Can We Afford "Smart Growth?"

A new UW study of Seattle housing prices says "No":

Between 1989 and 2006, the median inflation-adjusted price of a Seattle house rose from $221,000 to $447,800. Fully $200,000 of that increase was the result of land-use regulations, says Theo Eicher — twice the financial impact that regulation has had on other major U.S. cities.

What land-use regulations you say?

A key regulation is the state's Growth Management Act, enacted in 1990 in response to widespread public concern that sprawl could destroy the area's unique character. To preserve it, the act promoted restrictions on where housing can be built. The result is artificial density that has driven up home prices by limiting supply, Eicher says.

And who is it that pushes for these onerous regulations?

According to the Wharton study, cities such as Seattle that have high median incomes, high home prices and a large percentage of college-educated workers tend to have the most land-use regulations.

Sjoblom says that makes sense: "People with higher incomes want the kind of amenities that regulation provides," he says. "If you're a homeowner and growth controls are imposed and housing prices shoot up, you're grandfathered because you own the place. In theory people will say it's [rising prices] a bad thing, but in practice it's not hurting them."

[...]

In the final analysis, Eicher believes Seattle's regulatory climate exists because its residents want it. "My sense is land-use restrictions are imposed to generate socially desirable outcomes," he says. "We all love parks and green spaces. But we must also be informed about the costs. It's very easy to vote for a park if you think the cost is free."

Ah, now I see. The same old unholy alliance of left-wing no-growthers and selfish NIMBYists.

Pullman suffers from the same sort of problem as Seattle does to a lesser extent: artificially high home prices created by regulations created by snobby eltitists. For example, the PARDners say they want affordable housing while at the same time pressing for even more restrictive land use regulations. And let's not forget Cheryl Morgan and the League of Women Voters who also work to do everything they can to make development more difficult in Pullman.

Perception Becomes Reality

The Perception:

With the denial of a rezone that would have brought a Wal-Mart Supercenter to Moscow and the institution of the Large Retail Establishment Ordinance — aka the big-box ordinance — in February, some people say there is a perception Moscow isn’t welcome to new business, or is too selective on what it allows.

Some are concerned that Moscow will lose its status as “retail base of the Palouse” to Whitman County, while others say they are just trying to protect the Moscow they know and love.

- "Chilly climate for commerce?", Moscow-Pullman Daily News, December 19, 2006

The Reality:

From last Saturday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Home Depot puts brakes on Moscow store

The Home Depot won't be locating in Moscow anytime soon.

The national home-improvement and garden retail outlet had been working toward an agreement to build a store behind the Palouse Mall in Moscow, but corporate officials have decided to take a step back, said Gerard Billington, real estate officer for the University of Idaho.

"We had been working with Home Depot vigorously and we thought we had an agreement, but they declined," Billington said. "They didn't think the deal worked out for them.

"They were crunching numbers, looking at site numbers, site prep costs, land costs, development costs and potential revenue from sales in smaller markets."

The University of Idaho owns the 600-acre piece of land where Home Depot was looking to build, and any deal between the UI and Home Depot would have been a ground lease.

Billington said as far as he knows, the fact that Lowe's - a national home improvement store planning to locate in a proposed retail development in Whitman County - could be coming to the area had nothing to do with Home Depot's hesitation.

"I'm sure Lowe's would impact a future Home Depot and Home Depot would impact a future Lowe's, but I don't know that it was a decision point," he said.

UI officials have had a couple conversations with Home Depot since last fall in an attempt to work out an agreement, but no commitment has been made.

"They wanted to take another look at the agreement," Billington said.

He said he hasn't heard anything from Home Depot since the UI's last conversation with company officials in December.

"Home Depot continues to review and monitor the market and trade area for a site that will work for us and serve the community well," Home Depot spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher said. "To date, an economical solution has not been found. However, we are constantly turning over new ideas, leads and solutions."

This is "Selective?"

In August 2007, Queen Nancy proclaimed that "Selective growth means knowing what type of growth is right for Moscow and encouraging it."

Chaney stated that having the focus of development "on the automobile, the strip development with shoulder-to-shoulder big-boxes would encourage homogeneity in the community" and that Moscow needed to maintain its "artsy, quirky edge."

Enter Shari's Restaurant.

According to Saturday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News, a Shari's Restaurant will open off Pullman Road on the west side of Moscow near Applebee's. The 5,000 square-foot will seat 180-185 people and be open 24/7.

What? So you mean that Shari's, on the far-edge of town away from any housing is NOT "automobile development" and NOT "shoulder-to-shoulder" with big-box Wal-Mart a few yards away?

What about sustainability? Where do you think the "half a million cups of coffee, cracks a quarter million eggs, fries over five miles of sausage links and toasts nearly 150,000 pieces of bread" that according to the article the average Shari's serves every year will come from? How many truck trips do you think that will generate? How much gas will be used to ship in those supplies and how much carbon emissions will be generated?

What about "homogeneity?" Shari's already has 98 other stores in six states. In what way does a chain restuarant maintain Moscow's "artsy, quirky edge?"

Don't even get me started on "living wages." I've worked retail and I've worked the early shift at a Shari's type restaurant washing dishes. Restaurant work is worse.

And let's not forget Mayor Moonbat's mantra: water.

According to the Idaho Department of Water Resources Restaurants with bar/lounge, toilet facilities use 9-12 gallons per day per patron. The Southwest Florida Water Management District estimates that resturants use use an average of 5,800 gallons per day (GPD) of water, half of that in the kitchen area (ice machines, dishwasher, etc.) That adds up to a whopping 2,111,700 gallons a year!

Of course, all this folderol about sprawl, homogeneity, sustainability and water ise silly. And I could care less about the hypocrisy of what Chaney states she wants and what is actually allowed to happen in Moscow. BUT THESE SAME ARGUMENTS ARE BEING USED BY MOSCOW TO STOP THE HAWKINS DEVELOPMENT IN WHITMAN COUNTY, JUST A FEW HUNDRED FEET AWAY FROM SHARI'S!!

Darrell Keim, executive director of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce, was quoted in the paper as saying, "I'm excited to see the growth of business at the Warbonnet Plaza. Regardless of what happens with the Hawkins development we'll see growth in that part of town ... it seems to be the natural spot."

Of course it is. Hopefully, the new Moscow City Council will recognize this, drop their water rights transfer appeals and extend utility service to the Hawkins development.

Quote of the Day

[Financial consultant for D.A. Davidson and Co., Jeremy] Nesset asked how Keim would lead the chamber if a business such as Wal-Mart wanted to come in and chamber membership was split in opinion.

- "Keim outlines direction for Moscow Chamber of Commerce," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, November 16, 2007

NEWSFLASH: WAL-MART HAS BEEN IN MOSCOW FOR 15 YEARS!!!

The real question should have been, "What would the chamber's reaction be if a chamber member such as Wal-Mart, or Tri-State, or James Toyota wanted to relocate and/or expand its current facilities?" Oh brother.

No wonder new Moscow Chamber of Commerce executive director Darrell Keim was quoted as "It's been an interesting year at the chamber." It's like being in charge of the East Berlin Chamber of Commerce.

Gee, No One Invited Whitman County?

There was a story in yesterday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News about the Moscow Congress, which is part of the process of rewriting the city’s comprehensive plan. Shockingly, no Whitman County residents participated.

I guarantee you that if there were any such gathering in Whitman County, Moscow residents would demand to attend. In fact, some quotes from the story demonstrated that attitude:

“We can’t talk about land use without including Pullman,” Moscow resident Bill McLaughlin said.

“We need to focus on the region when we think about economic development. The changing of the character is affected by what both communities do.”

No thanks, Bill. As it is, in today's Daily News, Mayor Moonbat, in discussing Moscow's new "sustainability" intern, said:

"Sustainability doesn't stop at jurisdictional boundaries; it exists within an ecosystem or a region."

"Sustainability" may not stop at the border, but your kingdowm does, Queen.

I may have been wrong about Bill Parks, however:

Moscow resident and Northwest River Supplies owner Bill Parks said the opposite of sprawl is “extremely high prices for housing.”

“Smart growth means high prices,” he said.

Absolutely true. And some Moscow residents do get it:

Moscow resident Laura Taylor said Moscow needs to make it easier for businesses to locate without putting a bunch of conditions on development.

“Both (Whitman and Latah) counties are starved for tax dollars,” she said. “We don’t have the option to manage growth that is going to occur outside of our boundaries.”

Here's My Beef with Mitt Romney

I am not a fan of Mitt Romney, and as I have stated earlier, it has nothing to with him being a Mormon.

No, it appears as if Mitt Romney is one of these elitist, "smart growth," drawbridge types. I guess you would have to be if you were Governor of Massachusetts. We'll see if Romney backflips on these statements they way he has on gay rights, gun control, abortion, etc. After all, there are a lot of votes in Texas....

The Irony of Gov. Romney's Urban Planning Proposals

By advocating tighter land use controls, and using public funds to buy up open space, Romney ensures that housing costs will continue to climb and congestion will continue to worsen

by Owen Courrèges
Owen Courrèges is a Research Fellow in the Urban Futures Program at the Reason Foundation

May 5, 2004 -- Just this February, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney had the opportunity to visit Houston for Superbowl XXXVIII. Later, in he was quoted in the Boston Globe describing the experience as a “eyeful,” saying that Houston was a negative example of “what happens when you don’t have zoning.”

He then clarified, “We don't want to see strip mall after strip mall. We want to see lovely town centers and villages.”

Apparently, Romney decided to run with this characterization. In a speech given in Littleton in early April, he again mocked Houston ’s planning policies, noting that during the course of his visit, “I couldn’t find the town center.”

Now it goes without saying that Governor Romney is entitled to his opinion. He can cite Houston as an example of what no city aspires to become as often as he pleases to whatever accolades he may receive. However, it would be useful to understand the flaws inherent in the alternative proposed by Romney, flaws which are far from inconsequential.

First, there’s the issue of cost. Romney’s vision of highly-centralized urban planning serves as a major financial strain on homeowners. For example, if you earned $70,000 per year in Houston , you would need to earn more than $134,000 in Boston , the largest city in Massachusetts , just to maintain the same standard of living. That’s nearly double. Just imagine what a person could save for retirement with an extra $64,000 in disposable income every year.

The reasons for this disparity in cost-of-living should be readily apparent. Houston , as Romney notes, does not have a single business district. Instead, it has several, and thus there exists a greater supply of real estate available close to employment. This drives down prices.

It also decreases traffic congestion and travel-to-work times. Out of four indicators of congestion utilized by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, Boston only edges out Houston in one indicator – Annual Delay per Capita. However, the only reason for this is that more Bostonians use public transit, and for transit users, the annual delay due to congestion is zero. It doesn’t mean, however, that they do not experience delays.

According to the US Census, between the 1990 and 2000 travel-to-work times increased by 17.9% in Boston , but by only 10.4% in Houston . Moreover, Houston increased in population by approximately 8.7% during this period, while Boston grew by a mere 2.2%. Put these together, and it’s clear that Boston is experiencing far greater increases in commuting times despite anemic population growth.

Massachusetts as a whole, in fact, is losing population. According to a study by MassInc released in December 2003, “over the last 12 years -- including those of unprecedented economic expansion -- Massachusetts lost, on net, 213,000 residents to other states.”

What is the reason for this migration? According to MassInc’s survey, the number one motive for migrating was “to go somewhere with a lower cost of living or taxes.”

Ironically, in his speech delivered in Littleton Governor Romney billed his urban planning agenda as necessary “[t]o keep Massachusetts economically competitive.” As has been shown, the opposite is the case. By advocating tighter land use controls, and using public funds to buy up open space, Romney ensures that housing costs will continue to climb and congestion will continue to worsen.

None of this is to argue that Houston is necessarily a better place to live, but it does demonstrate that “lovely town centers and villages” are not enough to foster economic development. Indeed, the pursuit of these things have left Massachusetts on the cusp of economic stagnation.

Houston , conversely, has grown to be fourth largest city in the country. This is because Houston has realized that, as World Bank researcher Gregory Ingram wrote in 1996, “industry is attracted by freeways and special facilities such as airports, but not by central locations.” Romney doesn’t seem to recognize this. His agenda drives business away.

Ultimately, the most forward-thinking urban planning does not regulate, but instead allows the market to flourish. It makes it inexpensive for people to live and travel. By these standards, it would seem that Massachusetts has fallen well behind the curve.

Romney should think twice before derisively citing Houston as a case of planning gone awry. That distinction deservedly belongs to his own state.

A Brand for the Palouse?

According to today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

"A group of representatives from throughout the Palouse are looking to create a branding image for the so-called "Knowledge Corridor."
...
[Moscow Chamber of Commerce Interim Director Janice] McMillan said through the Knowledge Corridor concept she hopes to attract businesses that can help the area grow.

Considering Nancy Chaney, Mark Solomon, PARD, No Super WalMart, stalking herons, frolicking cute bunnies, viewsheds, used $40 bikes, charming valleys, tiny brooks, European cities, sweatshop forums, Main Street, unique rural character, a thousand other places, etc. ad nauseum, here is my entry for the "knowledge corridor" branding contest:


Why not? My brand would accomplish the same thing as what we read in the newspaper every day and save both paper and ink.

Why bother encouraging growth at all when there are people in the community doing everything they can to stop it?

The Unholy Alliance, Part Seven

Many critics allege that "smart growthers" are really "no growthers," a claim that "smart growthers" go to extreme lengths to deny.

However, as this 2002 column by Dr. Chris Williamson, a planner in California, shows that after the NIMBY crowd hijacked the "smart growth" movement, "no growth" is often what they really want. This rhetoric sounds awfully familiar with what we have been hearing on the Palouse lately.

For example, the faux-smart growth group PARD is against residential development in area zoned C2, whereas true smart growth is about increasing densities in the urban core and building in, not out.

Is No Growth Also Smart Growth?

Most local planners view some accommodation of projected population increases as the "right thing to do" and reluctantly support "No Growth" policies when forced to by their elected officials and/or voters. Many of us work and/or live in communities with growth pressure where some of the amenities and quality of life that residents enjoy are threatened by growth. Following are four arguments to respectfully offer the "No Growth" alternative as an arguable position for local planners.

1. There Is No End To Population Growth

In California, planners talk about "the next 15 million Californians by 2020" as if that is the sum population to accommodate with housing and jobs and water, and then we're done. But five years from now we'll be talking about "the next 15 million Californians by 2025"; and five years later, "15 million by 2030." There is no foreseeable end in site to growth in California and, to varying degrees, in many other areas of the Nation.

Based on the Census Bureau's national population projections over your lifetime and children's, any desirable area is going to see continuous demand from internal growth, intra-state migration (as increasingly digital job-holders seek out desirable places to live), and international migration.

If your city or county develops housing and jobs to meet 20-year projections, the No Growth argument is that it will only encourage more people in the long-term as well. The analogy is an added freeway lane -- there is a temporary reduction in traffic volume which attracts more drivers and congestion returns.

Arguably, there are really only two future scenarios for communities in desirable areas: 1) high housing costs with some preserved open space and agricultural and 2) high housing costs without open space and agriculture. Accommodating growth never ends, therefore the rational choice is to draw the line now while you still have something to save, no matter the consequences.

2. Buildout Is A Myth

As the activist cities and counties shut down growth one by one, growth will flow like water down the path of least resistance. General Plans will change little by little -- a parcel here, a policy there -- as market pressures increase. Homeowners will be tempted to "cash out" their equity rather than stay and fight development since tax laws now allow substantial tax-free capital gains. Rents will rise and make recycling of older commercial areas profitable.

Infill and Smart Growth policies are temporary fixes. There are only so many infill sites, and Smart Growth may raise the average density but in the long run that, too, will eventually "fill up." More and more surrounding open spaces are being taken 'off the market' for species habitat or water sheds or parks or preserves. Here in California, finding new sources of water is now a bigger hurdle and no county or city wants to front infrastructure costs. Several counties have effectively shut down the conversion of agriculture to urban uses by requiring voter approval of "open space to urban" General Plan amendments, a relatively simple and court-tested method that may spread across the country.

All these events are slowly drawing a noose around entire regions of existing urban areas as opposed to just one or two cities here and there. As a result, we are seeing longer "interregional commuting." There are exceptions for pro-growth areas but even these areas will soon find themselves inundated with development and congestion so intense that they, too, may change their tune. In a state of constant population growth, you either build up or out, and building out is becoming less and less of an option and building up is contentious. The third alternative is to "just say no", although few planners willingly take that position.

3. It Shouldn't Only Be Just A "Buyer's Market"

Our legal system favors the "buyer" when it comes to growth. In a sense, local governments and their communities are "sellers" and the new households (formed by current residents or newcomers) are the "buyers." We shop for communities that offer the best mix of amenities for our dollars and what we can or want to spend. Local governments, on the other hand, are required to provide services to everyone within their jurisdiction, if you find a place to live.

Unfortunately, the poor will always get pushed around in a market-based economy and there are very few communities willing to risk being inundated with additional population as a result of trying to increase housing supply to help the local low-income population. In many cases, the new housing leads to the middle class "spreading out" and/or a second home market and the poor are still crowded into a small corner or, in some areas, forced out of the area and into long commutes.

Trying to accommodate rapid population growth in areas where it's not welcome is similar to correcting inherent flaws in both democracy -- in that incoming households cannot vote locally and local voters are motivated to protect what they have -- and our market-based economy, where higher income households will outbid the poor. It's a tall order that will likely fail.

Then, there is the underlying tension between regional and state governments and the business community who generally like some regular growth and those local voters who don't want any growth and elect local officials with the same mandate. For example, California's Regional Housing Need Allocation program says, in essence, that local communities "have to sell" to future buyers at prices the buyers want to pay (i.e. a range of values and rents).

Isn't that inherently unfair? The market should work both ways. If buyers can look around and 'buy' into a community that is being forced to produce housing at the buyer's preferred price, then the selling communities should also have the right to sell at its preferred price. If a community or region refuses to grow, the result may be higher prices, economic displacement and hardship, and dangerous crowded housing in exchange for keeping a desirable quality of life for the "already landed" middle- and upper-income groups. If the local voters are willing to pay this price, why should planners try to prevent it? If you want to lessen those undesirable impacts, then restrict both supply and demand, but not just supply. Otherwise the only control of demand is higher housing prices.

Who will win in a showdown between local "NIMBY - No Growth" and regional and state planning "you must take a fair share?" Who elects state legislators? If the stakes get high enough, look for a statewide No Growth "get rid of housing allocations" movement similar to the California Proposition 13 tax revolt of the 1970's. Whose side do you want to be on? Welcome to the realities of a democracy and market-based economy.

4. No National Growth Policy, Self-Defense Is Your Right

It's a national market for housing and growth -- and in some areas, international. As long as the Federal Government has no real effective growth policies -- meaning where growth occurs -- then every community has "the right of self-defense." You could argue that the income tax deduction for mortgage interest and local real estate taxes and the every-two-years $250,000 capital gains exemption for sale of principal residence is a national growth policy, and that it encourages sprawl. Both are large subsidies for homeownership that generally increase with the more you buy. In decades past, the Federal Government subsidized and explicitly directed growth through transportation (canals, railroads, and highways), land grants and sales, and other subsidies to local governments.

Those days are gone. Some states are growing too fast while others have excess capacity. It is therefore arguable that the national government should do more to be aware of unanticipated consequences of the tax code and direct growth among the states and metro-areas? As long as Congress and the White House have laissez-faire growth policies, No Growth is an arguable smart move.

I like the comment on Williamson's column that stated:

No growth policies could never work in small town America. What it would become is another mechanism for the "townies" to get around local reg's and zoning while all others are rejected. I will maintain that local governments are the number one enemy of private property rights.

Amen

Moscow's water use washes away your arguments

Mark Solomon, who observes the Palouse from his homestead on top of Moscow Mountain and is hopefully not ruining the views for other people said:

Big boxes and car dealerships or knowledge-based industries? Are you listening Whitman County? There's only so much water to go around.

Sure, we are listening. Why does it have to be an either/or situation? No one is trying to stop "knowledge-based industries" from locating on SR270. But that is because there is no one to stop! No one is lining up to do it. Stop with this PARD like tactic. PARD uses Target to try to stop WalMart. Moscowites (who love our tax dollars) try to stop retail development in Whitman County by using "knowledge-based industries" as a distraction.

Oh, yeah, about that water comment...

Since 1992 Moscow has exceeded their targeted water use by 763 million gallons. While during the same period Pullman has come in below their target by 644 million gallons.

Maybe if Moscow didn't hog all the water in the aquifer, we would have some for the Hawkins development.

The Pullman NIMBY Manifesto

WSU Professor Kathryn Meier's Town Crier column in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News is a Pullman NIMBY Manifesto for the ages.

The Palouse is an incredibly beautiful place. While traveling elsewhere, I have pointed to the ubiquitous Microsoft screensaver with the rolling green hills and said with pride, "That is where I live."

I fear that we may be taking this natural beauty for granted. In the course of discussions about public policy in Whitman County, I cannot recall seeing anything that specifically addresses issues concerning landscape, terrain and green space.

A couple of ongoing construction projects serve to illustrate the point. On Military Hill in Pullman, a development called "Meadow Creek" is being built opposite the high school. The name itself is ironic. In order to create access to the new housing development, a charming little valley has been partially filled in with massive amounts of soil to generate a roadway. The fill has obliterated a large section of the meadow, along with part of the creek (which now flows through a culvert). This is a rather major reworking of the local landscape, but I do not recall seeing any discussion of public hearings in the local press. It is possible the finished project will be gentle on the eye, and it will certainly provide much-needed housing, but I find the apparent lack of discussion about the larger issue disturbing.

Another interesting development is the small retail mall nearing completion along Bishop Boulevard. The building is attractive enough, and the retail space should be a great addition to Pullman. Again, what concerns me is a lack of debate about the location and design of the project. The new building sits along the bank of the river. Trees that had once been planted for public beautification were torn out along the riverfront, although some trees remain. The windowless back of the building faces the river. Aside from flood concerns, which certainly must have been addressed, the building seems to make poor use of a potentially scenic site in order to maximize frontage along Bishop Boulevard. I would have expected such a project to be scrutinized in a public hearing.

I have been saddened to read some recent letters to the Daily News stating landowners should be able to do whatever they want with their property, without any public oversight. Such an attitude seems to fly in the face of the concept of "civilization."

Some cities, such as Houston, have been notorious for laxity of building or zoning codes. This can result in an unfortunate hodgepodge in which liquor stores are situated next to day-care centers (as an example). In a city with geographical features as varied as ours, lack of public oversight can potentially result in significant remodeling of the landscape, or in buildings that disrupt their surroundings. While such developments may temporarily increase tax revenue, it is not in the long-term interest of a community to lose the very features that make it unique.

Since I am not serving as an investigative reporter, I have not scrutinized the local and state regulations that apply to the examples cited above. I can only comment that the level of public input in Pullman is much lower than what I have seen elsewhere. The idea that there can be only one public hearing on land-use issues is foreign to me. In our previous community (on the East Coast), such issues were subject to three hearings before the zoning and land-use board. The first hearing served to get people involved, as the local newspaper would report on the discussion that occurred. For a high-impact issue, more residents would then attend the subsequent meetings, bringing more data to support their viewpoints. Numerous residents were able to speak out at the meetings, and their opinions definitely made a difference. Participants in the meetings were able to hear both sides of the issue, and to see firsthand how consensus and compromise were reached by their officials. In Whitman County, petitions and letters to the editor appear to be a major means of public input, but I do not find them as effective as live public debate. If current policy actually prohibits more than one public hearing on issues that significantly affect our future, then perhaps it is time to change the policy.

I, for one don't live in a "screensaver." In the real world, as opposed to Ms. Meier's academic world, we live in a living, breathing, working community that has needs like affordable family housing, adequate retail, and a thriving tax base to keep the schools open, the fire and police departments staffed, the streets paved, and the water flowing. Wealthy professors like Meier and Jim Krueger move here from somewhere back East and expect Pullman to be like DisneyWorld I guess, beautiful scenery with no visible support or infrastructure so as not to disturb their little corner of paradise.

PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS ARE THE BASIS FOR CIVILIZATION!!! What is Meier thinking?

I can tell you that I drive (and walk) past the proposed Meadow Creek subdivison every day and it was not a "charming valley." It was just a weed-covered depression between two hills as you see in hundreds of thousands of other places on the Palouse. Give me a break.

So Ms. Meier wants her personal aesthetic tastes to trump private property rights, affordable family housing, adequate retail, and a thriving tax base? Washington's regulations are already perfect for Ms. Meier and the NIMBYers. All it takes is a few people to get a burr under their saddle and a developer's project is either cancelled or held up for years. Pullman like Houston? Please. If only we could be as prosperous as a city like Houston, but we never will because of selfish snobs like Meier and the outrageous environmental laws in Washington.

I am going to wrap up by quoting from a Mesquite [NM] Local News editorial I used a while back. It utterly destroys Ms. Meier's arguments and those of her ilk:

It’s ironic that residents of this gated community have started a petition to stop development of a new housing project because of their claim that the construction will “destroy the beautiful mountain ridges, bluffs and natural desert areas adjacent to Copper Bluffs.”

The irony is that they are living in a neighborhood that was only made possible after the land where their houses are now sitting was similarly carved and shaped to accommodate the construction.

It’s become a common cry in Mesquite for people whose homes often sit atop regal perches that were once deemed beautiful landscape features to now rail against the same kind of desecration that might mar their views.
...

More importantly, it’s un-American to tell a legitimate land-owner that he cannot use his land as he sees fit because it might “mess up somebody’s view.”

As has been pointed out before, you can’t buy a view, even when you’ve paid a half a million dollars for your house.

The only way is to get together with other like-minded neighbors and purchase the land, then apply deed restrictions to keep it pristine and untouched.

But the truth is that most homeowners aren’t willing to “put up or shut up” and tie up their own money to protect their surroundings.

Instead, they insist that their governments use tax dollars paid by all of us to buy the land to preserve their high-dollar views.

Or coerce their government officials to use building permit restrictions and zoning filibusters to accomplish the same goals, shutting out new residents hoping to taste that which has drawn the current homeowners to this desert delight.

The Unholy Alliance, Part Six

As I wrote previously, rural communities all over America are dealing with "smart growthers."

This excellent op-ed piece comes from The Chester County, PA Daily Local News. Chester County is a rural suburn of Philadelphia. The writer touches quite well on the dark side of "smart growth" and the unholy alliance between them and the "pull up the drawbridgers."

Some quotes, again all very applicable to Whitman County:

...occasionally plans for town homes or a strip mall are proposed. Whenever this happens, the locals take up their pitchforks and torches and head down to the township meeting en masse to kill Frankenstein's monster.
...

Elitism - Folks out here aren't exactly wondering where their next meal is coming from. Home prices and land are expensive. The subtext of preserving the "character" of the place essentially boils down to preserving the view from your deck and the class of kids that your kids associate with in school.

Now that the aristocracy has its little piece of paradise, it's time to pull up the drawbridge and keep out the hoi polloi.
...

Racism - Hand in hand with the class angle of deterring development is the nasty little unspoken aspect of race. Right now, the area is lily white. Open the place up to development with affordable country living and who knows what you'll bring in.

Infringement of personal property rights - If individuals can afford to buy up open space and keep it open, I say God bless 'em. The problem is that nobody is rich enough to preserve the "character" of a whole township, so the gentry wants to make decisions about other people's property, not just their own. This is one thing when it comes to limiting, say, a toxic waste dump in the village, but quite another when you're trying to impose a bike trail and pond on a tract home developer.

The Unholy Alliance, Part Five

Pullman and Whitman County are obviously not the only rural areas dealing with "pull up the drawbridgers."

So is Mesquite NM, as so eloquently described in this July 10, 2006 Mesquite Local News editorial:

Drawbridge Mentality Has No Place Here

It’s become a common scenario all over the country.

People move to popular destinations by the hundreds, snapping up property and establishing themselves as a community’s newest residents.

Then the call goes out to end growth, stop construction, and halt the entry of any new residents.

Basically, they want to “pull up the drawbridge” now that they have arrived, keeping others from coming in and disturbing the paradise they have found.

The drawbridge mentality has struck Mesquite, as evidenced by the recent move to halt construction above the Copper Bluffs neighborhood.

It’s ironic that residents of this gated community have started a petition to stop development of a new housing project because of their claim that the construction will “destroy the beautiful mountain ridges, bluffs and natural desert areas adjacent to Copper Bluffs.”

The irony is that they are living in a neighborhood that was only made possible after the land where their houses are now sitting was similarly carved and shaped to accommodate the construction.

It’s become a common cry in Mesquite for people whose homes often sit atop regal perches that were once deemed beautiful landscape features to now rail against the same kind of desecration that might mar their views.

In fact, if developers shied away from every elevated land mass that somebody thought was too picturesque to disturb, there would be no Calais, no Falcon Ridge, no Canyon Crest.

And no Copper Bluffs.

While nobody wants to see hills cavalierly flattened and destroyed, it’s ludicrous to think that a developer would kill his golden goose by turning millions of dollars worth of land investments into something ugly and unpalatable.

More importantly, it’s un-American to tell a legitimate land-owner that he cannot use his land as he sees fit because it might “mess up somebody’s view.”

As has been pointed out before, you can’t buy a view, even when you’ve paid a half a million dollars for your house.

The only way is to get together with other like-minded neighbors and purchase the land, then apply deed restrictions to keep it pristine and untouched.

But the truth is that most homeowners aren’t willing to “put up or shut up” and tie up their own money to protect their surroundings.

Instead, they insist that their governments use tax dollars paid by all of us to buy the land to preserve their high-dollar views.

Or coerce their government officials to use building permit restrictions and zoning filibusters to accomplish the same goals, shutting out new residents hoping to taste that which has drawn the current homeowners to this desert delight.

On Tuesday, that is most likely what will happen, as Copper Bluffs residents are expected to flood the Mesquite City Hall to convince the city council to stop the construction.

Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that nearly every person in that council chamber and the majority of us in Mesquite are living in houses built by visionary developers, those developers will have very few friends to balance the discourse.

In the final analysis, it comes down to a battle between property rights and property values.

This country draws its strength from the exercise of men and women yearning for the American dream of home ownership, and the American right to do with that property whatever their imagination can foster.

Protecting the status quo in the name of keeping property values in an upward spiral has to come second.

If we are to have any hope of returning to the greatness of days gone by, days of land rushes and pioneering and building communities out of nothingness, rights must be more important than money.

Every house ever built in Mesquite has negatively impacted somebody’s view.

That’s not a good enough reason to stop building homes for the next wave of people who will eventually become our next batch of good neighbors.

Let’s make the words “Welcome to Mesquite” more than just an empty Chamber of Commerce slogan.

Keep the gates open.

Keep the moats empty.

And keep the drawbridges down for our future friends.

Type rest of the post here

Think about this editorial the next time you read about the "viewscape" restrictions in the proposed Whitman County rural residential zoning ordinance. If only we had some local politicans bold enough to champion the view that property rights come first over property values.

The Unholy Alliance, Part Four

When you read this April 25, 2005 column from Dr. Ronald D. Utt of the Heritage Foundation, think about the letters that have been in the Daily News recently concerning "smart growth." Think especially about the proposed changes to the Whitman County rural residential ordinance. Under the aegis of "conserving the environment," all that is being preserved is the rights and lifefstyles of the “already landed” middle and upper class.

Can Both Sides of the Sprawl Debate Find Common Ground on Property Rights?

One of the great myths spread by opponents of suburban development is that the land-use patterns we have today are the result of free-market forces, greedy developers, and unregulated property rights. Contrary to urban legend, gaudy strip malls and tacky subdivisions are more often a consequence of over half a century of zoning and land-use planning conducted under the guidance of professional planners in cooperation with elected officials. What repel us today are not the unintended consequences of free enterprise, but planning concepts from the 1960s that have dropped out of fashion.

Having failed us once, planners are asking for a second chance—along with more regulatory power than ever before—to impose their aesthetic sensibilities on the rest of us, the philistine masses. Instead of letting the planners have their way, communities should work to restore and strengthen individual property rights. Part of this is giving property owners and builders the freedom to construct housing that people want, not what the planners want to impose on them.

Erosion of Rights
Until the 1920s, property rights in America were seen to be nearly inviolable. The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, “nor shall property be taken for public use without just compensation.” This was considered the literal law of the land. (The Fourteenth Amendment extended the Fifth’s protection to actions by the states.) Property rights advocates argue that the Takings Clause also covers “regulatory takings” that limit the property’s use (and thus diminish its value), such as zoning restrictions. If so, either regulatory takings would be prohibited or, at the very least, the government would have to compensate property owners for land-use regulations that reduce the value of their holdings.

The courts, however, have not held this view. Their rejection of the idea of regulatory takings can be traced back to several decisions early in the 20th century. One of the most notable, or infamous, is the Supreme Court’s 1926 decision in Village of Euclid v. Amber Realty Co., which upheld comprehensive zoning and laid the foundation for many of today’s limitations on individual property rights by sanctioning restrictions on land use.

At around the same time, the executive branch of the federal government was working to undermine property rights. During the Harding and Coolidge Administrations, the federal government became an active proponent of zoning and land-use planning. Under the direction of its Secretary, Herbert Hoover, the Department of Commerce created federal advisory committees on zoning in 1921 and published A Standard State Zoning Enabling Act in 1924, followed by A Standard City Planning Enabling Act in 1927. These model laws helped states and cities to create their own planning regimes.

The Smart Growth Movement
Despite the rapid spread of zoning in the 20th century, local officials and zoning boards still tended to respect the rights of landowners, often granting reasonable requests for variances from master plans. This careful balance between freedom and regulation began to tilt away from property owners in the 1990s, when the Smart Growth and New Urbanism movements rose to prominence. The activist wings of these movements gained traction by vilifying the suburbs and their residents. In response, many communities altered their zoning laws to slow the pace of suburbanization. The consequence has been to encourage leapfrog development—in what we now call exurbs—and even more sprawl.

It is revealing to look at the list of model communities that advocates of smart growth hold out as worthy of emulation. The Sierra Club conducts anti-sprawl tours in the Washington, D.C., area, and its guides highlight the beautiful neighborhoods of Old Town Alexandria in Virginia and Georgetown and Capitol Hill in Washington. Elsewhere in the country, anti-sprawl activists hold up Charleston and Savannah, both elegant cities, as role models, along with Society Hill in Philadelphia, Oakleigh in Mobile, the Garden District in New Orleans, and Beacon Hill in Boston.

These communities share a common trait besides their exquisite beauty and historical status: All were built before the advent of zoning, government planning, building codes, building inspections, building permits, and restrictive covenants governing the color of downspouts and window shutters. In short, they represent the spontaneous order of a cowboy capitalism long since regulated out of existence. Indeed, no enterprising developer could construct any of these communities today; the zoning ordinances of most of America’s counties and towns would stop him flat. Typical zoning provisions establish minimum lot sizes, minimum front and side setbacks, and minimum street widths. They make driveways and garages mandatory and prohibit mixed commercial and residential development. The lauded neighborhoods of the past, held up as examples of an ideal, wouldn’t measure up to today’s zoning. Building a neighborhood like that today requires local zoning and planning boards to grant a myriad of variances from existing rules. The boards, however, are seldom willing, in large part because citizens oppose higher density housing and the congestion it creates.

That zoning and planning laws effectively prohibit the construction of “ideal” neighborhoods reveals one of the ironies of the current debate on suburban land use: Advocates of smart growth and new urbanism are among the major casualties of land-use regulations that diminish property rights, despite their large role in encouraging such regulation.

Criticizing typical suburban developments with single-family detached houses on quarter-acre lots, smart growth advocates encourage higher-density development (smaller lot sizes) to conserve land and other resources; increased “walkability” and transit use to discourage auto use; greater social interaction among neighbors; and a mix of commercial and residential establishments. While some in the smart growth movement consider these high-density developments a lifestyle choice that should compete with typical suburban subdivisions for buyers, the movement’s activist wing would mandate high-density living. The activists would prohibit new lower-density suburbs because of the social costs that the activists say they impose on society.

These more extreme elements of the smart growth movement rely on harsh criticisms of suburban subdivisions to promote their alternative. In the process, they level many outlandish charges against suburbs and suburbanites—a sort-of national vilification. Typical of the abuse heaped on the inhabitants of cul-de-sacs is a recent Atlantic article by new urbanist James Howard Kunstler:

When we drive around and look at all this cartoon architecture and other junk that we’ve smeared all over the landscape, we register it as ugliness. This ugliness is the surface expression of deeper problems—problems that relate to the issue of our national character.

Not to be outdone, former National Governors Association executive Joel Hirshhorn argues that sprawl kills:

Know this: Sprawl is killing people, some 300,000 premature deaths annually because of the sprawl sedentary lifestyle, and it is killing our natural environment, scenic vistas, biodiversity, rural towns, and much more. The pursuit of happiness by the few profiting from sprawl land development is killing the future pursuit of happiness by the many. Spread this idea virus: sprawl kills.

Movement Hijacked by the NIMBYs
But these efforts to shame American consumers into high-density living have badly backfired. The campaign was cleverly hijacked by the suburban-based Not-In-My-Back-Yard, or NIMBY, anti-growth movement. Posing as believers in the lofty goals of new urbanism and environmental conservation, the NIMBYs are working hard to further diminish property rights with even more restrictive land use regulations in thousands of communities. As one planner puts it:

If a community or region refuses to grow, the result may be higher prices, economic displacement and hardship, and dangerous crowded housing in exchange for keeping a desirable quality of life for the “already landed” middle and upper income groups. If the local voters are willing to pay this price, why should planners try to prevent it?

One of NIMBYs’ major tools to deter growth and exclude less affluent residents is changing zoning to reduce densities and raise housing costs. Among the more common measures is “down zoning,” by which raw land previously zoned for, say, five houses per acre is rezoned to allow only one house per acre—or even one house per five, 10, or 20 acres in some communities. Additional regulations may require greenbelts and mandatory set-asides for conservation and prohibit building homes on land currently zoned for agriculture. Such rezoning also precludes, or greatly limits, the construction of apartments, townhouses, small-lot, cluster-type developments, and other high-density arrangements. In contrast to the country’s average lot size of about one-third of an acre, today’s growth control strategies require minimum lot sizes of five, 10, or 20 acres—beyond what many homebuyers want or can afford.

The consequence is more sprawl—sprawl that has little to do with the free market. Larger lots lead to fewer houses (and people) per square mile, which means that more space is needed to house a given population. This spreading out, in turn, leads to traffic congestion from more long-distance commuters, more expensive housing, and a diminished quality of life as commuters exchange leisure time for more affordable housing and longer commutes. The biggest losers under today’s restrictive land-use regulations, aside from moderate-income households who find themselves priced out of the market, are new urbanists, whose developments have become nearly impossible to build.

A Backlash Emerges
These costs and inconveniences are burdensome enough that well-organized resistance to today’s restrictive zoning practices is beginning to form. This resistance is coming from all points of the political spectrum, including some new urbanists and particularly planners and architects who consider current zoning practices to be one of the greatest obstacles to the development of their ideal communities. If it continues to grow, this resistance may have the potential to reverse the trend toward greater land regulation.

Further fueling the resistance is resentment of the growing abuse of eminent domain for purposes of “economic development.” Like anti-sprawl measures, the government’s power to force the sale of land with eminent domain is increasingly being used to displace the poor and replace them with richer people who pay higher taxes and need fewer services.

Is the tide turning? Perhaps so. In 2004, Oregon voters endorsed a referendum to hobble the state’s world-renowned “growth boundary” experiment, which prohibits development outside of specially zoned areas. The referendum requires Oregon municipalities to compensate those who own land outside of the boundaries or let them develop their land as they see fit, boundaries notwithstanding. In effect, Oregon law now makes no distinction between a regulatory taking and an eminent domain taking, and the citizens of the state have had some of their lost property rights restored.

More states and municipalities may follow suit, but their efforts are no substitute for action by the U.S. Congress to clarify and strengthen property rights in federal law. With property rights enshrined in the Constitution and explicitly imposed on the states, it is incumbent upon Congress to ensure that the courts—both federal and state—uphold them.

Unfortunately, I don't hold out much hope for us. The proposed Whitman County rural residential zoning ordinance tramples property rights so badly it can't even pass constitutional muster, the Washington State Supreme Court endorses the ravages of eminent domain, and the state's Growth Management Act, supposedly meant to protect the environment, has, according to a WSU Center for Real Estate Research study, caused a loss of affordable homes in all of Washington's 39 counties. And the voters have bought into all this. Given a chance to increase property rights by reining in Critical Areas Ordinances last election, they soundly rejected I-933. The legislature promised relief this session, but I have yet to see any proposals. The environmentalists and activist smart growthers have successfully allied with the NIMBYs to wield unprecedented power.

The Unholy Alliance, Part Three

The following is excerpted from Dr. Steven Hayward’s speech at a Center of the American Experiment Luncheon Debate with Ted Mondale, Chairman, Twin Cities Met Council, on January 18, 2000. At the time, Dr. Hayward was senior fellow and director of the Center for Environmental and Regulatory Reform at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. I'm going to post some of the better quotes, but the whole speech is a good read.

The Irony of Smart Growth

As one planner in Portland told a reporter, "We got tired of protesting the Vietnam War, read Jane Jacobs, and decided to take over Portland."

[That, in a nutshell, explains the origin of PARD. They got tired of protesting against Dubya, so they read Al Norman's "How to Slam Dunk Wal-Mart" and decided to take over Pullman. - TF]
...

One great irony is that the chief Senate sponsor of the Interstate Highway Act in 1956 was Senator Albert Gore. So you could say Vice President Albert Gore, Jr.’s embrace of smart growth represents a case of the sins of the father being visited upon the son.
...

What prevents conservatives from becoming card-carrying members of the smart growth movement, however, is the overwhelming sense that many folks want to use stringent land use regulation to cram smart growth down our throats, whether we want it or not.
...

One hears throughout smart growth discourse a condescension toward suburbs and suburbanites that suggests many smart growth advocates aren’t simply aiming at improving the practical functioning of cities and suburbs, but in fact wish to transform them wholesale. This is not a new idea. I once stumbled across an article from a 1957 issue of the Community Planning Review titled "Hell Is a Suburb." In his famous 1967 book The Levittowners, Herbert Gans wrote that elite opinion regarded suburbanites as, "an uneducated, gullible, petty ‘mass’ which rejects the culture that would make it fully human, the ‘good government’ that would create the better community, and the proper planning that would do away with the landscape-despoiling little ‘boxes’ in which they live."

If you think this is merely academic hyperbole—Gans is a sociologist, after all—just check in with James Howard Kunstler, one of the leading advocates of smart growth and the new urbanism. In a speech to the Florida chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Kunstler said:

[Suburbia] is the dwelling place of untruth. We call it suburbia. A cartoon of rural life, with none of the qualities of it. I believe we in the CNU [Congress for the New Urbanism] recognize its profound culturally toxic nature.…

The common complaint about these brand-new mega-suburbs is that "everything looks the same." [Or some might say "a big-box clone of a thousand other places" - TF] This is only the most superficial symptom of their evil nature.

Its present is a dangerously provisional collective hallucination, nourished by a sado-masochistic idiot pop culture, which can fall apart at the slightest provocation. We have a name for this collective hallucination, by the way: The American Dream, a sort of mega-lie stating that this sort of ghastly provisional collective hallucination is the ultimate state of being worth aspiring to.

Nor is Kunstler an extreme or unusual example. Urban affairs writer Neal Pierce has called suburban sprawl "a virus eating us from the inside out." Both Kunstler and Pierce have blamed sprawl for the Columbine High School shootings, and others have blamed sprawl for obesity. Andres Duany, one of the leading neotraditional planners, wrote that "suburban sprawl is a cancerous growth rather than healthy growth…. The suburb is the last word in privatization, perhaps even its lethal consummation, and it spells the end of authentic civic life."
...

The social attack on sprawl also reminds me of the poet Randall Jarrell’s remark that we could solve all of our problems if only we could get our hands on this fellow "Society." Today "sprawl" has taken the place of "society" as the general cause of all bad things.[And nothing personifies "sprawl," and therefore "evil," to the liberals more than Wal-Mart]
...

The point is, no matter how probitive some smart growth critiques of urban form may be, I simply do not trust giving more power to people with such offensive and condescending attitudes. Very little good can come of it.
...

...a lot of the popularity of smart growth with ordinary citizens is that it is a high church version of NIMBYism. In other words, a lot of people who hear "smart growth" take it to mean "less growth," or no growth at all in many cases.

And that, my friends, is how PARD, No SuperWalMart and all these other anti-Wal-Mart groups sell themselves. They cloak their anti-capitalist agenda by appealing to people's selfishness and fear of change. Trust me, if Wal-Mart were being built on Terre View Dr, instead of Bishop Blvd., they would just find some other clever excuses besides "Wal-Mart will impede hospital access" and "Wal-Mart will desecrate the cemetery." And those in town who don't want any growth or chnage in Pullman would unquestioningly go right along with it as they do now.

And I agree with Dr. Hayward. I certainly don't want to give may more power to people with such "offensive and condescending attitudes." That's why I will do everything I can to stop that from happening.

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The Unholy Alliance, Part Two

I quoted from this 2000 column by Jerry Taylor, the Cato Institute's director of natural resource studies and Peter Van Doren, the editor of Regulation magazine, published by the Cato Institute, yesterday. Read the whole thing. It is absolute dynamite.

Sprawl for Me, But Not for Thee

Perhaps the oddest political coalition in America today is that of anti-suburban intellectuals and suburban "slow growth" activists. The two movements are allied in a campaign to combat suburban sprawl and promote strict governmental controls over land use and communal organization (controls termed "smart growth" by their advocates). So why would suburbanites make common cause with those who loathe both their communities and their way of life, who sneer at their tacky, soul-less neighborhoods? Because both factions seek the same goal: the end of migration from the major cities.

Consider the survey results published last month by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Wisconsinites were asked where they would like to live. Only 6 percent said in a major city. The largest group, 44 percent, said in rural areas; the second largest group, 27 percent, said they preferred the suburbs. At first glance, one might think that the Clinton/Gore campaign to promote "livable communities" (i.e., densely developed communities) would be resisted by a majority voters.

But look at what the survey went on to ask. "If you could control things, where would you prefer development to occur?" The most popular response (34 percent) was "in a major city"! Another question: "Do you favor zoning laws that would encourage communities to have smaller houses on smaller lots within walking distance of shopping and work?" Yes, said 76 percent of Wisconsinites. But when the survey asked, "Would you be interested in living in such a development?" 65 percent said no.

The Milwaukee Journal's findings are typical of survey results throughout the nation. Most people clearly prefer living in suburbia and exurbia but are opposed to other people living in suburbia and exurbia. That is, their ideal arrangement is to get into the castle and pull up the drawbridge the minute they cross the moat.

This is particularly true of people who already live in low-density communities. The campaign against more roads and more development reflects an attempt to preserve suburbia and exurbia from "invasion" and to prevent the areas from morphing into the communities that the inhabitants have just escaped.

This "I got mine, Jack!" attitude runs rampant through suburbia today, coloring the opinions of suburbanite Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. Conduct a poll on whether the government should promote mass transit, and 70 percent or so of respondents will reliably respond yes. Ask those same people whether they regularly use mass transit or would if it were more available, and the same number (or even larger) respond no. Sure we need buses and trains, they say . . . for the other guy.

Or consider the related question of scenic pastures outside suburban and exurban windows. "How important is it to maintain farming in Wisconsin?" the Milwaukee paper asked. "Very important," said 73 percent of Wisconsinites. And no wonder; farmland is the reason that a drive through Vermont is more charming than a drive through Connecticut. But to "Do you approve of using tax revenue to pay farmers not to develop their land?" 62 percent replied no.

So are respondents hoping that the state will charmingly talk farmers out of selling to developers? Of course not. They're hoping that the state will ban development in farm country and to heck with the farmer who loses a chance to retire comfortably by selling his back forty.

This attitude is nothing new in suburbia. Twenty years ago, in his classic book The Environmental Protection Hustle, Bernard Frieden, a professor of urban planning at MIT, blasted the alliance between suburban homeowners and anti-sprawl activists to restrict development. The anti-sprawl crusade, said Frieden, was founded on "phony issues" so as to "legitimize arrogant public policies designed to keep the average citizen from using the land, while preserving the social and fiscal advantages of the influential few."

But they don't make "progressives" like Frieden anymore. Today, the left perversely cheers Portland's anti-growth polices despite the fact that they have increased housing costs, which reduces housing prospects for the poor. "Hurrah!" say the fortunate incumbent homeowners who just happen to have bought their property before the new controls were put in place.

Unfortunately, the people most harmed by "smart growth" policies are poorer, younger Americans, who seldom vote and certainly don't vote in the communities that are busy walling them out. The stampede to harvest votes from soccer moms, however, will not be denied. If you're looking for a working definition of "unholy alliance," then this is it.

As evidence this unholy alliance is alive and well on the Palouse, I present Exhibit One, a letter that ran in yesterday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Size cap will protect Moscow

There are arguments on both sides as to whether a big box size cap would help or hurt Moscow’s economy. But the key issues are non-economic.

I don’t think most of us came to Moscow for the money, or the shopping opportunities. We came here (or came back) to get away from places that have too many people, too many cars, too much crime, pollution, gridlock, and sprawl.

I expect most people in Moscow could have made more money somewhere else. We came or stayed because of the special qualities of life here, and those have a lot to do with being a small university town in a relatively unpopulated state.

As more people come here, we need to be more selective about protecting the qualities that make Moscow attractive. We need to worry less about economic competition and more about protecting things that money can’t buy. If Moscow turns into a place we wouldn’t want to live in, having extra money in the bank would be poor compensation.

I want a strict size-cap ordinance to protect the investment I made in coming here to live in a special kind of community. I don’t know of any others like it. The developers can go to any number of places to make a buck, but where can I go to live if they wreck Moscow?

Jack R. Porter, Moscow

Of course, it's easy to talk about not worrying about money when you're an attorney.

The Unholy Alliance, Part One

This February 11 article from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader mentions our very own Uncle Buck, who as we know, believes Wal-Mart will drive away "excellent" professors by making Pullman a "big box clone of a thousand other places."

James Krueger directs a Washington State University laboratory studying what occurs in the brain chemically during sleep. His research group directly employs five physicians and associates with three others and brings about $2 million in grant funding annually to that university.

"In the basic biomechanism of sleep, we don't think there's any group in the world better than us," he says.

Krueger has worked as a scientist at Harvard, the University of Chicago and the University of Tennessee, and he brought his research to Washington State a decade ago in part because it is not in a metropolitan area. Pullman is about the size of Brookings. Seattle is 300 miles away, across the state, and the nearest city, Spokane, with 200,000 people, is 80 miles." And most people on the East or West Coast would not consider Spokane a large city," he says.

"We chose a small town life because it's safer, easier. I lived in big cities my entire life - Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston. I get about two extra hours every single day by living in a small town," he says. "We have a rush minute, not a rush hour."

Advances in information technology made such a move feasible, he says. "If you tried to do this 30 years ago, you couldn't have done it. Lack of communication would have made it impossible, No computers." But now, "why not be in a great spot?" he asks.

So, it would appear that behind all Krueger's liberal rhetoric about Wal-Mart's "low wages and poor benefits," "gender discrimination," "child labor violations," "forced unpaid overtime," and "exploitation of undocumented workers," and his Democratic pedigree, he is just a garden variety elitist "pull up the drawbridger." You know, the type that has made their bones in the big city and now wants to find a little slice of paradise to get away from the rat race, enjoy a minimal commute, have a nice big McMansion in a upscale suburban development on Pioneer Hill, and then pull up the drawbridge, fill up the moat, and put up a "No Vacancy" sign.

Krueger's position as a professor combined with his obvious NIMBY stance reminded me of a quote from this Cato Institute column:

Perhaps the oddest political coalition in America today is that of anti-suburban intellectuals and suburban "slow growth" activists. The two movements are allied in a campaign to combat suburban sprawl and promote strict governmental controls over land use and communal organization (controls termed "smart growth" by their advocates). So why would suburbanites make common cause with those who loathe both their communities and their way of life, who sneer at their tacky, soul-less neighborhoods? Because both factions seek the same goal: the end of migration from the major cities.

If that doesn't describe PARD, I don't know what does. I'll be examining this odd coupling more throughout the week.

In the meantime,what of all those poor "excellent" professors? The Argus Leader continues:

[Head of the University of South Dakota's Cardiovascular Research Institute Martin] Gerdes, too, contends Sioux Falls, with low crime, good schools and health care, is an asset in attracting scientists. A new researcher earning about $75,000 can afford to have a spouse stay home with young children.

"On the West or East Coast, that's not doable," he says. "Your spouse has got to make an equal salary. Your commute is probably longer. Crime, taxes and the cost of living are all higher. Yes, there's a wonderful beach a few miles away. But you certainly can't afford a house there."

Sanford Health is capable of duplicating its success in cardiovascular research in other biomedical disciplines, Gerdes says.

"We have enough know-how to pull this off. We've done all the hard work.

"It's been fun being a big fish in a small pond. It's going to be even more fun being just one of the fish in a bigger pond."

One reason, no doubt, why Sioux Falls is so affordable for families with young children, and thus attractive to scientists, is the presence of TWO Wal-Mart Supercenters.

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Smart Growth, Valley Girl Style

Another letter in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News for my "Carnival of Hypocrisy" column should Mayor Chaney announce plans for a Moscow Home Depot:

Don’t make us Anytown, USA

I grew up in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, and I wonder why anyone would want to make Moscow more like that mess.

Moscow needs a big-box size cap ordinance, the smaller the better. I understand Tri-State is around 50,000 square feet and the existing Moscow Wal-Mart is around 100,000. I’m not convinced we need anything bigger.

The Greater Moscow Alliance seems bent on attracting more chain stores here. Do they want Moscow to look like Anytown, USA? Perhaps they should move to Spokane, where they can drive up and down Division Street to their hearts’ content.

Seriously, if we love the special quality of life in Moscow as it is now, we should be careful about changing it into something different. We should be smart and selective about what gets built here.

The last things we need are more and bigger chain stores surrounded by more and bigger parking lots.

Cathy Porter, Moscow

The irony is that Los Angeles is one of the areas of the country that has fought the hardest to keep big box stores out. Ms. Porter should just go back home.

Also, speaking of irony, it was bitingly noted in this speech:

The Los Angeles area is considered the epitome of sprawl, while Portland is the shining example of "smart growth." The population density of greater Los Angeles is about 7,000 people per square mile. In fact, three of the 10 most densely populated cities in the United States are found in the greater Los Angeles basin. No one in the smart growth movement seems to know this. The population density of the Portland metro area is about 3,500 people per square mile. If you ask people in Portland, or any other western state, they will tell you that Los Angeles represents the future they wish to avoid. Yet Portland’s master plan for the year 2040 calls for increasing Portland’s density to—7,000 people per square mile—exactly the density of Los Angeles today. So, is Portland less likely to be like Los Angeles at that density—or more like LA?

"Smart" growth?

"A new ‘school’ of thought"

Another nice letter in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News in response to Mark Winstein's recent letter:

Regarding Mark Winstein’s letter to the editor titled “Let’s not be a big box town” (Opinion, Jan. 27 & 28): I will point out to your good and thoughtful readers that in Winstein’s opinion, the last people who should be making decisions about land use are the actual land owners, the last people who should decide what is and what is not a “sustainable approach to the economy” are those who have their own capital at risk in a given venture, and by rights, the very last people on Earth who should decide where to shop are the shoppers themselves.

Apparently, there is a new field of study at the University of Idaho known as Helping Make the Economy More Reflective of Ecological Values. I might like to meet one of the doctorate professors in this new department. However, between taking care of my family and minding my own business instead of advocating the use of force in minding other people’s business, it would be hard for me to justify the time.

Now I want to propose an entirely new concept — one that Winstein may not have ever considered: Maybe we could advocate the protection of other people’s rights (even if we dislike them). It might be interesting if people could make their own decisions in what I will call a “free society” (I might enjoy entertaining the dean of a Free Market Solutions to World Problems College). I understand that this is a new and terrifying proposal (for some) but it may be worth considering, given that if our neighbors have the right to choose, perchance it would follow that we too would be afforded the same right at some stage.

Lyle Keeney, Palouse

Give It Away

One approach to rural growth and development is to just not have any. Make it virtually impossible to build on rural land, discourage new development, fight to keep things the way they always have been, and the population of the county will decline and businesses and schools will close. That's what has happened in Whitman County.

Then there's this approach, as reported in the Kansas City Star:

Towns tout free land to lure new residents

Struggling rural areas get creative in order to grow and save their way of life.

“Imagine a 720 square mile county with buffalo, farm animals and wildlife scattered across picturesque hillsides.”

From a town east of there: “Stroll or bike around town and you can count on being greeted by friendly citizens on every street. … We offer a friendly, small town atmosphere and an excellent education for your children in a safe school system, with small classes …”

Oh, and did we mention the land is free? All you have to do is build a home and move there.

The idea isn’t new. Marquette, Kan., grabbed national headlines when it began offering free land about four years ago. But other towns are jumping in fast and furious.

From Chetopa in the southeast to Atwood in the far northwest and from Argonia near the Oklahoma line to Mankato close to the Nebraska border, towns have decided they need to be creative. And aggressive.

More than 20 Kansas communities — and Nebraska and North Dakota towns living similar stories of declining populations — offer the promise of free land. Another Kansas county, which doesn’t have land to give away, wants in on the growth so bad it’s offering grants of up to $10,000.

“We’re all struggling for the same thing — it’s people,” said Jeff Benbrook, city administrator of Peabody, Kan. “Give us more people and we can do some things. Without people, you don’t have the taxes. Without taxes, you don’t have the money.”

For some, this free land program has worked. Several Kansas towns tell success stories of new families, more kids in classrooms and, for the first time in years, a faith in the future.

Last year alone, KansasFreeLand.com tallied more than 2 million hits.

People from as far away as Peru and Australia are calling and wanting tours. A woman from Maine is building a home on a free lot in Marquette, and the town is about to get the program’s first two-story home since it began in late 2002.

“You’ve got to step outside the box sometimes and say, ‘Look at what we’re doing,’ ” said Jeff Hillman, a key player in the Hodgeman County Land Rush program, which offers the grant money to people willing to build a home in the western Kansas community. “It’s hard to encourage people to move to rural areas.”

Towns have to do something, leaders said, because for many years communities across the Great Plains have been suffering. They’ve watched family farms die out and once-loyal natives move away to more prosperous areas.

In Marquette, the program has saved the elementary school. The town plans to offer free commercial land to entrepreneurs who build a business in Marquette.

Mayor Steve Piper said the town has grown from 350 people to about 527.

• • •

The seeds were planted before Marquette took off.

About 10 years ago, a developer in Minneapolis, the county seat of Ottawa County just north of Salina, wasn’t able to follow through with a planned project. The city eventually acquired the land but did not know what to do with it.

Then an idea emerged. Give it away, someone suggested. The program was launched without much fanfare.

People came. They stayed.

“We didn’t have the mentality that if something’s broken we have to fix it,” said Mark Freel, economic development director for Minneapolis. “It became, ‘Here’s an opportunity. Let’s try to take advantage of it and do the best with it.’ ”

The free land program, which was implemented into the town’s long-range plan, prompted 20 new homes to be built in its first phase and eight more in the second. Seven lots remain.

The lots in Minneapolis are as large as a half acre.

“People are getting good yards for kids,” said John Cyr, executive director of Kansas’ North Central Regional Planning Commission. “Good yards to do landscaping so they feel they have an individual home, not just tract housing.”

The town has added about 50 children to the school district and seen steady growth. Voters passed a school bond issue in November and people are excited about the future, Freel said.

“Create a success story in your little town and it changes the attitude,” he said. “If attitudes are changed, in a short time people realize there is a sense of hope.”

People like Todd Wilson are coming home.

He grew up in Minneapolis and always thought he would like to move back one day and raise his children. The free land program allowed him to do that about five years ago.

“It was too good a deal to pass up,” said Wilson, who works at the town’s funeral home.

He and his wife, Shelly, built a three-bedroom, two-bath home for $120,000 on the free lot. They have since spent about $30,000 on a renovation and now have five bedrooms and three bathrooms. Their oldest son is a kindergartner at the elementary school and their youngest son, a 22-month-old, enjoys a large yard.

“When I talk to friends in Kansas City and tell them about the free land, they just don’t understand it,” Wilson said.

• • •

Marquette town leaders thought maybe they could attract enough families to save the school.

“We figured if we brought in one or two families a year for a few years that we’d really be doing something,” said Piper, the mayor. “Then we get these calls.”

Each time a news story runs about the Kansas programs, and people go to the Web site, e-mails and calls flood city managers from Ellsworth and Lincoln to Atwood and Coffeyville.

“I have a box chock-full of calls,” said Chris Sramek, the economic development director of Rawlins County, where Atwood is located. “We’ve had a good 20 to 25 people visit the community.”

Not bad for a county that’s seen its population decline over the past 70 years from 7,000 people to about 2,900.

One measure of success is how welcoming older residents are to the new ones.

“The question is, how embracing are they to these new citizens?” said David Proctor, director of the center for engagement and community development at Kansas State University. “Some communities … they’ll attract the new citizens. Others, they may be (close-minded) and it’s difficult for community members to reach out and embrace new ideas.”

That’s one thing Sramek has worried about. He would like to see the free land program bring in new families, help bring back young people who left, or keep those even younger from leaving.

“It’s not going to be easy for our older generation,” Sramek said. “They built it and now we’re transitioning to new people. … They’re just sitting back waiting for us to maybe prove ourselves.”

Defining ‘free’

So the land is free?

Well, for the most part.

In some towns, plots have special assessment fees attached. And additional money may be required to prepare the land for building. Of course, property taxes are due each year.

“In reality, it’s free to a point,” said Stanley Walker, director of the Lincoln County, Kan., Economic Development Foundation. “It depends on how you define free.”

Each town also has certain rules and regulations — such as the size of the home and the number of bedrooms. At least one community requires an appearance before the City Council before approval.

Notice three important points from this article:

1. "Smart growth" won't work in rural areas. People are attracted to rural areas because they want "good yards for kids," not "Manhattan style living."
2. Young families with children are the lifeblood of any community.
3. Rural towns that embrace growth and change, live. Towns that don't, die.

"Parking remains issue for development"

Very nice article by Hillary Hamm in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News about the proposed Paradise development:

Pullman wrangles with idea of retail, condominium building near corner of Paradise and High streets

Todd Butler and his wife moved to Pullman’s Pioneer Hill because of its tree-lined streets and friendly atmosphere. He considers the area a wonderful place to raise a family.

Butler fears that a proposed 50-unit mixed-use development at the intersection of Paradise and High streets could threaten the area’s charm with traffic congestion and parking woes.

“A project of this size will have an impact larger than any other,” said Butler, who lives on High Street.

The Pullman Board of Adjustment was expected to make a decision regarding a conditional use permit for the proposed project at a Jan. 22 public hearing. About 80 people showed up in opposition, but the hearing was granted a continuance when it was determined that Craig Beaumont of Palouse Design Associates and an active board member could not fairly present the proposal on behalf of Paradise Downtown, LLC. Justin Rogers, managing member/CEO of H and R Development, LLC, and working in partnership with Paradise Downtown, LLC, will give the presentation on Feb. 12.

Rogers said the project would benefit the downtown area. The development would provide retail space and 50 condo-like upstairs units ranging from one to three bedrooms. He said the combined residential and commercial space would follow the momentum already established downtown by developments such as the Towne Center and the Pullman Riverwalk.

“We bought into the idea that downtown could be something special,” he said.

Pullman Planning Director Pete Dickinson said downtown parking hasn’t been strained too much yet, as most development has been small-scale and some off-street parking typically is provided. But the city is aware there can be potential parking problems with any new development.

“Parking is a perennial issue downtown,” Dickinson said.

Butler argues that the Paradise development is not consistent with the city’s long-term vision for growth.

“There’s potential for this development to set a very bad precedent in the downtown,” he said. “The danger is that this will go the way of College Hill,” with high density development and substantial parking problems.

In the transportation chapter of the Pullman Comprehensive Plan, a policy is outlined to “require all new development to provide adequate off-street parking ... ” The housing element chapter dictates that “no new housing at any location within the city should rely on on-street parking.”

On Jan. 24, the Pullman Planning Commission asked planning department officials to start an informal study of the downtown-parking issue. Dickinson said the number of apartments in the downtown area will be assessed, as will the amount of parking for residential use and the amount of vacant or under-utilized land that could be developed.

Dickinson recognizes that the project’s site plan appears to go against the city’s comprehensive plan — on paper. The comprehensive plan is a vision for the city, while zoning codes implement proposed policies. He said parking does not have to be provided with any downtown development zoned C2, or central business.

Dickinson said from a planning standpoint, one parking spot per apartment — regardless of the number of bedrooms — is considered adequate.

“How the owner chooses to allocate those parking spots is a different story,” he said.

Rogers said he has tried to be a gracious developer and provide some parking spots when none are required. The original proposal was to have .75 parking spots per apartment. After suggestions by the city, Rogers now expects to provide one stall per unit.

“It’s the compromise,” he said. “We’re basically going along with it.”

Dickinson said the concept of downtown development is not clearly defined. The city is working to allow development while trying to limit congestion and long-term parking problems.

He said an “under-utilized” 57-space city lot on Grand Avenue between McKenzie and Paradise streets possibly could be used as overflow parking for the development.

Dickinson also noted that some developers have approached city officials with ideas for possible parking structures in the area.

“It’s something that’s flexible. That’s how the city would like to help meet the goals of the comprehensive plan,” he said.

Rogers said the proposed development’s units would be marketed as urban living. Residents wouldn’t necessarily need to own a car.

“It’s one of the things you kinda forego,” he said. “It’s the decision that the occupant decides if they want to be located in an urban setting. There’s not going to be a (parking) stall for everyone.”

Dickinson agreed.

“I think the type of people who live downtown are more interested in walking and taking public transportation,” Dickinson said.

Rich Koenig, a High Street resident, doesn’t buy the idea.

“They paint a very rosy picture of young professionals taking the bus to campus,” he said. “But this is a college town. College students have cars. They’ll park up here (on Pioneer Hill). It’s guaranteed.”

Butler said he worries for downtown businesses, whose customers will have to compete for parking.

“The influx of people have caused some real growing pains for the downtown,” he said.

Dickinson said he’s aware that increased residential development and an ever-present demand for parking could be detrimental to area businesses.

“Some people say if they can’t get a parking spot right in front (of the store) they’ll go to Moscow,” he said. “The city is sensitive to that and it’s something we keep our finger on the pulse of.”

Fritz Hughes, executive director of the Pullman Chamber of Commerce, said increased residents could mean increased sales from a business standpoint.

“I know that living in downtown has been a vogue thing to do. It brings a little vibrancy to the downtown,” he said. “It’s going to be an addition. It would improve that corner.”

Rogers said development can’t be stifled because of parking.

“I don’t think we should shut down development altogether,“ Rogers said.

Board of adjustment members agree.

At its Jan. 22 meeting, the board approved a conditional use permit for a nine-unit mixed-use commercial and residential project on the corner of Paradise and Daniel streets. No one opposed the project, which will only provide one private parking spot per unit. The project proposes both one- and two-bedroom apartments.

Board member Mark Yrazabal said downtown development cannot continue to be postponed.

“How long can we hold up projects like this?” he asked.

Yrazabal voted to grant the conditional use permit, with one caveat: “Parking has to go down as a potential issue, but maybe we’ll figure this out after a couple more of these (issues).”

Beaumont concurred.

“The risk isn’t to the city, the risk isn’t to the neighbors. It’s to the developers. It’s the developers who are taking the risk,” he said. “Are we going to put any positive development on hold until we solve this parking problem in 10 or 15 years?”

Koenig said it’s the residents who will suffer from developer’s risks.

“I don’t see an easy solution. But it seems reckless to approve without a long-term plan about how it will affect the area,” he said.

Butler echoed the same concerns.

“Let’s have Pullman be thoughtful of development instead of waking up two years later and having the same angry disputes like those going on up on College Hill,” he said.

Rogers said he hopes to proceed with the project as planned. Construction could start within the year if the conditional use permit is granted.

“With any project there will be positives and negatives,” he said. “The key is to mitigate the negatives and capitalize on the positives. We need to give people a reason to come downtown.”

First of all let me say that I don't think the area will lose any "charm" by knocking down that old junky apartment building.

Secondly, as I blogged previously, I support this project for the reasons stated by Fritz above, IF they can get the parking issues worked out. A vigorous downtown is more desirable than a boarded up one. And why not have people live downtown, as the geographical constraints of downtown make it impractical for it to be a major retail center. We should always continue to welcome investment in downtown.

But ignoring the parking issue or banking on residents not to have cars is simply not a solution. If the downtown parking situation worsens, any economic benefit brought about by the presence of this project will be wiped out. By the way, this parking issue just further reinforces why BISHOP BLVD. is the only logical place for large development in Pullman, unlike what PARD would have you believe.

Pullman is simply not a good candidate for "smart growth" (nor should any place be really, but that's beside the point.) Pullman is not Manhattan or Portland. We're still a rural town in the middle of the wheatfields, 75 miles from the closest interstate. There is simply not the infrastructure in place downtown to live without a car, even for "young professionals." The closest grocery store is roughly a mile's walk in either direction. That would get old after a while, especially in this weather. Plus, Pullman is too geographically isolated. Sure you can catch a bus to campus or even to Moscow (for now), but what about Spokane or Lewiston for shopping or entertainment that's not available here? What about the recreational opportunities in the surrounding areas?

I'm ALL FOR giving more choices to young professionals other than a $300,000 rambler in a subdivision. But it is UNREALISTIC to expect they won't have a car. This development must plan for and account for that.