must promulgate appropriate implementation tools, and must be enforced with legitimate authority. That is, our ability to meet critical challenges depends on the legal and institutional foundations of planning.

In the United States, responsibility for establishing these foundations for planning rests with the states, which in turn have delegated most land use authority to local governments. In Europe, the foundations of planning are established by each country, whose planning systems often feature national and regional plans as well as a mosaic of local plans. For better and for worse, these institutional foundations have framed the planning process on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean for most of the post-war period. But as the scope of our planning challenges continues to broaden, and discontent with the status quo continues to spread, several states and European nations have begun to experiment with new and innovative approaches to planning.

The opportunity to explore and discuss these issues brought scholars, practitioners, students, and others to Dublin, Ireland, in October 2012 for a two-day seminar sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and organized by the School of Geography, Planning, and Environmental Policy at University College Dublin and the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland. Held in the historic Newman House on St. Stephen’s Green, the meetings featured overview papers on planning in the United States and Europe and case studies of five U.S. states and five European nations. Each presentation was followed by commentary from a high-level official from the corresponding state or nation (see box 1).

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Box 1: Papers Presented at the Dublin Seminar on Planning for States and Nation/States, October 2012

Bierbaum, Marty
The New Jersey State Development Plan

Faludi, Andreas
The Europeanisation of Planning and the Role of ESPON

Fulton, Bill
Planning for Climate Change in California

Galland, Daniel
The Danish National Spatial Planning Framework

Geppert, Anna
Spatial Planning in France

Grist, Berna
The Irish National Spatial Strategy

Knaap, Gerrit
PlanMaryland: A Work in Progress

Lewis, Rebecca
The Delaware State Development Plan

Needham, Barrie
The National Spatial Strategy for The Netherlands

Salkin, Patricia
Planning Frameworks in the United States and the Role of the Federal Government

Seltzer, Ethan
Land Use Planning in Oregon: The Quilt and the Struggle for Scale

Tewdwer-Jones, Mark
National Planning for the United Kingdom

For more information about the seminar, see the program website: http://www.ucd.ie/gpep/events/seminarsworkshopsconferences/natplansymp2012

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A Framework for Spatial Planning in Europe

Planning in Europe is governed by a variety of traditions and governance structures (Faludi 2012). Some European nations have “unitary” governance structures, in which all land use authority ultimately rests with the national government. Italy and Spain have “regional” governance structures, in which land use authority is constitutionally shared between the national government and regional governments. Austria, Belgium, and Germany have “federalist” governance structures, in which particular land use functions are distributed among the national, regional, and local governments. Within these frameworks a variety of planning cultures and traditions have evolved: “amenagement duterritoire” in France; “town and country planning” in the UK; “Raumordnung” in Germany; and “ruimtelijke ordening” in The Netherlands. While these terms generally connote what “urban planning” means in the United States, there are important, nuanced, and fiercely defended differences.

The expression for urban planning used by the European Union is “spatial planning” (European Commission 1997, 24).

“Spatial planning refers to the methods used largely by the public sector to influence the future distribution of activities in space. It is undertaken with the aims of creating a more rational territorial organization of land uses and the linkages between them, to balance demands for development with the need to protect the environment, and to achieve social and economic objectives.

“Spatial planning embraces measures to co-ordinate the spatial impact of other sectoral policies, to achieve a more even distribution of economic development between regions than would otherwise be created by market forces, and to regulate the conversion of land and property uses.”

The European Union has no authority to engage in spatial planning, but directly influences spatial planning outcomes through regional development initiatives, environmental directives, and structural and cohesion funding. This goal is articulated in the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) signed in 1998 by the ministers responsible for spatial planning in the member states and the members of the European Commission responsible for regional policy (Faludi 2002).

Modern spatial planning in the European context is broadly understood to include national, regional, and local planning, where national plans provide broad national development strategies and guidelines for plans at lower levels of government; regional plans integrate physical development with social, economic, and environmental policies but without site-level specificity; and local plans are site-specific and address the physical and urban design elements of the built environment. While none of the planning frameworks for the member nations matches this neat hierarchical ideal exactly, the ESDP has influenced planning activity in every nation.

The ESDP itself is based on longstanding European planning traditions dating to World War II, when national development or reconstruction plans were indisputably necessary for post-war reparations. Many European nations still have national development plans and complementary national spatial strategies. But the influence and importance of those plans has diminished steadily since reconstruction. In the last decade in particular, nations once known for their ambitious and extensive commitment to planning—France, Denmark, and the United Kingdom among them—have failed to adopt new national plans and expressly placed greater emphasis on regional and local plans.

National European Spatial Strategies and Frameworks

France

Although France is a unitary, centralized nationstate, the national government has never played a leading role in spatial planning. Rather, responsibility for spatial planning was officially transferred to regional and local governments in devolutionary reforms adopted in 1982 and 2003 (Geppert 2012). Although coordination between governments at different levels continues, this process results more often in joint investment strategies rather than in shared spatial visions or common objectives. Before most other nations, the French national government began focusing less on spatial planning and more on sectoral policies, leaving spatial issues for lower levels of government.

Denmark

Planning in Denmark historically began with a comprehensive national planning framework (Galland 2012). Over the last two decades, however, as a result of interrelated political and economic factors, the land use roles of national, local, and regional governments within the national territory have significantly transformed the scope, structure, and understanding of Danish spatial planning (figure 1).

Among the implications of this reform, several spatial planning responsibilities have been decentralized to the local level while regional planning for Greater Copenhagen and other sectoral functions have been transferred to the national level. Moreover, the recent abolition of the county level of government has increased the risk of uncoordinated spatial planning and decreased coherence across diverse policy institutions and instruments.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands has perhaps the longest and best-known tradition of national spatial planning, and its plans include industrial as well as detailed spatial policies (Needham 2012). For several decades, Dutch national plans influenced the distribution of people and activities throughout the country. In the first decades after World War II, all levels of government—national, provincial, and municipal—tended to work together in their spatial planning. In the 1990s, however, they started to move apart. In response, the national government strengthened its own powers over the local governments (a form of centralization), and at the same time reduced its own ambitions to pursue a national spatial strategy (a form of decentralization). The latest national spatial strategy expressly withdraws from some planning tasks previously carried out by the national government.

United Kingdom

In the early 1900s, the UK Parliament divested its direct powers to plan; instead, the powers of intervention, new state housing development, and regulation of private housing development were handed over to local governments (Tewdwr-Jones 2012). In the following decades, the central government did acquire new planning powers of its own as a consequence of World War II and the need to rebuild cities, infrastructure, and the economy in the national interest. Since 1945, central government has retained these powers, while also permitting the monitoring of local authorities in their operation of the planning system.

These powers have changed dramatically over the last 70 years. After 1999, devolution in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland further fragmented the meaning of “national” in policy and planning terms. During the 2000s, the push toward regional spatial planning in England also rebalanced national planning matters toward sub-national interests. As a result of this trend in devolution, decentralization, regionalism, and localism over the last 20 years, it is increasingly questionable whether the UK now possesses anything that could be regarded as a national planning system, since so much has changed spatially and within policy-making institutions and processes across different parts of the country.

Ireland

Ireland is one of few European nations not following the trend toward decentralization of planning authority, partly due to the fact that its planning system has been fully decentralized (Grist 2012). Largely following EU guidelines, Ireland adopted a series of national development plans, the latest one being the National Development Plan 2007–2013. Based on recommendations in the previous national plan, the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government in 2002 developed the Ireland National Spatial Strategy. This strategy identified critical gateways and hubs and articulated plans to decentralize economic activity from Dublin and throughout the island.

Following a turbulent period that saw the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger, blamed in part on lax local planning policies allied with extensive incentivizing of property development and political corruption, the country is now revisiting that strategy, strengthening regional development guidelines, and imposing new consistency requirements on local governments.

Under the new evidence-based planning regime, local plans must conform more closely with regional planning guidelines, and local plans will have quantitative limits on how much development can be allowed. The future role of the National Spatial Strategy is currently in the review process as the new government, elected following the property crash in Ireland, examines the planning and development issues that prevailed during the property bubble.

The Federal Government and Land Use in the United States

The U.S. federal government, like the European Union, has no authority to plan and manage land use, but probably has a greater influence on the location and nature of development patterns (Salkin 2012). Besides the billions of dollars it allocates for transportation infrastructure, social services, development, and redevelopment, the federal government is a major landowner of more than 630 million acres across the country. Federal regulations are also highly influential. The Clean Air and Water Acts, for example, impose no restrictions on land use per se, but in establishing targets for ambient air quality and nutrient loadings to rivers, lakes, and streams, both acts profoundly influence local land use plans, regulations, and development patterns.

More recently, President Barack Obama’s administration has established a new channel of federal influence on land use planning and regulation. While the federal government continues to refrain from direct intervention in local land use governance, the secretaries of the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development and of the Environmental Protection Agency signed a memorandum of understanding establishing the Sustainable Communities Partnership. To promote six principles of sustainable communities, these agencies launched a number of new grants programs, including the Regional Sustainable Communities Planning Grants. To be eligible for such a grant, local governments must form inter-organizational consortia that include the metropolitan planning organization (MPO), the central city, the majority of local governments, and a representation of civic and advocacy groups.

While the stated purposes of these path-breaking grants include urban revitalization, environmental protection, social justice, and sustainable development, an equally important purpose is to establish new inter-institutional relationships by promoting greater inclusion and participation. Regional Sustainable Communities Planning is now underway in 74 metropolitan areas across the country. It remains to be seen, however, whether the incentives offered to local governments to engage in regional planning are sufficient to get them to participate in regional plan implementation without additional state-level intervention.

State Plans and State Planning Frameworks

Every state established a framework for local planning and regulation in the 1920s and 1930s based on the standard planning and zoning enabling acts prepared by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Despite expectations of extensive institutional change, characterized in the “Quiet Revolution” more than 40 years ago, most states merely authorize local governments to plan (Salkin 2012).

Others, like Oregon, mandate, review, and approve local plans (Seltzer 2012). If local governments do not submit plans that meet the state’s land use goals and guidelines, the state can withhold funds or the authority to issue building permits. Several unique land use institutions also support the Oregon planning system, including a state planning commission, a land use court of appeals, and a directly elected regional government. Though simple in structure, and frequently challenged in the courts and at the ballot box, the Oregon system has a reputation as one of the most, if not the most, effective land use systems in the United States (Ingram et al. 2009).

California is among the states that delegated substantial land use authority to local governments. Although major development projects have to pass a complex mini-National Environment Policy Act process, and the California Coastal Commission was an innovative new statewide institution in its day, local planning remains dominant. But in 2008, the state adopted a bold new initiative to address climate change—Senate Bill 375, which required MPOs to develop transportation and land use plans that meet state greenhouse gas targets. The difficulty is that local governments, not MPOs, retain land use authority in California. MPOs and the state governments are providing incentives for local governments to adopt plans that conform with metropolitan plans, but it remains uncertain whether the combination of financial and other incentives are sufficient to nudge local governments to follow the MPO plans (Fulton 2012).

At the other extreme, plans for entire states are not common in the United States. In response to federal requirements, most states do have transportation plans, and some have economic development plans, workforce development plans, or climate action plans, but only five have state development plans—Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

New Jersey and Delaware have perhaps the best- and least-known state plans, respectively. New Jersey adopted its State Planning Act in 1985, requiring the state planning commission to develop, adopt, and implement the New Jersey State Development and Redevelopment Plan (Bierbaum 2012). The planning process included a complex cross-acceptance procedure for identifying and resolving differences between the state and local governments. Since its adoption, the influence of and attention received by the plan has ebbed and flowed over successive gubernatorial administrations. Most recently, Governor Chris Christie’s administration developed an entirely new state plan, focused primarily on economic development without the cross-acceptance process. The state plan commission, however, has not yet adopted the plan.

The Delaware plan is much less well-known and far less controversial than the New Jersey plan, and both the content and process are less complex (Lewis 2012). The Delaware plan includes five general land designations (figure 2). It depends on state-local coordination and relies on the threat of withholding infrastructure funding (of which the state pays a significant share) to incentivize compliance by local governments. Because the state did not begin tracking data on development patterns until 2008, and does not maintain spatial data on state expenditures, it is difficult to discern the impact of the approach on development and the consistency of state spending with the state plan map.

Maryland is the only state that rivals California and Oregon in its adoption of bold new approaches to planning, based on its long tradition of leadership in land use and environmental policy (Knaap 2012). Maryland established the first state plan commission in 1933, and broke into the national spotlight in 1997, when it adopted the path-breaking Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation Act. Since 1997 the use of state expenditures to provide incentives for smart growth has been the signature feature of the Maryland approach. Long before anyone in Maryland spoke the words “smart growth,” however, the state had passed legislation in 1959 that required the Maryland Department of Planning to develop and adopt a state development plan. More than 50 years later, the administration of Governor Martin O’Malley finally met that requirement.

On December 19, 2011, Governor O’Malley signed PlanMaryland, establishing the first new state development plan in the United States in many years (figure 3). But unlike state plans in New Jersey or Delaware, the Maryland plan is more procedural than substantive. Specifically, it established six plan designation categories and, following a longstanding Maryland tradition, enabled local governments to allocate land for any or all designated uses. State agencies would then target programmatic funds to each of these areas. Since the plan was signed, state agencies have been developing and refining implementation plans, and local governments have just recently begun submitting plans for state certification.

Concluding Comments

The frameworks for land use and spatial planning vary extensively across Europe and the United States. On both sides of the Atlantic, local governments carry much of the load, especially with respect to community, neighborhood, and site-specific details. But the role of regions, states, and nations remains important.

Contrary to its reputation in the United States, planning in many European nations has decentralized extensively. Few European nations are engaged in full-scale national plans that guide national investments and land use regulations. In fact, planning in Europe, while still far more comprehensive in sectoral details than in the United States, shares many policy features with its North American counterpart. An interesting exception is Ireland, which continues to expand the role of national and regional governments partly as a response to the recent period of extremely decentralized planning that failed to take into account and implement the national strategy. Ireland is also one of the few countries adhering to the broad principles of spatial planning formally adopted by the European Union.

In the United States, neither state development planning nor state approval of local plans is a rapidly growing practice. Indeed, despite the demonstrated success of the Oregon program and the growing recognition of the need for horizontal and vertical policy integration, land use planning in the United States remains a fiercely local affair. Although both the state of California and the federal government are providing financial incentives for intergovernmental coordination and planning at the metropolitan scale, it remains far from certain that incentives alone will secure the changes in local plans and regulations required to institute meaningful adjustments in land consumption, travel behavior, and access to opportunities.

New approaches are needed to make cites and metropolitan areas more productive, equitable, and environmentally sustainable in light of anticipated challenges in the future. If these issues cannot be addressed adequately, other kinds of experiments in institutional planning reforms may become more common in many countries.

About the Authors

Gerrit Knaap is professor of urban studies and planning, director of the National Center for Smart Growth, and associate dean of the School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at the University of Maryland.

Zorica Nedovic-Budic is professor of spatial planning and geographic information systems (GIS) in the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Policy at University College Dublin.

References

Denmark Ministry of the Environment. 2006. The 2006 national planning report–In brief. Copenhagen. http://www.sns.dk/udgivelser/2006/87-7279-728-2/html/default_eng.htm

European Commission. 1997. The EU compendium of spatial planning systems and policies. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Faludi, Andreas. 2002. European spatial planning. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Ingram, Gregory K., Armando Carbonell, Yu-Hung Hong, and Anthony Flint. 2009. Smart growth policies: An evaluation of programs and outcomes. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.