Habitat Restoration
Implications of Urban Sprawl
Below is a series of articles on the implications of urban sprawl on wildlife by Dr. Patrick Rusz, Director of Wildlife Programs and Certified City & Regional Planner.
Battleground of the New Millennium
Back in the 1960s, when everyone seemed to be blaming everyone else for our environmental problems, the comic strip character Pogo was created with an astute observation. He said simply, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Pogo’s statement certainly applies very well to urban sprawl, that phenomenon characterized by massive subdivisions, strip malls, industrial parks, and snarled traffic where farms, woods, and wildlife used to be. Suburban overgrowth has become a national headache not because of the work of evil-doers, but rather as a direct result of American Culture. All of us had a hand in causing it, and it will take all of us to fight effectively.
The stakes are high for wildlife. While there are laws that generally keep urban sprawl out of important wetlands and floodplains, the habitat that remains in the wake of “leap-frog” development is becoming too fragmented to support certain species. Indeed, biologists now consider habitat fragmentation one of southern Michigan’s most serious wildlife management concerns.
The battle over urban sprawl is heating up. In the minds of many Americans, it appears to be taking precedence over other environmental issues like global warming, endangered species protection, and even air and water pollution. Across the nation, politicians are rallying against the problems of urban sprawl and 12 states have already enacted growth management laws. Vice President Al Gore has promised to make urban sprawl an important part of his “livability agenda” during the upcoming presidential campaign because he feels it is something voters can really relate to. Recent polls seem to support this, but they also indicted that the public may be reluctant to accept some of the potential remedies.
A recent survey by Time Magazine and the Cable New Network found that 57% of adult Americans favored the establishment of a zone or greenbelt around their communities where new homes, businesses or stores could not be built on land that is currently undeveloped. Only 33% opposed the idea (10% were undecided). However, Just 44% favored using taxpayer money to buy undeveloped land to keep it free from development (49% opposed). And 69% of those surveyed stated that the ability of individuals to do what they want with land that they own should be considered more important than the ability of government to regulate development for the common good. So, the poll seemed to say we don’t like sprawl, but don’t want to pay to stop it, and don’t trust government planning. This clearly suggests a tough battle ahead.
Urban sprawl is not simply the inevitable result of population growth. Cities are spreading much faster than their populations grow. Many of our major metropolitan areas have spread 50% or more in the same time that their populations increased less than 10%. Urban sprawl is largely the result of many powerful social, political, and economic factors that have long shaped American culture.
Historians point out that the automobile played a major role in giving Americans the freedom to live away from their job site. Many of the soldiers who returned after World War II wanted to own their own homes and raise their families away from the traffic and factory smoke of the cities. In 1947, mass-produced, single-family homes were established 40 miles from New York City and became the symbol of the “American Dream” and the “suburban escape.” The Interstate Highway System, championed by Dwight D. Eisenhower as critical to rapid deployment of troops and materials in case of war, came along at just the right time to spur urban sprawl. In the 1950s, the United States built nearly half a million miles of new paved roads and the suburbs took over as the fastest growing areas in the country. The trend has continued into the 1990s and the suburbs, or “edge cities” as they are sometime called, have become less and less dependent on the core city.
Federal highway subsidies are certainly not the only government incentives that have lured people farther from the central cities. State and local governments have been eager to extend roads, sewer lines, and other utilities to far-flung developments. And zoning rules – ironically enacted for the purpose of avoiding land use conflicts and boosting the quality of life – have contributed mightily to urban sprawl. Many townships have adopted rules that require large building lots and low-density developments, thereby bringing in fewer people to area zoned for residential use and minimizing preservation of open space. Historically, zoning has all but eliminated mixing of homes and shops, effectively putting the corner store miles away in some strip developments.
All this happened while the existing core cities have decayed. The federal government’s massive attempts at urban renewal in the 1960s and 70s had mixed results and were eventually discontinued. Often, slums that were removed showed up elsewhere because no fundamental improvement was made in the lives of those displaced. One important lesson that was learned is that public subsidies cannot replace a healthy economic base dependent on the private sector. Another was that strategies designed to make the inner cities more competitive with the outlying shopping centers and industrial parks didn’t work where population growth in the general metropolitan area was slowing. An awful lot of planning was based on the notion that suburbs were growing at the cities’ expense and that the solution was obviously to upgrade the cities so they could capture their fair share of the growth. By the mid-1970s, when many of the federal programs were stopped, it had become apparent that the issues were much more complex.
Today, stopping urban sprawl should not involve some sort of battle or competition between core cities and the suburbs. Rather, it hinges on recognizing the value of open space. The most successful “smart growth” programs in the nation have all come at a price. Perhaps the most famous is in and around Portland, Oregon. There, the local metro council imposes a “growth boundary” outside of which undeveloped land is strictly protected. Although seemingly “un-American,” this radical concept has been surprisingly popular with Portland voters, even as debate about its merit continues. Initiated as part of a statewide land use law, Portland voters, even as debate about its merit continues. Initiated as part of a statewide land use law, Portland first imposed its restrictions in 1979. Since then, the city and 23 surrounding towns have readily granted building permits within their designated growth areas, shrinking the average lot size, and allowing more multi-family units. Critics charge that Portland’s strategies have resulted in higher housing costs. However, when examined in light of local average incomes, housing costs in Portland are comparable or less expensive than other West Coast cities of similar size.
Last fall, there were nearly 250 state or local anti-sprawl ballot initiatives. The unmistakable trend is toward taking away the power of local authorities to approve new developments without voter approval, and toward buying open land to prevent development. The twelve states with growth-management laws use combinations of restrictions, incentives, and disincentives to steer development closer to town and away from the countryside. For example, Tennessee uses growth boundaries around major cities; Maryland withholds state money for roads and schools from counties that do not agree to confine growth to state-approved areas. Some of the other states are using tax monies or bonds to buy important open spaces.
Public purchase of open space is one option in the war against sprawl, but methods that don’t involve permanent public land ownership may hold the most promise. Some states are starting to broker “development rights,” which give builders special breaks to place high-density projects nearer urban centers in exchange for payments to rural landowners to keep their land in open space.
Conservation easements are another tool being used more frequently. Michigan now has nearly 40 private-sector land conservancies that purchase open spaces. Most function primarily in remote areas of the state, focusing on lands with unique resources such as rare plant or animal species, or scenic views. For example, the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy recently purchased a 555-acre block of farmland (orchards) in Benzie County, which features a spectacular view of Lake Michigan and the Frankfort harbor. The hefty price tag – $1.42 million – was necessary to match the offer of developers who sought to build homes, golf courses, a hotel, and a restaurant on the site. But the Land Conservancy will resell part of the property to farmers willing to honor a conservation easement that prohibits development. They also hope to re-coup some of the money from the state.
Although land conservancies in Michigan are generally not operating much in the areas where urban sprawl is greatest, they along with their sometimes-complex land deals, may soon become part of the mix in the battle against “dumb growth.” We need to protect individual property rights – including the ability to sell land for a profit – if we are to find real solutions to urban sprawl.
Michigan Battles Uphill Against Urban Sprawl
In this article, Dr. Rusz explores the problems unique to Michigan in dealing with sprawl.
Nationwide, the undeveloped fringe around our sprawling suburbs promises to be the battleground of the new millennium. Politicians have already declared war, and hundreds of anti-sprawl laws and programs are in place around the country. But in Michigan, the fight against urban sprawl has so far been just a series of skirmishes. Twenty-five years ago, there was much talk about a statewide land use policy. Yet Michigan has since taken only baby steps to curb or direct growth and preserve open space.
One of the main reasons Michigan has lagged in this area, while leading in other environmental arenas, is our unique reliance on “home rule.” No other state has a township-dominated government structure as far-reaching as Michigan’s. According to a recent survey by Public Sector Consultants, Inc. of Lansing, there are 1,800 different local government units that make land use and zoning decisions in our state. Nearly 12,000 locally-elected officials and an estimated 15,000 others (including staff, consultants, and advisors) have authority for making those decisions. Added to the decision-making mix are hundreds of special purpose local government units such as historic districts, road and drain commissioners, and airport and solid waste management authorities that influence land use. And thousands of people sit on boards that make recommendations about new developments.
Intensive local representation warms the hearts of most Michiganders, but it makes serious consideration of urban sprawl – a regional problem – extremely difficult. We don’t like to admit it, but our local governments don’t always cooperate very well and some of our local officials have, at best, a limited understanding of land use issues. They know land use is important but have a difficult time formulating long-range plans while dealing with one crisis after another. There are elected officials that –despite a huge body of evidence to the contrary – think requiring large lot residential development helps fight urban sprawl and makes good economic sense for their area, whereas, in reality it exacerbates the problem (see above article for further explanation). Informing these decision makers is made more difficult by a high turnover among appointed as well as elected officials. Terms of less than six years are the norm, and newly-elected officials often come in with little background in land use control.
If some local officials are an impediment to fighting urban sprawl it is only because they reflect general public confusion. Public Sector Consultants reported: “A 1995 Michigan Society of Planning Officials survey found that almost 75 percent of the general population think more land use planning is needed, and 67 percent think that planning initiatives are successful. However, less than one-quarter believe that local or state officials are trustworthy sources of land use information. Unfortunately, public perception of land use issues is a mile wide and an inch deep. Focus group interviews found that people don’t think sprawl, loss of open space, and urban revitalization are big issues today – but they are concerned about how development, zoning, and pollution will affect future generations…Further public education is needed; without broad public understanding, legislative action is unlikely.”
But Michigan is not likely to do away with local government in the interest of fighting urban sprawl. Bigger governmental units have some advantages in reducing the costs of certain services such as police and fire protection, but it would be political suicide to push “regionalism” in the near future. And although many people believe state government should play an important role in land use planning, any meaningful attempt to curb urban sprawl will have to come at the local level and be weighted toward creating economic incentives rather than controlling growth to be politically viable. Taxpayers are not willing to fun a big bureaucracy at the state level, but would support land use planning at the local level. Most of the areas of Michigan that already suffer from the problems of sprawl are in the metropolitan Detroit, Grand Rapids and Traverse City areas. The sentiment of tax payers in more rural areas is that they should not be asked to help pay for problems that they don’t believe affect them.
State leadership will be important if we are to channel growth wisely, but the real thrust of our efforts should be at the local level. Elected officials need continual training and encouragement so they can make the best possible land use decisions. The public must be educated about the wisdom of investing in open space preservation today, to save money in the future.
This is underscored by the current difficulties in obtaining support for local efforts to raise money for such programs. Washtenaw County voters recently rejected a tax increase, which would raise money for purchase of development rights for agricultural land preservation. It would have paid farmers for those rights while allowing them to continue farming the land. And a similar state program (paying farmers up to $5,000 per acre) has moved at a snail’s pace, owing in part to lack of public support and funding from the legislature. Unfortunately, land prices have skyrocketed to the point where programs to purchase development rights might not be able to offer land owners enough where the programs are most needed. The longer we wait to invest, the more costly such programs will be.
New Directions for Michigan
In this article, Dr. Rusz describes the policies and programs that offer the most promise for saving farmland and open space in Michigan.
As discussed in the last issue of The Wildlife Volunteer, Michigan’s unique government structure, with emphasis on home rule by townships, presents challenges in dealing with urban sprawl. Many of the highly-touted programs which are curbing growth in Oregon, Florida, and other states consolidate planning and development authority in regional governments. That is unlikely to happen anytime soon in our state, so the solutions to urban sprawl in Michigan will have to flow through local governments.
That’s appropriated, because suburbanization is really a local problem. Urban sprawl is generally viewed as a pattern of development characterized by single-family homes on large lots, commercial strips, and “zoned” land that puts the places we live, work, and shop in separate places. But the pattern itself is not the biggest problem in Michigan, which is still predominantly rural. Rather it is the measurable effects of such development in certain settings and situations. This obvious fact often gets lost in the sea of statistics tossed about in debates about urban sprawl. We don’t need to protect all farmland and all open space with equal effort. Rather, we need to focus on the lands with the most valuable resources and where development pressures are most intense. State programs have historically had a difficult time accomplishing that.
A case in point is Michigan’s Farmland and Open Space Preservation Act of 1974. It provides tax credits to farmers who give up development rights. About 40% of Michigan’s farmland is now enrolled in the program, but very little of that land is in areas where development pressures are intense. The tax breaks have largely gone to farmers who were not going to sell to developers anyway. And where urban sprawl is a real threat, the program has not offered enough money to individual farmers to persuade them to keep their land agriculture.
The state’s main role in the fight against urban sprawl should be to give local governments the tools they need to preserve critically important lands. The current system that allows land to be taxed on the basis of its most valuable use rather than its existing use should be eliminated, and creative measures to generate matching funds for purchase of development rights must be formulated.
At the local level, systems must be put in place to identify areas with resources that clearly warrant protection. That is not an especially difficult task. Prime agricultural lands have already been mapped, and we have an adequate database for identification of critical plant and animal habitats, important groundwater recharge areas, scenic areas, potential greenbelts, and other natural features worthy of protection. The information is already available and we should not pretend that we don’t know what lands should be our highest priorities for protection.
Michigan’s Farmland and Agricultural Development Task Force is on the right track with its recommendation to establish voluntary “Agricultural Security Areas” where farmers can get protection from nuisance law suits under “right to farm” concepts and priority access to funds for purchase of development rights. The Security Areas are important in combating the powerful political and psychological forces that discourage long-term investments in agriculture when suburban development encroaches on active farms. The concept can be expanded to apply to non-farm lands as well.
Generating fund for purchase of development rights will mean increases in local taxes – a hard sell in most areas along the suburban fringe. Landowners who sell development rights are compensated for the difference between their land’s value when used for agriculture or open space and its value if sold to a developer. That difference is sure to grow where sprawl is most intense, so the longer we wait, the more costly the program will be.
Purchase of development rights programs have been run successfully for two decades in many other states and should be the cornerstone of Michigan’s efforts to curb urban sprawl. The state recently started such a program, ironically using penalties and other funds paid back to the Farmland and Open Space Preservation Program by landowners who wanted out. But the amount of cash generated has been minimal in comparison to the interest by landowners.
Some land use planners in Michigan have expressed interest in a program built around the transfer of development rights rather than their purchase. Such programs allow landowners with ecologically or otherwise important properties to sell development rights to developers where development is deemed appropriate. Of course, landowners in the “receiving area” must have a market for these additional rights, so the zoning or other controls cannot be so generous to start with that these owners have no incentive to purchase development rights. They system is appealing because not tax dollars are required, but it must be accompanied by some fairly stringent controls in the receiving area, a big drawback politically, and often counter productive when the whole idea is to direct growth where it can best be accommodated. For this reason, transfer of development rights has not played a major role in combating urban sprawl nationwide and is a second choice to purchase of development rights for Michigan.
While well-defined programs for purchase of development rights are being worked out, local governments will need to stop subsidizing road, sewer, and water projects that encourage developments in outlying areas. The true cost of developments to local government is not recognized in most areas of Michigan and recent studies have suggested methods to better forecast and allocate costs. At the same time, incentive driven programs of tax credits, low interest mortgages, and school modernization funding can and should be used to promote new development in urban areas. The Michigan Land Use Institute has called for a program similar to Maryland’s which controls the way taxpayer’s money is spent rather than placing severe restrictions on developers and formulating complex land use regulations. That’s the right decision for Michigan.
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Below is a series of articles on the implications of urban sprawl on wildlife by Dr. Patrick Rusz, Director of Wildlife Programs and Certified City & Regional Planner.
Battleground of the New Millennium
Back in the 1960s, when everyone seemed to be blaming everyone else for our environmental problems, the comic strip character Pogo was created with an astute observation. He said simply, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Pogo’s statement certainly applies very well to urban sprawl, that phenomenon characterized by massive subdivisions, strip malls, industrial parks, and snarled traffic where farms, woods, and wildlife used to be. Suburban overgrowth has become a national headache not because of the work of evil-doers, but rather as a direct result of American Culture. All of us had a hand in causing it, and it will take all of us to fight effectively.
The stakes are high for wildlife. While there are laws that generally keep urban sprawl out of important wetlands and floodplains, the habitat that remains in the wake of “leap-frog” development is becoming too fragmented to support certain species. Indeed, biologists now consider habitat fragmentation one of southern Michigan’s most serious wildlife management concerns.
The battle over urban sprawl is heating up. In the minds of many Americans, it appears to be taking precedence over other environmental issues like global warming, endangered species protection, and even air and water pollution. Across the nation, politicians are rallying against the problems of urban sprawl and 12 states have already enacted growth management laws. Vice President Al Gore has promised to make urban sprawl an important part of his “livability agenda” during the upcoming presidential campaign because he feels it is something voters can really relate to. Recent polls seem to support this, but they also indicted that the public may be reluctant to accept some of the potential remedies.
A recent survey by Time Magazine and the Cable New Network found that 57% of adult Americans favored the establishment of a zone or greenbelt around their communities where new homes, businesses or stores could not be built on land that is currently undeveloped. Only 33% opposed the idea (10% were undecided). However, Just 44% favored using taxpayer money to buy undeveloped land to keep it free from development (49% opposed). And 69% of those surveyed stated that the ability of individuals to do what they want with land that they own should be considered more important than the ability of government to regulate development for the common good. So, the poll seemed to say we don’t like sprawl, but don’t want to pay to stop it, and don’t trust government planning. This clearly suggests a tough battle ahead.
Urban sprawl is not simply the inevitable result of population growth. Cities are spreading much faster than their populations grow. Many of our major metropolitan areas have spread 50% or more in the same time that their populations increased less than 10%. Urban sprawl is largely the result of many powerful social, political, and economic factors that have long shaped American culture.
Historians point out that the automobile played a major role in giving Americans the freedom to live away from their job site. Many of the soldiers who returned after World War II wanted to own their own homes and raise their families away from the traffic and factory smoke of the cities. In 1947, mass-produced, single-family homes were established 40 miles from New York City and became the symbol of the “American Dream” and the “suburban escape.” The Interstate Highway System, championed by Dwight D. Eisenhower as critical to rapid deployment of troops and materials in case of war, came along at just the right time to spur urban sprawl. In the 1950s, the United States built nearly half a million miles of new paved roads and the suburbs took over as the fastest growing areas in the country. The trend has continued into the 1990s and the suburbs, or “edge cities” as they are sometime called, have become less and less dependent on the core city.
Federal highway subsidies are certainly not the only government incentives that have lured people farther from the central cities. State and local governments have been eager to extend roads, sewer lines, and other utilities to far-flung developments. And zoning rules – ironically enacted for the purpose of avoiding land use conflicts and boosting the quality of life – have contributed mightily to urban sprawl. Many townships have adopted rules that require large building lots and low-density developments, thereby bringing in fewer people to area zoned for residential use and minimizing preservation of open space. Historically, zoning has all but eliminated mixing of homes and shops, effectively putting the corner store miles away in some strip developments.
All this happened while the existing core cities have decayed. The federal government’s massive attempts at urban renewal in the 1960s and 70s had mixed results and were eventually discontinued. Often, slums that were removed showed up elsewhere because no fundamental improvement was made in the lives of those displaced. One important lesson that was learned is that public subsidies cannot replace a healthy economic base dependent on the private sector. Another was that strategies designed to make the inner cities more competitive with the outlying shopping centers and industrial parks didn’t work where population growth in the general metropolitan area was slowing. An awful lot of planning was based on the notion that suburbs were growing at the cities’ expense and that the solution was obviously to upgrade the cities so they could capture their fair share of the growth. By the mid-1970s, when many of the federal programs were stopped, it had become apparent that the issues were much more complex.
Today, stopping urban sprawl should not involve some sort of battle or competition between core cities and the suburbs. Rather, it hinges on recognizing the value of open space. The most successful “smart growth” programs in the nation have all come at a price. Perhaps the most famous is in and around Portland, Oregon. There, the local metro council imposes a “growth boundary” outside of which undeveloped land is strictly protected. Although seemingly “un-American,” this radical concept has been surprisingly popular with Portland voters, even as debate about its merit continues. Initiated as part of a statewide land use law, Portland voters, even as debate about its merit continues. Initiated as part of a statewide land use law, Portland first imposed its restrictions in 1979. Since then, the city and 23 surrounding towns have readily granted building permits within their designated growth areas, shrinking the average lot size, and allowing more multi-family units. Critics charge that Portland’s strategies have resulted in higher housing costs. However, when examined in light of local average incomes, housing costs in Portland are comparable or less expensive than other West Coast cities of similar size.
Last fall, there were nearly 250 state or local anti-sprawl ballot initiatives. The unmistakable trend is toward taking away the power of local authorities to approve new developments without voter approval, and toward buying open land to prevent development. The twelve states with growth-management laws use combinations of restrictions, incentives, and disincentives to steer development closer to town and away from the countryside. For example, Tennessee uses growth boundaries around major cities; Maryland withholds state money for roads and schools from counties that do not agree to confine growth to state-approved areas. Some of the other states are using tax monies or bonds to buy important open spaces.
Public purchase of open space is one option in the war against sprawl, but methods that don’t involve permanent public land ownership may hold the most promise. Some states are starting to broker “development rights,” which give builders special breaks to place high-density projects nearer urban centers in exchange for payments to rural landowners to keep their land in open space.
Conservation easements are another tool being used more frequently. Michigan now has nearly 40 private-sector land conservancies that purchase open spaces. Most function primarily in remote areas of the state, focusing on lands with unique resources such as rare plant or animal species, or scenic views. For example, the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy recently purchased a 555-acre block of farmland (orchards) in Benzie County, which features a spectacular view of Lake Michigan and the Frankfort harbor. The hefty price tag – $1.42 million – was necessary to match the offer of developers who sought to build homes, golf courses, a hotel, and a restaurant on the site. But the Land Conservancy will resell part of the property to farmers willing to honor a conservation easement that prohibits development. They also hope to re-coup some of the money from the state.
Although land conservancies in Michigan are generally not operating much in the areas where urban sprawl is greatest, they along with their sometimes-complex land deals, may soon become part of the mix in the battle against “dumb growth.” We need to protect individual property rights – including the ability to sell land for a profit – if we are to find real solutions to urban sprawl.
Michigan Battles Uphill Against Urban Sprawl
In this article, Dr. Rusz explores the problems unique to Michigan in dealing with sprawl.
Nationwide, the undeveloped fringe around our sprawling suburbs promises to be the battleground of the new millennium. Politicians have already declared war, and hundreds of anti-sprawl laws and programs are in place around the country. But in Michigan, the fight against urban sprawl has so far been just a series of skirmishes. Twenty-five years ago, there was much talk about a statewide land use policy. Yet Michigan has since taken only baby steps to curb or direct growth and preserve open space.
One of the main reasons Michigan has lagged in this area, while leading in other environmental arenas, is our unique reliance on “home rule.” No other state has a township-dominated government structure as far-reaching as Michigan’s. According to a recent survey by Public Sector Consultants, Inc. of Lansing, there are 1,800 different local government units that make land use and zoning decisions in our state. Nearly 12,000 locally-elected officials and an estimated 15,000 others (including staff, consultants, and advisors) have authority for making those decisions. Added to the decision-making mix are hundreds of special purpose local government units such as historic districts, road and drain commissioners, and airport and solid waste management authorities that influence land use. And thousands of people sit on boards that make recommendations about new developments.
Intensive local representation warms the hearts of most Michiganders, but it makes serious consideration of urban sprawl – a regional problem – extremely difficult. We don’t like to admit it, but our local governments don’t always cooperate very well and some of our local officials have, at best, a limited understanding of land use issues. They know land use is important but have a difficult time formulating long-range plans while dealing with one crisis after another. There are elected officials that –despite a huge body of evidence to the contrary – think requiring large lot residential development helps fight urban sprawl and makes good economic sense for their area, whereas, in reality it exacerbates the problem (see above article for further explanation). Informing these decision makers is made more difficult by a high turnover among appointed as well as elected officials. Terms of less than six years are the norm, and newly-elected officials often come in with little background in land use control.
If some local officials are an impediment to fighting urban sprawl it is only because they reflect general public confusion. Public Sector Consultants reported: “A 1995 Michigan Society of Planning Officials survey found that almost 75 percent of the general population think more land use planning is needed, and 67 percent think that planning initiatives are successful. However, less than one-quarter believe that local or state officials are trustworthy sources of land use information. Unfortunately, public perception of land use issues is a mile wide and an inch deep. Focus group interviews found that people don’t think sprawl, loss of open space, and urban revitalization are big issues today – but they are concerned about how development, zoning, and pollution will affect future generations…Further public education is needed; without broad public understanding, legislative action is unlikely.”
But Michigan is not likely to do away with local government in the interest of fighting urban sprawl. Bigger governmental units have some advantages in reducing the costs of certain services such as police and fire protection, but it would be political suicide to push “regionalism” in the near future. And although many people believe state government should play an important role in land use planning, any meaningful attempt to curb urban sprawl will have to come at the local level and be weighted toward creating economic incentives rather than controlling growth to be politically viable. Taxpayers are not willing to fun a big bureaucracy at the state level, but would support land use planning at the local level. Most of the areas of Michigan that already suffer from the problems of sprawl are in the metropolitan Detroit, Grand Rapids and Traverse City areas. The sentiment of tax payers in more rural areas is that they should not be asked to help pay for problems that they don’t believe affect them.
State leadership will be important if we are to channel growth wisely, but the real thrust of our efforts should be at the local level. Elected officials need continual training and encouragement so they can make the best possible land use decisions. The public must be educated about the wisdom of investing in open space preservation today, to save money in the future.
This is underscored by the current difficulties in obtaining support for local efforts to raise money for such programs. Washtenaw County voters recently rejected a tax increase, which would raise money for purchase of development rights for agricultural land preservation. It would have paid farmers for those rights while allowing them to continue farming the land. And a similar state program (paying farmers up to $5,000 per acre) has moved at a snail’s pace, owing in part to lack of public support and funding from the legislature. Unfortunately, land prices have skyrocketed to the point where programs to purchase development rights might not be able to offer land owners enough where the programs are most needed. The longer we wait to invest, the more costly such programs will be.
New Directions for Michigan
In this article, Dr. Rusz describes the policies and programs that offer the most promise for saving farmland and open space in Michigan.
As discussed in the last issue of The Wildlife Volunteer, Michigan’s unique government structure, with emphasis on home rule by townships, presents challenges in dealing with urban sprawl. Many of the highly-touted programs which are curbing growth in Oregon, Florida, and other states consolidate planning and development authority in regional governments. That is unlikely to happen anytime soon in our state, so the solutions to urban sprawl in Michigan will have to flow through local governments.
That’s appropriated, because suburbanization is really a local problem. Urban sprawl is generally viewed as a pattern of development characterized by single-family homes on large lots, commercial strips, and “zoned” land that puts the places we live, work, and shop in separate places. But the pattern itself is not the biggest problem in Michigan, which is still predominantly rural. Rather it is the measurable effects of such development in certain settings and situations. This obvious fact often gets lost in the sea of statistics tossed about in debates about urban sprawl. We don’t need to protect all farmland and all open space with equal effort. Rather, we need to focus on the lands with the most valuable resources and where development pressures are most intense. State programs have historically had a difficult time accomplishing that.
A case in point is Michigan’s Farmland and Open Space Preservation Act of 1974. It provides tax credits to farmers who give up development rights. About 40% of Michigan’s farmland is now enrolled in the program, but very little of that land is in areas where development pressures are intense. The tax breaks have largely gone to farmers who were not going to sell to developers anyway. And where urban sprawl is a real threat, the program has not offered enough money to individual farmers to persuade them to keep their land agriculture.
The state’s main role in the fight against urban sprawl should be to give local governments the tools they need to preserve critically important lands. The current system that allows land to be taxed on the basis of its most valuable use rather than its existing use should be eliminated, and creative measures to generate matching funds for purchase of development rights must be formulated.
At the local level, systems must be put in place to identify areas with resources that clearly warrant protection. That is not an especially difficult task. Prime agricultural lands have already been mapped, and we have an adequate database for identification of critical plant and animal habitats, important groundwater recharge areas, scenic areas, potential greenbelts, and other natural features worthy of protection. The information is already available and we should not pretend that we don’t know what lands should be our highest priorities for protection.
Michigan’s Farmland and Agricultural Development Task Force is on the right track with its recommendation to establish voluntary “Agricultural Security Areas” where farmers can get protection from nuisance law suits under “right to farm” concepts and priority access to funds for purchase of development rights. The Security Areas are important in combating the powerful political and psychological forces that discourage long-term investments in agriculture when suburban development encroaches on active farms. The concept can be expanded to apply to non-farm lands as well.
Generating fund for purchase of development rights will mean increases in local taxes – a hard sell in most areas along the suburban fringe. Landowners who sell development rights are compensated for the difference between their land’s value when used for agriculture or open space and its value if sold to a developer. That difference is sure to grow where sprawl is most intense, so the longer we wait, the more costly the program will be.
Purchase of development rights programs have been run successfully for two decades in many other states and should be the cornerstone of Michigan’s efforts to curb urban sprawl. The state recently started such a program, ironically using penalties and other funds paid back to the Farmland and Open Space Preservation Program by landowners who wanted out. But the amount of cash generated has been minimal in comparison to the interest by landowners.
Some land use planners in Michigan have expressed interest in a program built around the transfer of development rights rather than their purchase. Such programs allow landowners with ecologically or otherwise important properties to sell development rights to developers where development is deemed appropriate. Of course, landowners in the “receiving area” must have a market for these additional rights, so the zoning or other controls cannot be so generous to start with that these owners have no incentive to purchase development rights. They system is appealing because not tax dollars are required, but it must be accompanied by some fairly stringent controls in the receiving area, a big drawback politically, and often counter productive when the whole idea is to direct growth where it can best be accommodated. For this reason, transfer of development rights has not played a major role in combating urban sprawl nationwide and is a second choice to purchase of development rights for Michigan.
While well-defined programs for purchase of development rights are being worked out, local governments will need to stop subsidizing road, sewer, and water projects that encourage developments in outlying areas. The true cost of developments to local government is not recognized in most areas of Michigan and recent studies have suggested methods to better forecast and allocate costs. At the same time, incentive driven programs of tax credits, low interest mortgages, and school modernization funding can and should be used to promote new development in urban areas. The Michigan Land Use Institute has called for a program similar to Maryland’s which controls the way taxpayer’s money is spent rather than placing severe restrictions on developers and formulating complex land use regulations. That’s the right decision for Michigan.
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