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February 22, 2001

Growth management can be good for business

  • A high quality environment, including the protection of endangered salmon, is important for retaining knowledge workers and for preventing severe restrictions that will hinder appropriate levels of development.
    • By TIM TROHIMOVICH
    1000 Friends of Washington

    When PricewaterhouseCoopers and Lend Lease Real Estate Investments, Inc. issued their “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2001,” the message for real estate investors was the same as in recent years: invest in “24-hour cities” with constraints on new construction to prevent overbuilding.

    urban development
    Compact urban developments such as this one in Vancouver, B.C., can reduce sprawl and traffic, and provide residents a single place to live, work and shop. Twenty-four-hour cities that remain vigilant against overdevelopment make attractive investment targets.

    Bellevue is identified as one of several emerging “subcities” which are evolving into 24-hour markets, making them attractive investment targets. In contrast, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston are seen as risky places to invest due to a lack of constraints on development.

    Maintaining our amenities and carefully managing our growth can pay off economically. Amenities help attract and keep high quality workers.

    Are we using growth management to maintain our economic competitiveness?

    Our region’s performance on sprawl and smart growth is mixed. Of the 12 most populous counties, only King and Snohomish have compact urban growth areas. Snohomish County designated 98 percent of its farmland for long-term preservation, King about 90 percent, Pierce less than 40 percent and Kitsap none.

    Successful growth management requires transportation planning.

    The Growth Management Act established the goal of encouraging an efficient multi-modal transportation system based on regional priorities and coordinated with comprehensive plans. The Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation documented that Washington has not achieved this goal. Indeed, the Commission makes a clear case that the state faces a transportation crisis. The region is faced with congestion, as are other areas of the state. Many areas also face a serious backlog of transportation safety and maintenance work.

    The Commission’s recommendations would help reform the transportation system and address transportation needs. The recommendations focus on improving accountability and efficiency; choosing the most cost-effective transportation solutions including considering whether multi-modal facilities are more cost-effective than single-occupancy vehicle improvements; allowing regions to plan, fund and implement transportation improvements; simplifying funding; increasing funding; investing in maintenance and preservation; and investing in a multi-modal system. Multi-modal refers to all transportation modes, including walking, biking, carpools, vanpools and transit.

    The Growth Management Act included tools to help implement the transportation goal.

    Three areas warrant a closer look: land use, transportation concurrency, and transportation impact fees.

    • Land use. Land use can have an important effect on transportation. Low-density suburban development with rigid separations between uses cannot support transit and requires those who live and work in these areas to drive to work, shopping, school and recreation.

    Those 24-hour cities have the benefit of allowing those who live and work there to walk and bike to work, shopping and recreation. They have densities that allow efficient use of transit, carpools and vanpools for those who work or shop in the area but live elsewhere. Reducing sprawl by providing compact urban development and including sidewalks, trails and bikeways can also help reduce traffic.

    Action plan
    for the region

    • Recognize the relationship between land use and transportation. Use Smart Growth policies to reduce single-occupancy vehicle trips. Use transportation improvements to reinforce 24-hour centers and other land use innovations that reduce trips.

    • Adequately fund multi-model measures, such as vanpools and transit, and trip reduction programs.

    • Encourage impact fees that give incentives to uses that reduce trips and that are located in centers to reduce transportation demand.

    • Use Smart Growth investment principles to encourage growth in urban areas and economically distressed cities and towns.

    • Refine and implement the State Growth Strategies Commission’s economic development recommendations.

    • Support efforts to protect the environment such as Ecology’s new Shoreline Master Program guidelines.

    As the Emerging Trends report indicated, many local governments, such as Bellevue, are making progress on land use patterns that help to address transportation congestion. We need to encourage these efforts by making transportation investments that support these land use innovations.

    • Concurrency. For concurrency, the Washington Office of Community Development reports that many local governments required to adopt transportation concurrency systems have not done so. In some of the cities and counties that have concurrency, the system needs reform either because it is not effectively matching transportation facilities to growth or it threatens to stop growth without stopping congestion. Finally, transportation problems are often regional, and concurrency systems currently only address local transportation systems.

    Some progress is being made. Vancouver recently adopted a new concurrency system based on travel delay, a system they believe better addresses community concerns. Olympia has identified the maximum build out of street improvements in certain downtown corridors. When those facilities are built out, other modes will be used to address congestion such as walking, biking and transit. We need to encourage other local governments to adopt effective concurrency systems.

    • Impact fees. Impact fees help local governments fund facilities and enhance predictability for development because the fees are set in advance and are based on planned land uses and needed transportation facilities. Impact fees also charge growth for the facilities it needs, supporting a Blue Ribbon Commission recommendation that transportation users fund needed improvements.

    However, many local governments have not adopted impact fees. We need to encourage the adoption of impact fees to help fund our needed transportation improvements. Impact fees should also be designed to give incentives for mixed-use developments and developments in existing and developing 24-hour centers, both of which reduce transportation impacts.

    Our success in protecting the environment has been mixed. While the Growth Management Act requires the protection of environmentally sensitive areas and resource lands, not all local governments have adopted effective measures to protect these important areas. The state should adopt standards for their protection. A high quality environment, including the protection of endangered salmon, is important for retaining knowledge workers and for preventing severe restrictions that will hinder appropriate levels of development.

    Late last year, the Washington Department of Ecology adopted new regulations to guide local governments in updating their regulations to manage streams, rivers, lakes and salt-water shorelines. These regulations are currently under attack in the Legislature. The Legislature should support Ecology’s new regulations and provide local governments with the funding and time they need to update their shoreline policies and regulations.

    State investment should also support both protecting the environment and local economic development. Now state agencies have a tendency to locate their facilities on greenfield sites. For example, several years ago a state agency moved an office out of Aberdeen, a distressed rural city, to a greenfield site outside town. The department built on a former field and took jobs from a distressed community. 1000 Friends has proposed Smart Growth legislation that would target state investment to urban areas, which would help distressed communities.

    The 1990 State Growth Strategies Commission report included important recommendations for building a network of strong regional economies throughout the state. The state should refine and implement these recommendations and adopt strategies to target new growth outside the Puget Sound region.

    Tim Trohimovich AICP, planning director, has been a land use planner in Washington for almost 20 years in both rural areas and fast growing urban areas. 1000 Friends of Washington is a citizens growth that supports implementation of the Growth Management Act and stopping sprawl.


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