ALLIANCE
FOR CITIZENS RIGHTS
ALLIANCE
FOR CITIZENS RIGHTS
THE LURE OF
COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING
by Ray Simmons
A friend of mine, Don Casey, has been doing considerable research on the issue of "Comprehensive Planning," a movement that is spreading like wildfire across the nation. It may have had its national beginnings in Portland, Oregon, a city that is suffering severely because of it and the urban growth boundary (UGB) it imposed.
You see, the UGB makes it virtually impossible for the city to expand outward beyond the boundary’s limits. This sends the cost of properties within the boundary skyrocketing while values on land outside plummet. Restricting development thusly has more-or-less eliminated urban sprawl but has resulted in another phenomenon called "infill."
Infill is essentially filling up the unused spaces between existing structures, spaces that previously provided some open space between housing and allowed ranch style homes on nice sized lots. As the population has grown and the existing space has been used up one might think the powers that be would expand the UGB and take in additional land. This seems not to have been the case in Portland. Instead of allowing a little urban sprawl, building styles are being modified to put more houses within the available space. Narrow houses, essentially one-room wide, are being built upward for two or more stories. Some of these, roughly fifteen feet wide, are being built on land lying between two, more traditional, one-story homes. Sometimes, a perfectly good ranch type home might be demolished and four or five of the slim-line houses built on the property. (See our FLYER elsewhere on this site.)
Urban sprawl may not be a very pretty sight and it might not be the most efficient use of the land, but I suspect those families having to live in the little slim-line houses now being built, and the neighbors who are seeing old neighborhoods being drastically changed by the infill of these houses would prefer the old urban sprawl to what they are now getting.
You ask, "Well, why don’t they vote the city government out and elect a new crew who will revoke these policies?"
Well, therein lies a major problem with "Comprehensive Planning." Generally, these plans are drawn up by so-called "professional planners" and presented to an area consisting of more than a single governing body. They might involve a major metropolitan area or they might include an entire county and all the small townships within it. The plan will call for the creation of a "planning board" or "planning committee" that will be appointed by the several governing bodies with the help of one or two private organizations like, maybe, the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy or some local environmental group. This board/committee will then be legally and contractually ceded the authority to establish the rules and regulations that will govern the growth of the area (zoning authority). Once this happens, and the governments involved sign on to it, you as citizens have just been removed from the equation and are from that point on being governed by a non-elected body of individuals you cannot vote out of office. Representative government no longer has any meaning for you.
Now you ask, "Why would any city council or county commission want to enter into any such plan?"
One answer, money. The "professional planners" often promise the infusion of grant money to accomplish some of the worth-while efforts set forth in the plan, money that would not be available to the individual communities involved, and don’t forget the individual gain to be made when property values get escalated by UGBs. Another answer, they are unaware of the ultimate goal being sought. They are a bit like that fat old bass looking at that wiggling worm so greedily that he doesn’t see the hook it’s connected to. Greed has been one of the Devil’s favorite lures since this old world began.
There is a Portland web site that has photos for anyone who would like a graphic illustration of some of what’s happening: http://home.comcast.net/~r5zone/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html
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