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Sprawl Brawl

Sprawl -- often used to describe the unsightly byproducts of development -- could be the political buzzword of the next century. Playing to suburbanites' alarm over increased traffic and less open space, politicians -- most notably Vice President Al Gore -- are making a "reversal'' of this trend a major theme in their rhetoric. Voters appear to be partial to it, passing 70% of a record 240 state and local ballot initiatives on sprawl last November.

Shopping center developers rightly insist that retail trends tend to follow that of housing, and therefore they aren't "responsible" for sprawl. But experts say they can't afford just to go along for the ride on this issue.

In this special section, Shopping Centers Today examines the innately political issue of growth management and how attempts to curb sprawl may affect the industry. Included is a look at the winners and losers in the state of Maryland, a pioneer in smart-growth planning; and a conversation with Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a leading antisprawl voice.

This section also looks at how the industry can defend itself against the political and public relations wounds the battle is sure to inflict, and visits the sprawl brawl on the front line -- in small towns across the nation. We also review a 1988 SCT cover story on the same subject to see what lessons have been learned since then.

Take the complexity of growth management issues, add the difficulty of environmental concerns and multiply it by populism.

Congratulations. You've just created sprawl -- or at least its political equivalent.

In November, a whopping 240 legislative measures addressing sprawl appeared on ballots nationwide -- and roughly 70% of them passed.

Across the United States, regional clamor for growth management is evolving into national concerns over sprawl. Broadly defined as low-density suburban development creating traffic problems and visual blight while resulting in dying cities and evaporating natural resources, sprawl in recent months has crystallized into a major issue on the nation's political agenda.

In November a record 240 measures addressing sprawl, including land buys and growth restrictions, appeared on ballots nationwide -- and almost 70% of them passed. And while growth has almost always been a local issue, many, including Vice President Al Gore, are betting that sprawl has the muscle to develop into a national one.

While shopping center developers are no strangers to solving growth-management issues and environmental concerns, experts say the brawl over sprawl will require new thinking about development and politics.

"Be prepared for it in every single state," said Gus Bauman, a land-use attorney for the Washington, D.C., office of Beveridge & Diamond, and a former senior counsel for the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Home Builders. "This is not an issue that's isolated in parts of the country. It's a quiet thing, but it could have an enormous impact."

Antisprawl for President?

Vice President Gore, in a move many see as a "theme" for a run for the White House in 2000, in January introduced proposals in the Fiscal Year 2000 budget pertaining to sprawl.

Gore proposed to issue $700 million in "Better America Bonds" which would be doled out over the next five years to communities that adopt smart-growth planning and/or acquire open spaces, clean polluted industrial sites or protect water supplies. Though the Administration has yet to announce specific plans, the Environmental Protection Agency would set criteria or standards for those communities eligible for the bonds.

Gore's plan -- dubbed a "Livability Agenda" -- also includes incentive grants that would help towns implement computer mapping, and $6.1 billion for mass transit development.

Critics took delight in assailing the plan -- conservative columnist George Will called it "Liberalism with an acute case of Portland envy" -- but polls indicate the ideas have support. A Time/CNN poll in March said 57% of U.S. adults favor establishment of "greenbelts" for underdeveloped land in their community, though they slightly opposed (49% to 44%) the idea of buying undeveloped land with taxpayer money. While political experts feel the proposals stand little chance of passing in Congress, they also feel Gore has brilliantly "mainstreamed" his environmental agenda by framing the issue in an unpleasantness everyone in the United States can relate to -- a traffic jam.

The real estate community is considerably less enamored. Shopping center developers expressed immediate concern that Gore was suggesting that the Environmental Protection agency -- a nonelected federal body -- was out to usurp local land-use decisions, and groups such as ICSC and the National Association of Home Builders said they would fight any regulation or legislation that limits local decision making.

An EPA official denied the agency is out to join the permitting process.

"There's no way. Trust me," said Jessica Cogan, a smart-growth coordinator in the EPA's department of water in Washington. "First, it's not the intent of the Better America Bonds program to get the EPA involved in permitting decisions. Second, I just can't imagine the agency even wanting a job like that."

The EPA, at any rate, is aggressively pushing smart growth, as regional offices of the agency are hosting "smart-growth forums" around the country. With a long history of entanglements with the EPA over wetlands reform and other development issues, the shopping center industry is concerned that even trickier battles may lie ahead.

Smart growth defined

So, what is smart growth anyway?

"Smart growth" first came into national prominence a few years ago, as the name for a model of planning pushed by the International City Management Association, said Michael Pawlukiewicz, director of land-use policy for the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a Washington, D.C., think tank. Jim Chaffin, chairman of ULI, defines smart growth as land development practices that are "environmentally sound, economically vital and that encourage livable communities." Many today see it as an enlightened solution to sprawl.

Advocates of smart growth take care to note that it is neither "no growth" nor "slow growth" that they seek, but "sensible growth." The difference between smart growth and previous models is that smart growth seeks to rest on a "three-legged stool" of environment, development and preservation, while previous strategies tended to lean disproportionately on any of the three, Pawlukiewicz says.

The model recognizes the considerable shortcomings of urban limit lines and no-growth policies that sprung up in the 1980s. At the same time, it acknowledges the messy state of many out-of-town developments, and seeks to solve both problems not with regulation but with incentives. In Maryland, for instance, statewide smart-growth planning will reward developers who build in existing communities in the form of grants to build infrastructure, in an attempt to make city-based land just as attractive as traditionally cheaper land on the fringe (see related story, page 195).

Though the ULI admits that developments following current planning models would probably be easier to build, it insists smart growth can work for developers. If a project can't get approval, smart growth says the alternatives must be economically viable. "Good" projects, Pawlukiewicz says -- those that meet environmental and community goals -- should be given vast opportunity to succeed.

Visual blight and increased traffic are among the hallmarks of sprawl.

"We want it to work economically," he said. "What we're trying to encourage is that if you don't like what you see, find a way that people can make money doing it another way. There are some segments of the market interested in going to closer-in settings, but it's got to be seen as an opportunity by the private sector. All the public sector has to do is allow it to happen."

Prepare for it

Bauman, the land-use attorney, suggests that developers, whether they want to or not, would do well to prepare for a future that includes some version of more stringent land-use, be it smart growth or other models. When planning new developments, he said, consider the following:

* Whenever possible, develop projects to meet objectives of smart growth. "You don't want to be the first one whose project gets held up as an example," he said. Remember that smart-growth criteria often includes both design and location.

* Use public relations. "The worst thing that can happen is you've got a well-designed project and some group convinces the local newspapers it's anti-smart growth," Bauman says. "The very fact that questions get raised can condemn a project."

* Follow local comprehensive plans closely. Projects that clearly follow the comprehensive plan of the local government are better prepared to withstand challenges, Bauman said.

If a company is acquiring properties for redevelopment, consider the fact that those closer to existing communities are less apt to be adversely affected by smart-growth decisions, Bauman added.

Sean Davis, a principal with LDR International, a planning firm based in Columbia, Md., has observed smart growth in his state for more than a year. He recommends that developers familiarize themselves with every detail of proposed or existing legislation, as well as the motives of those endorsing the plan, to avoid any surprises down the road. "If there's something underlying or prompting these laws, find out what it is," he said. "Be cognizant of the power this bestows on the state."

A war of the words?

That the development community is coming up against a more sophisticated growth-management opponent is evident even in the language of the debate, some say. Rather than rallying against the innocuous "growth," today the enemy is the more sinister-sounding "sprawl." The sexier "smart growth" has replaced terms such as "growth management."

"It's as if everything that's not smart growth is dumb growth," said Russ Pratt, president of the Pratt Cos., a San Francisco developer and former head of ICSC's Washington office.

Critics of Gore point out that he has not adequately articulated what he means by "livable," nor has he indicated whose definition of the term his proposals would use.

Trickier still is that the major problems cited by those advocating changes are difficult to argue against politically. Nobody likes getting caught in traffic, destroying natural habitats or making communities "unlivable." All sides in fact agree on those principles: It's how to solve those problems where the sides haven't met.

Pawlukiewicz of ULI fears that this is the road that debate on planning invariably travels. "We've been trying to be as nonideological as possible and still keep focused," he said. "I'm a little ambivalent about the whole Gore thing, because as soon as he talks about smart growth, you've got George Will on the other side saying smart growth is a dumb idea. It's becoming partisan, and that's something I didn't want to see happen."

As for semantics, Pawlukiewicz says the term "smart growth" fits even if the opposite is not quite accurate. "The opposite of 'smart growth' I'd say isn't 'dumb growth,' but 'mindless growth,' " he said. "The idea that something goes here, something goes there, and nobody's thinking how it all fits together."

Unfortunately for both sides, skepticism abounds. Never mind words with double meanings, said Rex Hime, president of the ICSC-supported California Business Properties Association. He's more concerned with concepts that mean two different things.

"Smart growth is another term for smart antigrowth," said Hime, who lobbies on behalf on building owners and developers in California.

Other ideas

Philosophical opponents of smart growth, urban limit lines and other efforts to combat sprawl, including ICSC, espouse a market-driven approach to planning.

In a recent report, Samuel Staley, director of the Urban Futures Program of The Reason Public Policy Institute, a Los Angeles-based research organization that advocates public policies based upon a free-market approach, argued that land development is restricted naturally by market forces, which ought to diminish the need for prescriptive planning.

Staley's 55-page report concluded that few developers are proposing high-density, single-family housing units in rural counties because the market won't support it -- suggesting that antisprawl sentiment is overblown when it comes to issues such as lost farmland. Staley's report further asserts that because of increasing efficiency, farm output is expected to grow by 25.9% by 2010, despite a declining number of farms and a population base that will grow by 11%.

Others argue further that sprawl is not a problem as much as a dynamic -- a moment in a community's constant state of evolution.

In his book "Edge Cities," author Joel Garreau argues to allow sprawling suburban communities to become what they become. Despite odd locations and often large areas, Garreau says "edge cities" fit sociological definitions of cities, encompassing residential, commercial and industrial districts.