SOUNDOFF: Smart growth combats sprawl
Published 5:00 am Saturday, February 8, 2003
What’s your reaction to commercial development along Whidbey Island’s scenic highways over the last few years?
a. All right! Progress! Keep it coming!
b. Let’s lynch all developers and outlaw more growth!
c. I wish we could slow runaway development, but it seems like nothing can be done.
If you’re like most people, your answer was probably something close to “c.” But there’s another option:
d. Maybe stopping growth isn’t realistic. But we can certainly plan for it and channel it into Smart Growth. We can save the special places we all love, and accommodate growth without permanently wrecking the landscape. We can make sure that development is of the appropriate scale and character for our rural islands. We can keep scenic highways from turning into wastelands. We can ensure that what we build will be good for our community, our economy and our environment.
All over the U.S., communities are discovering that Smart Growth is the answer to a multitude of problems. Very briefly, this means:
— Concentrating development to preserve open space and protect wildlife habitat.
— Reducing traffic and congestion with pedestrian-friendly and transit-friendly design.
— Encouraging compact, mixed-use neighborhoods (they’ve worked well for centuries!).
— Maintaining our unique character and sense of place.
—Creating a built environment that’s worth caring about.
Smart Growth is the opposite of sprawl. It means traditional neighborhoods, strong communities, and an enriched quality of life. It combats problems from gridlock and air pollution, to crime and vandalism, to the loss of farms and forests, to isolated seniors and alienated teenagers. While rooted in the past, Smart Growth is the wave of the future.
Like any new idea, this makes some people feel threatened. Most developers won’t willingly give up the right to bulldoze virgin land and put up malls and suburbs. Ironically, if they researched the issue, they’d discover that most homebuyers are glad to pay more for a smaller lot — if it means they can live in a real neighborhood, with parks, schools, shops and other interesting places they can walk to, rather than being total slaves to their cars. And thanks to lower land and infrastructure costs, Smart Growth developments are often less expensive to build.
Demand for smart development is growing, and the real estate industry is taking notice. A recent article in the trade publication Realty Times noted that homebuyers are increasingly demanding “to be able to live, work and shop in the same area.” And the study “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 1999” reports that property values will rise fastest in communities that are rich in amenities, pedestrian-friendly, and open to both commercial and residential uses.
In a rural area like ours, not every principle of Smart Growth can be applied. But we can:
l Enact community-supported design standards that make explicit our vision of the future.
l Act quickly to preserve the special places that enhance our lives (and are critical to our tourism industry).
l Demand that the county enforce the regulations that are supposed to prohibit the worst eyesores.
l Continue to encourage “infill” in existing developed areas.
l Provide attractive incentives for developers who agree to “build smart.”
In Island County, we’ve reached a fork in the road. One way lies the traditional path to more strip malls, more gas stations, more asphalt, more traffic and more sprawl. The Smart way can take us to a future of pleasant neighborhoods, strong communities,and the preservation of wildlife and natural beauty that surround us.
As more people arrive, the pressure for rapid, unplanned growth will only get worse. Will we have the vision, the courage and the determination to choose the Smart way? I urge you to find out more, and get involved. Nothing less than the future of these precious and irreplaceable islands is at stake!
Langley resident Rob Lewis is president of the Island County Smart Growth Coalition; e-mail SGC@frog-hill.net.
