[getsmart-l] What's land got to do with it?

[Janet May]

From:  

 

http://www.lincolninst.edu/news/atlincolnhouse.asp

 

 


In This Issue:

 


What's land got to do with it? 

Relying on the property tax 

Oregon thinks again 

 




What's land got to do with it? 

Because climate change is the "ultimate externality," as MIT's Robert Solow
has put it, the world of land policy faces complex questions. How much
impact does land use have on emissions and energy efficiency? If one city,
region or state ties land policies to reducing emissions, will the impact be
diluted because the neighboring jurisdiction does not? Are other things more
central in the climate debate, such as continued international reliance on
coal-fired power plants or the price on carbon?
   Those were some of the questions that planners and policy leaders
wrestled with at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy's New England Smart
Growth Leadership Forum, attended by about 100 people at the Federal Reserve
Bank of Boston Nov. 1. In the conference, titled "Climate Change: The
Emerging Role of Land Use," Tufts University research professor Paul Kirshen
catalogued the New England industries that are already feeling the results
of changes in temperatures: fishing, blueberries and cranberries, maple
sugar, dairy farms, and ski resorts to name a few. Steve Winkelman, manager
of the transportation program at the Center for Clean Air Policy, explored
"why sidewalks are as sexy as hybrids" - that is, how zoning, design, and
transportation funding priorities can produce environments that reduce
vehicle miles traveled (VMT). "Cars last 15 years," he said. "A street grid
is for a century." Better ways of quantifying the relationships between the
built environment and auto use are needed, he said.
   In a panel discussion, Geoff Anderson, director of the EPA's Development,
Community and Environment Division, said in the years ahead a new measure
may emerge, showing how development of various kinds affects greenhouse gas
emissions and energy consumption. "I'd like to go to the Multiple Listing
Service and see it right along with the property tax - how much am I going
to drive if I live here?" he said. There may not be a silver bullet to
counter the global warming challenge, said Beth Nagusky, project director of
Grow Smart Maine, echoing comments by Bill McKibben, "smart growth may be
the silver buckshot."
   Douglas I. Foy, former secretary of the Office for Commonwealth
Development in Massachusetts and founding partner of the firm Serrafix, said
in keynote remarks that the framework for land use and settlement patterns
is slowly changing. "Congestion is a good thing, not a problem," he said.
The goal of transportation policy should shift from mobility to "being
there," in walkable or transit-accessible environments.
   Armando Carbonell, chair of the Department of Planning and Urban Form at
the Lincoln Institute, said there was clearly a role for land policy and
cities in the challenge of climate change. "It may be useful to think of
cities as great carbon-reduction machines," Carbonell said. "We've got to
fix the cars, but we've also got to address VMT growth, and that is done by
providing environments where one can walk or take transit. Planners are on
the supply side of the problem, providing places for people to live with
lots of amenities and diversity in housing - and by the way, such attributes
are increasingly in demand anyway."
   There may well be a cap-and-trade regime in place in the years ahead and
a price on carbon, he said, and at that time urban environments will be even
more in demand.
   The real estate industry has begun to come to grips with climate change,
largely for business reasons. At a recent Urban Land Institute conference,
industry leaders expressed concern that office space and other buildings
will be obsolete fairly soon because they lack "green building" features.
Rising sea levels are also seen as a threat to extensive property holdings
in coastal cities.
   The Lincoln Institute continues to be engaged on land use and climate
change, convening 30 big city planners to share best practices in climate
action plans, sponsoring research by New Orleans recovery director Ed
Blakely on how urban planning must adapt to the inevitable impacts of global
warming, and participating in the Superstition Vistas project on 275 square
miles of desert state trust lands in Arizona, new development with a goal of
being carbon-neutral.

 

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