PANDA Platform - Land Use Policy Proposals

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Land-use

Land-use Policy Proposals

Immediate removal of all subsidies for real estate speculation — There is a valid role for real estate speculation in the operation of an economy. Much as a vulture takes a carcass that would otherwise fester and decay and instead uses it for food at the higher end of the food chain, a real estate speculator might take a property that has ceased to serve its owner and return it to productive use rather than leaving it simply sit and decay into nothing. Both have their place, one has its role in the ecology, the other serves the economy.

The problem is that when we subsidize speculation activity, we are acting much as a game protector who shoots the animals under his/her care in order to feed a growing population of vultures, and who has so emboldened the birds, that they have even begun to attack live animals. As we subsidize more and more speculation, the economy becomes based upon it and the actions of the speculators become more and more outrageous, without regard to the impacts upon the community or upon future generations. Our political leaders are now like the crazy game protector who has forgotten that the first priority is to protect the game. Instead of protecting the people and their communities, our leaders have come to equate their role with taking care of the errant real estate speculators.

Subsidizing real estate speculation takes money away from necessary uses, such as infrastructure maintenance. Worse than that, is the harm it causes in underwriting the direct destruction of the region's assets, such as the 11 historic buildings razed in downtown Pittsburgh to build a suburban department store, an act which helps to undermine the urban character of the city, or the pending demolition of the Greater Pittsburgh Airport in order to put up some tin-shed air cargo warehouses that people in the air cargo business say are not needed. Worst of all is the indirect destruction that is caused as newhly created land consumptive over-capacity drains existing communities of people and investment, a phenomenon which leads traditional communities to their decline while adding congestion, environmental problems and a larger tax burden to communities on the receiving end, not to mention the forced changes in the residents' lifestyles.

Those who have gambled upon their ability to control public policy to the detriment of the people do not deserve a guaranteed profit. They must accept that they have risked and lost. Speculation is just that, speculation!

We must immediately pull the plug on the subsidies that are destroying our communities! TOP /\

Reduce reliance upon proscriptive measures — Zoning and restrictions are the chief instrument of the planning process. In metropolitian areas, they are used practically everywhere and are seen as the chief defense against suburban sprawl. The problem is that they are repulsive in nature, pushing away unwanted uses, and, as such, they tend to act as bumpers on a pin ball machine with the migrating uses bouncing off as they keep rolling outward. There can be reasons to use zoning and other restrictions, but they are limited and are not for fighting or controlling sprawl.

Zoning and land use restrictions are not the perfect solution. They reduce the ability of property investors to implement the most effective use of their land. The most dynamic parts of the region's traditional communities were built without zoning. Following an organic trial & error approach, small establishments started, failed, and were replaced; those that worked best continued on. Owners were free to build from one edge of their property to the other, making the buildings and communities that can't be duplicated today.

The model zoning ordinances of the mid-twentieth century outlawed the traditional urban form and established a suburban model that was superimposed upon traditional cities and towns. These ordinances forbade the addition of more urban form and even its replacement with urban form. The buildings of our traditional communities have survived as "exceptions" that are "grandfathered in," and they often require special "variances" to change uses.

Zoning and restrictions such as the growth boundary have been determined by the courts to pass the constitutional muster, and there are instances where they can have some limited beneficial influence. (Zoning is best used to protect an existing community area from changes or an intrusion of uses that would undermine it; preservation of an area's historic character is an excellent example.) However, they are overused and should be religated to a minor role in the effort to reverse suburban sprawl. TOP /\

— Growth boundaries —

One restriction gaining popularity as the ultimate in sprawl control is the growth boundary. First implemented in Portland, Oregon, the growth boundary is a line drawn around a metropolitan area, beyond which no suburban uses are permitted (except that in Portland a five acre zoning was "grandfathered" in a few places outside the growth boundary and is now used in those areas for what Portlanders call "McMansions"). The growth boundary does effectively contain sprawl and keep it from moving outward as it would normally do, however, within it, the outmigration and land consumption of un-utilized areas continues.

There are similarities between the growth boundary concept and municipal zoning. Compared to the pinball effect of municipal zoning, the growth boundary is more like the bumper on a billiard table, bouncing land consumptive uses inward until they find some place within. While the growth boundary does contain suburban sprawl, as with zoning it does little to slow or control the land consumptive uses within, and it does nothing to stop or reverse the continuing proliferation of automotive based suburbs.

Despite this, contrary to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reports of dissention in Portland over the growth boundary, Portlanders are insistent that the growth boundary remain as is. A few years ago, the regional planning agency in the metro Portland area found itself faced with a burgeoning population that was growing faster than had been anticipated when the growth boundary was first drawn. The agency proposed extending the boundary farther out in order to make way for more people as the area's population grows, and the matter was placed on the ballot. Furious voters overwhelmingly defeated it. — They wanted their growth boundary, and they wanted it to stay just the way it is! It is now considered a settled issue among most Portlanders.

The Portland metropolitan area has chiefly relied upon the planning process and its instruments of zoning and design restrictions, upsetting some real estate speculators. They are struggling against the same land consumptive pressures that plague the rest of the country and they have not succeeded in achieving much more than containment using the growth boundary.

Click here for a quick comparison between Pittsburgh and Portland, Oregon

Rely upon changes in public policy, adjustments to market mechanisms, and structural changes in the decision-making and permit review process — TOP /\

Place a moratorium on all new infrastructure in the region — (transportation, utilities, etc.) until an evaluation can be made of each project's role in encouraging suburban sprawl and supporting real estate speculation. TOP /\

Establish an urban relocation policy for government operations — are to relocate, it must be within the region's traditional communities, using the urban form and (where possible) existing structures.

When the Oregon Dept of Transportation office in Portland decided to relocate from their building on the outskirts of the city, they were required by state policy to choose an urban location. They picked an old warehouse in a section of the downtown and added several floors to create extra room (instead of tearing it down to build a new, modern, suburban-style building). The new urban offices then lead to the revitalization of that part of town.

When PennDOT decided to move from its Greentree offices on the edge of the city, they instead followed an agency policy of encouraging suburban sprawl and choose to move farther out from town into a spread out modern office park building which they constructed upon virgin land. About all the new offices have contributed to the area is land consumption and more suburban sprawl. TOP /\

Encourage smaller private investments — The traditional communities which are the region's strength were created primarily through small private investor building individual structures. Even with the huge single entity complexes of big industry in their midst, the traditional communities next to them relied upon regular people making investments in their own enterprises. It is this process which gives the traditional communities so much of their human scaled architecture. To enhance and rebuild them we must find ways to foster the average investor rather than continuing to cut our own wrists to provide public subsidies for the mega-financing deals of super speculators' large, planned projects. TOP /\

Implement a "Land Disturbance Fee" —

Per square foot fee for all land transformed from agriculture or natural habitat,

The moneys collected to be set aside for projects that encourage the re-utilization of existing capacity within the region's traditional communities

Does not cost the owners of existing structures anything

Establishes level playing field for investment interests TOP /\

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