Planning and Sprawl (10/28/02)

1. In your planning experiences, does growth management offer solutions to sprawl? If so, how?
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2. Despite much publicized TODs (Transit Oriented Developments), PODs (Pedestrian Oriented Developments), and mixed-use development in the Pacific Northwest, why does grid-lock exist? Is this a planning failure? Would you please provide us with any successful examples of reducing auto dependence that you know about?
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3. No one likes the aesthetic aspects of big box retail stores, but their presence is universal. Have you dealt with this issue? How would you advise planning students about how to alleviate
the negative impacts of the big box retail stores?
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4. If you know a community with a "strong sense of community," please send us an e-mail about it, where it is and why.
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5. How do you measure sprawl? Does your city/county have any criteria to monitor it over time?
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Judith Stoloff
Snohomish
Yes, through restricting growth to UGAs, correlating growth with transportation facilities and utilities.

Kerstin Krippner
Snohomish County
(First, let me give you some of my background so you may understand where I am coming from. I've worked for Snohomish County nearly 5 years. Originally, I reviewed and issued commercial building permits - mostly for signs and portable classrooms. For 3 years now - I've worked in long range
planning.

Previously I did planning in Illinois and Iowa. I've lived in 18 states and seen many kinds of places. I moved here because of GMA - hoping to see more positive results from planning

Finally, the opinions represented below are purely mine and don't reflect the policies of Snohomish County.)

Yes - it does offer A "solution" especially in that it heightens awareness of planning issues among the general public. People have a vocabulary to talk about sprawl and a forum to discuss solutions. In this democracy, in this day and age - there is no solution that will stop sprawl. Sprawl is part of the organic process of place-making. Many people want the options they feel are afforded to them by sprawling development.

Growth management first elevates public awareness of issues. Secondly, growth management provides tools that we'd otherwise not have - such as urban growth boundaries. These boundaries sometimes feel like dikes in Holland - as there are many ways around them and growth continues to spill into our 'rural' lands. Thirdly, growth management provides laws to work with in order to "control" development. We have state laws that make certain activities illegal. These laws are always been balanced against
property rights and other priorities. But - few states have them and we are fortunate here to have state law mandating planning activities. Now enforcement is a tricky issue and measuring success of growth management is equally perplexing.

The hardest part about measuring the effectiveness of growth management is that IF it is successful, you won't SEE it. You won't see more housing where farms once were. You won't see changes to the rural landscape because there aren't any. Its hard to tell people that things are 'better' just because in some places - they've stayed the same.

Meanwhile, the pressure inside urban growth areas is 'proof' that things are 'working.' Growth management cannot begin to address all land use issues. Its main goal is to protect rural and resource lands. The price for that action is paid by all of us who live in urban areas.

George Steirer
City of Duvall
Sure, the State GMA requires min. density inside city limits (average 4
du/Acre), and max. density in non-urban growth areas (unincorporated areas
outside UGA's).

Patrick Smith
City of Burien
I just moved here from MN, so most of my planning experience is from there.
I worked for the City of Chaska, MN for 5 years. I would say it had the
strongest sense of community that I have seen. It is relatively small:
population of 17,000 and anticipated growth to 26,000 residents. It's a
historic river town located 35 miles SW of Minneapolis. Fifteen years ago
the planning director there, Kermit Crouch, proposed a green belt around the
town so that when the adjacent suburbs became fully developed there would be
a physical separation between the suburbs. People would know they were
leaving one suburb and entering into Chaska. The council approved of the
plan. One-third of the community lives in Jonathan, a federally sponsored
planned community in the 70's. Some of it's concepts included: pedestrian
trails, with the goal of allowing children the ability to walk to school
without crossing a road; developments with mixed incomes, the most expensive
housing is literally across the street from subsidized housing; preserving
green space by allowing increased densities; and grouping mail boxes to
encourage neighbor interaction. The city gave incentives for businesses,
especially those that were employee intensive, to locate in the town. The
goal was to enable residents to live, work and shop in the community. I
believe the percentage of residents living in Chaska and working there was
35%, compared to the surrounding suburbs that had an average of 10% of their
residence working and living in the same community. In addition, Chaska
strived for life-cycle housing or a variety of housing, allowing residents
to live there throughout their entire lives. Apartments for people just out
of school; affordable single-family homes for young families; larger, more
expensive move-up housing; town homes and condos for empty-nesters; and
senior assisted living units.

The City Administrator and Council's main goal is to create the "Best Small
Town in Minnesota". They fought to locate the new high school in Chaska. And
even though it serves more than just Chaska, they fought to name it Chaska
High School. To foster community and resident interaction, they built a
community center, with swimming pool, basketball courts, community rooms,
racquetball courts, performance art center; and an award winning municipal
golf course.

Essentially they have a goal of creating a great community, and the City
Council asks themselves how every decision that they have to make is going
to create a stronger community or not.

If you put together a summary of all the responses you receive, I would like
to get a copy.

Paul Inghram
Berryman & Henigar
Growth management is a partial solution to sprawl. GM limits development of rural areas, prohibits "leap frog" development, and requires development in urban areas to be at urban densities. However, it doesn't prevent auto-oriented development within
designated urban areas.

Ed Davis
City of Pacific
Your expectations are too high given the short timeframe we have experienced
here in the State of Washington with GMA. The examples of TOD, POD (or
PUD's), mixed use developments, etc. haven't been in use long enough to
really make an appreciable impact. It will take a couple of generations &
the development of a sense of community responsibility in the future
citizens, not the proliferation of the Tim Ey. Syndrome. You must be patient
and work harder and contribute yourselves.

Roger Wagoner
Berryman & Henigar
Growth management is an ambiguous term. I believe that good comprehensive planning does offer solutions to sprawl. This is not semantics. Comprehensive planning means working with communities to match up strategies for accomodating growth with local political culture using a sound basis of technical analysis. If the community isn't on board; or there is not political will; or the information isn't adequate - then success at curbing sprawl will be difficult.

Phil Bourquin
City of Camas
In attempting to solving one problem a greater problem emerges.
Many Planners subscribe to a belief that the American Dream is
essentially an evil thing called sprawl. Cities continue to tear down
old single family residential neighborhoods and replace them with high
density apartments, condo's, cottages, or business. Essentially we
continue to erase established family oriented communities and replace
them with young singles, couples, and the elderly. The new residents
have no children so they tend not to approve bonds for schools etc. The
schools lack funding and enrollment continues to go down. The American
family is being forced to leave the City and to commute unless it is
willing to give up the dream. This Social Engineering experiment is
fatally flawed as is being witnessed through out the country. Families
will continue to do what they view is best for the family. They will
struggle and put up with the commute until it is unbearable and then
they and the businesses will leave in search of a more liveable area.
(i.e. Where is the population growth comming from and why are they
coming?)

I believe that there must be a balance. We must provide protection to
established neighborhoods, lest all the families move.

Richard H. Carson
Clark County
Yes, growth management has solutions for dealing with sprawl. But let's
define our terms. Sprawl used to be called "leap frog" development. It was
the expansion of urban services that passed large tracts of empty land. The
creation of urban growth boundaries and infill strategies fixed that
problem. The primary issues addressed with growth management and leapfrog
development were (1) the protection of farm and forest resource lands, (2)
the protection of important wildlife habitat, (3) the cost-efficient
delivery of infrastructure, and (4) the revitalization of urban centers.
"Smart growth" and "sprawl" are the antecedents of "growth management" and
"leap-frog" development. This definition is also because it is objective and
doesn't carry an underlying political agenda.

Unfortunately, other groups are using sprawl to peddle their own special
interest agenda. For example, the Sierra Club says sprawl is low-density,
automobile-dependent and development beyond the edge of service and
employment areas. This plays well with the autophobic organization's desire
to reduce human mobility and keep humans out of the natural environment.

The Congress for New Urbanism on the other hand reflects the fact it an
architectural organization at heart. They call themselves an urban design
movement. They agree with the Sierra Club, but also believe "sprawl" is an
aesthetic problem.

Sprawl is also a broad brush used to vilify anything the special interests
don't like. This is why "big-box" retail is being associated with "sprawl."
Big-box offends the architectural aesthetics of the New Urbanists, the
autophobia of the environmentalists and the pocket book of small business
lobby.

Finally, sprawl also has a political dimension. In the last presidential
campaign "sprawl" was a card unsuccessfully played by Al Gore. In an essay
printed by the Cato Institute in was noted that sprawl was blamed for
"inequality, unemployment, and economic blight." The truth was that the
"smart growth" proponents were trying to appeal to that xenophobic,
irrational state of mind called "no growth."

Paul Krauss
City of Auburn
GMA offers some solutions and there have been some success stories,
particularly in King County. GMA was actively supported by the County and
Cities and the Urban Growth Line has generally worked. However, there are
major flaws: There is no mandate for true regional governance or services.
Concurrency w/o state funding for infra-structure is a joke. Just waiving a
magic wand and saying communities should create low cost housing options w/o
providing a funding source, does not work.

Shirley Aird
City of Auburn
It can offer part of the solution - the part that jurisdictions can
control. Arguably, some states have done it better than WA, and definitely
have more time under growth management to 'tinker' with the process and
regulations. I think the most useful aspect of g.m. is that it creates a
"line in the sand" and extension of development/services beyond that line
requires at least some sort of thorough thought and debate, not just
incrementally using greenfields.

Subir Mukerjee
City of Olympia
Growth management is just one, albeit an important tool to curb sprawl.
The basic policies related to creating dense urban nodes, while protecting
the rural character outside of the nodes, provide the underpinning for a
non-sprawl pattern of land development.

One of the other important tools, that must be implemented in conjunction
with growth management policies is an utility extension policy that
restricts utility extensions to within cities and their urban growth areas.
Water and sewer avialability drive growth, and prudent policies in this
arena can have a huge impact on whether or not there is sprawl.

Other growth management tools include instituting impact fees in order to
recover some of the costs associated with growth.

Targeting public investments and capital facilites to within the urban core
areas, also has an impact on growth management.

Bradley Collins
City of Port Angeles
Yes, GMA creates a policy framework from which identifiable steps to reduce sprawl can be taken. It is not a panacea for all land use decisions which contribute to sprawl but a plan for taking positive steps and knowing the difference. Most counties such as Clallam County already have subdivided rural lands that if built out with no further subdivision would accommodate hundreds of thousands of new residents in rural areas. GMA does not undo those bad decisions that continue to lead to more sprawl, but GMA establishes policies to discourage similar types of bad decisions. Urban Growth Areas, Resource Lands, and Critical Areas designation are hard to adopt and even harder to enforce. It is like going on a diet - you have a plan and you know when you are making a bad choice - sticking to a diet is difficult and sticking to GMA plans is equally hard.

Eric Shields
City of Kirkland
Yes. Urban growth boundaries contain
sprawl. Growth targets force jurisdictions within the growth boundaries
to make more efficient use of land. Countywide planning policies
require cities to plan within the context of regional growth. In
general, growth management has contributed to a new planning paradigm
that is echoed in concepts such as "smart growth" and "new urbanism.

Anonymous
Growth management, conceptually, offers solutions. However, the concept and what happens "out there" can sometimes be entirely different things. I have a healthy level of skepticism about what it is that I do for a living. It's relatively easy to craft theoretical solutions to things, but at the same time there are external forces such as public perception, political will, and "the market" whose influences cannot be predicted, and which will not only vary from community to community, but also over time. The planning field is often a bit "Pollyanna" about its work and ignores these contextual realities in favor of conceptual solutions.

Kenneth Kuhn
Pend Oreille County
Growth management does offer solutions to sprawl, in some ways more directly than others: Goals 1, 2, 3, 4, 9; designation and conservation of resource lands of long-term commercial significance, which keeps some rural land off-limits to non-resource uses; capital facilities element which forces a jurisdiction to closely examine its facilities needs with its ability to finance those facilities; rural element which mentions reduction of sprawl, protection of critical areas, use of LAMIRDs, use of urban growth areas to provide expansion of incorporated areas in an orderly fashion; transportation element to direct the location and type of transportation facilities; capital budget decisions in conformity with the comprehensive plan (assuming the comp plan direction and policies are clear regarding sprawl); the designation of greenbelts and open space to protect such amenities; and the potential for county-wide planning policies to address the issue of sprawl. If a jurisdiction has the will, the above can serve as tools to help prevent the more obvious negative effects of sprawl.

Gary Lee
City of Redmond
GMA does not offer solutions, it limits sprawl, which require solutions
and different methods of long range and current planning to accommodate
growth in "non-sprawling" fashion.

Hal Hart
Whatcom County
Absolutely. Remember though the the Growth Management process is both a planning process and a political process. The solutions tend to be implemented consistently when a local government has stable leadership with a consistent vision.

Growth Management under RCW 36.70A gave local governments a much broader set of tools to shape growth. Washington State generally and Western Washington more specifically have had to endure approximately 1 million new residents each decade. This tremendous growth has cost the Northwest plenty. The costs can truly be seen the longer a person lives but it also depends upon what people in the NW value. The lush green valleys of Western Washington lowlands are now lost or are still being consumed from the Canadian border to the Columbia River.

The Way It Was

Some 45 years ago we as a state were more rural, more natural resource dependent than we are today. Lake Washington was a mess, air quality was not great, but we had open spaces, could see Mt. Raineer on many more days of the year, probably had Salmon on a consistent basis and could make a living wage considerably higher than the national average through resource exploitation.

Wildlife habitat, forests, wildlife, have all suffered in the process making the NW much less than it was two or three generations ago.

Most plans included just two elements prior to 1990 (Transportation and Land Use)

Growth Management 1990 - 2002

Growth Management has encouraged incorporation. Growth Management has encouraged linkage between plans (lasting at least 20 years) and implementing ordinances. Growth Management provided for more elements in the comprehensive plan (more key policy tools), established county's as a primary government responsible for natural resource management at the local level, and set up the dialogue we call Urban Growth Areas. It allowed impact fees to be more widespread, it has given us concurrency (although many communities/counties have not had the political will or power in place to use it yet). Growth Management has encouraged land trusts to work to preserve our countryside, rural heritages, key acerages of forests, farms, and shorelines. Growth Management has begun to make the linkage towards a higher and better concept of sunstainability. Growth Management has encouraged development to (1) avoid critical areas in the local planning process which takes part "at the counter" in every city and county in the state; (2) better subdivision design has probably resulted - encouraging many more amenities than what would have probably been the case prior to it...(3) Growth Management has encouraged local governments to begin Purchase of Development Rights programs; Transfer of Development Rights Programs; (4) It has encourage planning for greenbelts; (5) planning for aquifers and their protection to avoid problems which are nearly unsolvable or expensive in the first place.

Specifics: Growth management has led to more compact designs for new subdivisions, new towns, new growth within growth boundaries.
Growth management has been blamed for everything, including higher taxes, our transportation mess, higher home prices, government bureacracy and much much more. Growth was already occurring in 1990 without growth management we would have subdivisions in the foothills of the Cascades in every county in Washington. Our Salmon protection and Puget Sound Sustainability efforts would be overwelmed by the sheer magnitude of the pressure to use resources the way we were using them in the 1980s. We were consuming land at an increasing rate.

Even though GMA passed most plans were not even adopted until the mid to late 1990s. That allowed time for thousands of subdvisions creating room for hundereds of thousands of new residents to continue to sprawl across the state continuing to damage our lakes, streams, wetlands, floodplains, transportation systems.

Growth Managment gave us a set of wonderful indicators - via transportation that our investments were not keeping up (state, local, federal) with our consumption of land, development of jobs, essentially the old pattern was still in place. Now our investment tab is in the hundereds of billions if we are to maintain our economic edge over both internal competition (within the US) mainly as an international trade hub for all kinds of goods, services, and ideas. The political leadership has not seen the strategic nature and really the years (12 so far) lost by not making those investments...in transit, alternative energies, alternative modes, and yes even in truck and rail/freight movements). Our competition in LA/Long Beach, Oakland on the West Coast. Internationally too, Seattle-Tacoma/Washington is in competition more than ever with Vancouver BC as to who will be the number two Port on the West Coast. Importantly, the Chinese Economy will be the most important future determinant to the US trade balances for many years to come. Growth Management is the principle by which we organize our society geographically to gain broader commmunity wide goals through. As an example we can begin to evaluate and model the community trade-offs between patterns of compact growth and their costs to our environment and patterns of dispersed growth and their costs to our environment. The same patttern can be evaluated for its impacts to our transportation systems, frieght mobility, and cost of services to maintain such a system if the community builds-out to that pattern.

Growth Management is ultimately a fiscal management tool as well. As we review our community's/region's growth scenarios we can begin to see that the cost of the next increment of transportation improvements (i.e. another lane on a freeway become increasingly prohibitive in terms of air,environment, community impacts. In addition Growth Management is a tool that local governments use/need to ration both the the good and bad of facility planning through. All in all it has been a tremendous tool to manage our community through and to allow citizens the opportunity to have a voice in the future directions of their community, region, and state.

Judith Stoloff
Snohomish
Many questions in one. We are too spread out. Insofar as that
results from zoning decisions planners are involved along with politicians
and the general public. Smaller buses with more options for routes seem to
help.

Jackie Lynch
City of Bellingham
Regulations and 'innovative ideas' help only marginally. Sprawl is
caused by old codes, subsidies, public perception, and an odd mortgage
system, so regulations can't 'solve' it. Also, there's a heck of lot of
simple inertia to deal with.
'Successful Examples'? Both Seattle and Bellingham, in the last few
years, have grown faster than their surrounding counties. In Bellingham's
case, our growth is a combination of multi-family construction and
annexation. We've been working very hard to make multi-family residential
buildings more aesthetically acceptable to the general populace. We're
also working to remove regulatory barriers to quality construction and
infill. I don't believe that auto miles/person has significantly reduced
for either city - it would be interesting to find out.

Kerstin Krippner
Snohomish County
Grid-lock exists because Americans love their cars beyond reason. Pure and
simple. Also because the auto industry spends millions of dollars
convincing us all that a car represents freedom, style, sex appeal and
whatever else. Grid-lock exists because over the years, the automobile
lobby effectively dismantled any effective public transportation system that
ever existed in this country. There are no reasonable options to private
automobiles at this time - especially here in the Puget Sound.

This question really is about lifestyle choices and not a "planning
failure". This is when planning because a bit player in the problem. We
can plan the best pedestrian oriented places on the planet and still
Americans would be reluctant to give up on the outdated "American Dream" of
a house on a plot of land with a garage. We mortgage our lives to attain
this 'Dream' which doesn't serve most of us at all and which contributes to
sprawl and over-consumption.

Settlement patterns, especially in the West are based on auto-dependent
transportation. Everything is so freaking far away from everything else.
Also, towns out here weren't designed with central downtowns - check out
Lynnwood. So there's no center of activity - its all little disconnected
nodes. Shopping here, offices here, restaurants here, houses here - no way
to even walk from place to place even if you wanted to.

Places that have good transit or pedestrian-orientation are typically in
Europe. Reason being these places were built long before cars were even
invented so people walked from town to town - with farms between to sustain
each town or village. Also in Europe, governments take more control over
land use and put into place systems that benefit the majority.

Methods to reduce auto-dependence are taking place among people often
perceived as weird or odd-ball. Seattle's car-sharing program, people like
my brother who bike commute to work, co-housing such as in West Seattle
where people live together and share resources - all these things combine to
reduce the need for cars. Its kind of an underground, very individualistic
movement of people who are committed to making lifestyle changes that make
it possible.

Little things make a big difference in this 'movement' for example, my
brother works for King County in their 'new' building in Pioneer Square. A
bike storage room, lockers and showers were provided for bike commuters.
Snohomish County is building a new administrative office but this feature
was dumped due to financial constraints. This is how we 'shoot ourselves in
the foot' - because now any intrepid bike commuters will have to figure out
a situation that works for them on their own.

This is only one example of how we can take small steps to reduce
auto-dependency. We have to make it easy, practical and convenient for
people to get out of their cars.

George Steirer
City of Duvall
Grid-lock exists because
the disadvantages out weigh the advantages for using non-single occupancy
vehicles. It is impart due to "planning failures", but also lack of
existing incentives to use mass transit. If we look to some Western
European countries as a "success" model, reasons for the "success" would
include incentives like higher prices for gas and parking and more
connections between cities (which is easier to do in smaller geographic
areas). Western Europe still has grid-lock though. They are not without
traffic problems. If we did not have grid-lock, it would be difficult to
get people not to drive alone.

Paul Inghram
Berryman & Henigar
Grid-lock exists in all major urban areas that I know of, including those with the best pedestrian environments (consider NYC or Boston), so grid-lock might not be the best measure of successful community. Also, TOD, PODs and mixed-use developments are
only a small portion of the total amount of existing development in the region. This doesn't mean they are a failure, but that the positive effects they have are limited by their scale in comparison to the region.

Roger Wagoner
Berryman & Henigar
True gridlock exists when too many people are trying to use the same corridors at the same times. One could argue that public transportation contributes to some gridlock conditions (3rd Avenue, downtown Seattle or NE 45th/15th NE intersection @ PM Peak.
The critical mass of TODs, etc. has not reached a sufficient level to address such a global question. In time, I believe that some areas will be positively affected, but major corridors like I-5 will be unlikely to be significantly affected. Gridlock
on arterials WITHIN TOD/PODs might see real positive changes with proper attention to traffic management.

Richard H. Carson
Clark County
Congestion is intentionally planned in Portland. The planners want people to
get out of their cars and use mass transit. The has been a publicly stated
goal. However congestion occurs every where. The question is do we want to
have limits to growth. Capping cities at 100,000 people and separating them
spatially with green belts would reduce congestion. I think Metro's and
Tri-Met's work in TODs around light rail centers is excellent.

Paul Krauss
City of Auburn
TOD's require major investments in transit, most of which are delayed or
never occurred. They also require local funding sources such as Tax
Increment Financing, which is not legal in Washington, which allows cities
to create TOD's before the private sector is ready to invest. There are
some success stories. Auburn's downtown is a work in progress being rebuilt
around our Sounder station.

Shirley Aird
City of Auburn
One big thing I see is the jobs/housing balance, the lack of a variety of
types and costs of housing included as part of industrial/commercial
development... business is still centralized in a few activity centers but
population is more and more diffused. I don't know that this is a planning
failure... as much as we as planners would like to think we can change
society, a lot of auto dependence & willingness to commute horrific
distances is based on consumer preference and the "market" which says that a
long commute is okay if what you want is a big house on a big lot, etc.
Planning can only control so much!

One of the best examples I've seen recently is that one of the local banks
(WaMu?) actually looked at where their employees lived versus which bank
branch they were working at, and let employees choose to transfer closer to
home. I think they may have even offered incentives. It would be great if
all businesses which could do that, did.

Subir Mukerjee
City of Olympia
Mixed use developments, TODs etc all help in reducing traffic congestion.
However, traffic grid locks cannot be solved by these kinds of developments
alone. So I do not see them as failing to "solve" the grid lock problem.
Until we densify our communities to be able to support mass transit, and
build more walkable communities, traffic congestion issues will remain.
Finally, so long as driving is cheap, it will be hard to change peoples
habits.

Bradley Collins
City of Port Angeles
The failure is not planning but market preference. Pointing out the costs of sprawl and the desirability of more interconnected work and home and existing infrastructure growth patterns does not improve its appeal to those who still want the American Dream house with open space around it. The failure is the public's willingness to continue to subsidize surburban sprawl which at first does not appear to cost anything until the congestion begins to manifest. Through lower development costs and other incentives such as attractive cohesive urban neigborhoods are the tools for turning market preferences.

The City of Port Angeles is attempting to do away with business parking requirements. The rationale is that businesses have a vested interest in providing for customer/employee access to their buildings. All that a parking requirement does is require too much impervious surfaces where parking may not be needed. If it is needed, the business will provide it without a minimum requirement, and nothing prevents a business from providing more parking than the minimum requirement if they see a need. So, a business parking requirement ensures too much parking area where it is not needed and does nothing if more parking is needed than the minimum requirement. Faced with a choice of providing more parking of their own choosing and expense, some businesses can choose to look more closely at transportation demand management (tdm) alternatives to single occupant vehicles (which is the assumed standard for minimum parking requirements - i.e., one vehicle for each customer by square feet or each employee by count or square feet). The trade-off for no business parking requirement should be a tdm study explaining how people will access the business. We are just drafting the ordinance change and don't know how successful we will be - it may just add parked cars to the roadway congestion problem or it may be an incentive to think beyond the standard of accommodating every conceivable single occupant vehicle.

Eric Shields
City of Kirkland
Despite much publicized TODs (Transit Oriented Developments), PODs
(Pedestrian Oriented Developments), and mixed-use development in the Pacific Northwest, why does grid-lock exist? Is this a planning failure? It's mostly a failure of implementation. We simply have not
built the necessary infrastructure to keep up with growth. The primary reason for that is lack of funds. Another reason is that we do not have broad agreement on the kinds of transportation infrastructure to build.
Growth management planners favor transit, but there is far from universal agreement that this is the preferred option. Most people still choose to drive their cars (alone), so many believe more roads are
a more practical alternative. Would you please provide us with any successful examples
of reducing auto dependence that you know about? I think that my jurisdiction, Kirkland, has done a pretty good job of creating a downtown that makes it easy to walk and use transit. But as I noted
above, people still choose to their cars a lot. Still, it seems to me that places like Kirkland give people the alternative to reduce the number of car trips.

Anonymous
We like our cars. They mean independence, power, freedom, and sometimes status. This is not a planning failure so much as a human failing! There is only so much the planning profession can do - and I think to some degree we are alienating people because they are feeling like things are being shoved down their throats. The notion of "auto dependence" is literally dependence in SOME situations, but in others - and I suspect in the vast majority of cases - it's simply a product of personal choice. Plus, people have busy lives and are often unwilling to take the extra time and effort necessary in order to utilize alternate means. We try to make it seem easy but the fact is, unless you're living/working in the Seattle/King Co. area, it takes extra time and effort. The only truly successful examples I know of involve specific individuals who bear a deep personal commitment to bicycling or other alternate modes. This is truly a lifestyle choice and not something that easily transfers to the general public!

Kenneth Kuhn
Pend Oreille County
Though I'm not an expert on transportation, I observe gridlock to still exist because the population continues to grow, people are driving more miles per year, workers live farther from their workplaces and commute via SOVs, there are few, if any, transit options for many rural locations-especially new suburban residential developments, and where there is convenient transit available people still prefer to drive by themselves in the privacy of their SOVs. I think this is a human behavior/preference issue, not a planning failure. Portland appears to have used the routing of its light rail AHEAD of suburban residential development to enhance its use by those commuters living close to the rail system.

Gary Lee
City of Redmond
Why does grid-lock exist after the advent of TODs and PODs? Which grid
lock and where are you talking about? TODs and PODs will not necessarily
reduce grid-lock, and they may also encourage it, for example in urban
centers because you are encouraging greater densities. Just because you
have a TOD/POD it does not mean that it will REDUCE traffic. TODs and PODs
are relatively new to the northwest, in comparison to the northeast, and
Europe. Our traffic problems will take decades of road improvements and new
mass transit, not construction of new TODs and PODs to reduce grid-lock, in
my opinion. Take a look existing urban centers, in the northeast and
Europe, and you will find the they too have grid-lock (with older TODs and
PODs), but they also have mass transit.

Please let me know of the examples of urban centers you like that do not
have grid lock in and around them.

Hal Hart
Whatcom County
Absolutely not - planning has not failed. TOD is still a very new concept to most of the NW. Somewhere over the last 100 years we as a society lost their way with the advent of car culture. We are now just beginning to correct for 60 years of neglect. Mixed use development was lost when we forgot how to build communities, when we lost the concept that we have a right to Demand developers conform to a general plan of grids, or of design standards. Once people were able to drive themselves where they wanted millions of individual deicisions occurred to live further from the central city. Those resources have now been stretched to the point of non-sustainability in certain places and locations-growth management simply encourages the next million people added to our population to add to their individual considerations some additional ones - Commute Trip Reduction or CTR was also passed in the early 1990s - it is the most cost effective effort at transportation we have.

Start by researching
Neighborhood density guidelines pre/post GMA
Look at van pooling
Look at carpooling
Look at bike alternatives
Pedestrian improvements
Commute Trip Reduction Act

Judith Stoloff
I have not dealt with them, but restricting their locations is the
only way. The aesthetics can change if communities demand better.

Jackie Lynch
City of Bellingham
Talk to Tukwila. They have some great codes and great examples of how
they've used their codes.

Kerstin Krippner
Snohomish County
The closest I got to this issue was issuing signs for the Walmart located on
164th Street. In this case, Walmart was flexible about their corporate
color scheme - red, white and blue and toned it down. They've done the same
at the new building on the Tulalip Reservation. Things like this can help
but its all cosmetic. The reality is that businesses want the floor space
and consumers, myself included, benefit from the cost savings provided by
big box stores. Frankly, the best example of big boxes changing their image
is the Target at Northgate. Walk around this building and see how it works
for you. There's a Best Buy and other storefronts. The whole place was
packaged onto a couple city blocks and made to look less big boxy.
Increasingly, big box stores are adding cosmetic flourishes - that faux NW
look of exposed beams and such to look less boxy. I think its a consumer
trend. Check out the Woodinville Target - whoowee, this is not like the
Targets back in Illinois! Once inside, its the same old, same old but
outside they are trying not to be so awful.

George Steirer
City of Duvall
Many cities have required building to abut the sidewalk, with parking in the
rear or on the side, rather then parking in the front with buildings in the
back. This results in the "quaint" feeling of many downtown areas.
However, many retail developers like potential customers to know they have
ample parking in the hope of persuading people to stop on their way by.
Modulation of the building facade, and landscaping, are also popular
solutions.

Paul Inghram
Berryman & Henigar
This might be a false assumption. Around here, big boxes tend to be located in areas where they are generally compatible, such as in existing highway commercial areas. (For example, Costco, Home Depot and others are located in SODO and off Aurora.)
Designers may not like how they look, but residents don't seem to mind much so long as they are located appropriately.

Roger Wagoner
Berryman & Henigar
Their presence isn't universal. Some jurisdictions have created zoning that limits the size of individual establishments to less than these stores require. And, some jurisdictions have been able to negotiate design treatments for sites and building
that minimize some impacts. The Main Street Program of the National Trust has a good book on this topic.

Richard H. Carson
Clark County
Clark County does deal with big-box impacts if they locate in a mixed use
zone. We address the streetscape and construction mass in order to minimize
the visual impact. We also limit the number of big-boxes and their size in
this zone. If they locate in a commercial zone, then we don't. Personally, I
think it's time planners started worrying about functionality and not
psychology of a community. We should not be social engineers. We waste too
much time trying to make people conform to our beliefs system. If you want
to be a zealot, then join a cult.

Paul Krauss
City of Auburn
Big box stores can incorporate design features that minimize the aesthetic
problem. Look at new developments in Issaquah and Woodinville for examples.
Use landscaping, architectural design details on the roofline and elsewhere,
to break up building massing.

Shirley Aird
City of Auburn
We-ell, the hope is that eventually this type of retail development would
get "tapped out" and the market would be saturated... but until then,
thoughtful landscaping, pedestrian circulation, attention to innovation in
stormwater management, and mixed uses are all helpful... keep an eye out for
how this space might redevelop in 20 or 30 years (the way old suburban
shopping malls are changing now).

Subir Mukerjee
City of Olympia
Big box developments are both a curse and a boon to local governements
While nobody likes their looks, a lot of people shop in them, and in these
days of tax limiting initiatives, they are becoming an important source of
sales tax revenues for local governments.

Olympia addresses big box issues through design guidelines. Our codes
require outpads at the street edge for 60 % of the street frontage with no
gaps between buildings exceeding 80 feet. Also large scale retail uses (over
25,000 s.f.) must meet special design guidelines dealing with wall
articulation, frontage limits, etc.

Bradley Collins
City of Port Angeles
Yes, Plan areas for big box retail zones with adequate access, and then require that they be placed in areas already zoned for big box retail stores. This is not rocket science, and fighting market preference (instead of parrying it) does not make sense. Urban (including urban growth areas) zones should have a place for every type of development. Big box retail provides tax base support for new infrastructure or for redeveloping old infrastructure and should be expected to finance improvements for the areas in which it locates.

Carol Proud
City of Seattle
Regarding, #3... check out the Salmon Bay Fred Meyer Store, in Ballard
and tell me what you think... How did all the amenities, like front
facade design that reflects surrounding historical buildings, lots of
parking lot landscaping with separated ped walkways, a shoreline public
access w/ lighting and security phone, bicycle paths... and more. All
of this in an industrial zone that encourages (allows outright) acres of
asphalt and big boxes and none of the above mentioned perks. This is a
great story (I think) if anyone is interested.

Questions to ask: why do people hate these so and yet shop there?
what are the environmental impacts to the community and can they be
mitigated? should the tax revenue stay in the city or benefit the
burbs?

Which then lends itself to the bigger question. What land uses should
the City encourage and can we afford them? (If I could have a year off,
I would go back to school and answer this one myself).

Eric Shields
City of Kirkland
No one likes the aesthetic aspects of big box retail stores, but
their presence is universal. Have you dealt with this issue?
How would you advise planning students about how to alleviate
the negative impacts of the big box retail stores? I have heard
numerous retail experts say that big box stores are here to stay for the
foreseeable future. They offer prices and selection that smaller stores
simply can't match. (Even so, I've also heard it said that smaller
pedestrian oriented business districts are making a come back - not so
much by competing directly with big boxes, but by offering a different
experience.) I'm not sure what negative impacts you had in mind, but
the two that come to my mind are traffic and aesthetics. Solving
traffic impacts requires that the stores are sited in locations where
the road system can handle the high volumes. The closer to freeways and
major highways the better. As far as asthetics, there are a number of
design techniques that can be used to break up the scale of the box,
particularly when they are associated with a business district.
Pedestrian linkages can also be incorporated.

Anonymous
We're attempting to promulgate the same type of design tools one might see in many different jurisdictions to downplay the "bigness" of it all. "How to alleviate negative impacts" is a pretty tall order! That can mean runoff (esp. on the wet side of the state - assuming not all your students are destined for local jobs), bulk, traffic/parking, etc. or it can mean social effects such as negatively affecting locally owned businesses/jobs. I'm sorry but I don't have the magic answer- don't I wish.

Kenneth Kuhn
Pend Oreille County
Big box retail is not yet an issue in this county. My advice to students: Try for design standards for these ugly buildings; provide transit stops conveniently for use of these retailers in exchange for reducing the size of the parking lots-there are almost always more spaces than will ever by used; design the parking lots to be landscaped with many, many trees; and completely redesign the parking lots to be safe for pedestrians instead of being large expanses of asphalt for the temporary storage of cars.

Gary Lee
City of Redmond
Big box retail does provide desired services and goods for consumers. I
don't think there is one answer that fits all communities. For example, a
community that has no, or very few, stores that provide for their needs or
desires within an 2 hours travel time could benefit from the right big box
retailer. However, not every community needs to have the same big box
retailers in each of their communities.

It really depends on the age, maturity, character, and needs of the
community in question. If the community is mature and already has an
existing downtown that has zoning for the desired uses, it may be wise
prohibit big boxes so they compete with and dilute the energy of the
downtown.

Hal Hart
Whatcom County
Check out Portland.
Learn from the fights that Port Townsend engaged in.
Look at the Design Guidelines for the new safeway in Lynden Washington.
Look at Barkley Village in Bellingham (that company by the way is hiring the best designers in the country because they are learning design matters).

Judith Stoloff
Snohomish
City of Snohomish. You should contact Mark Beardslee there.

Jackie Lynch
City of Bellingham
Many of the communities up here in Whatcom County are growing a nice
sense of community after 30-40 years of decline. Why? (1) The recession
is reducing out-migration of community money and time, (2) we're almost
isolated from the Puget Sound basin, (3) the population is shifting toward
retirees who come up here for 'community', (4) for Bellingham, we have a
very thoughtful Mayor and City Council who understand the fiscal, crime,
and 'image' advantages of increasing 'Community' and reducing sprawl, and
(5) I don't know. It would make an interesting thesis. ;-)

Snohomish, Auburn, and Mt. Vernon also strike me as places which are
working hard on, and succeeding at, building a sense of community.

Kerstin Krippner
Snohomish County
There are quite a few places with a strong sense of community in Snohomish
County. The town of Snohomish builds its reputation on its antique stores.
Granite Falls is strongly 'rural' as they can be. These places aren't as
pretty as say "University Village" - there may not be matching banners on
the light poles on Main Street - but the people who live there have a great
deal of pride and determination to keep their towns alive.

Certain neighborhoods in Seattle exhibit a strong sense of community and
many are in transition - for example, Fremont five years ago was still a
funky artist-ridden place proud of its distinct look and feel. These days
with new construction in the heart of downtown Fremont - the place is
starting to look like any old place.

I'd check out Georgetown and South Seattle where a huge transition is taking
place. Its an affordable region where many young professionals are buying
home and the New Holly neighborhood is booming. The commercial districts are
starting to rebound but at what cost? Its worth asking...does there have to
be a Starbucks at every corner, replacing the old coffee shop run by a local
business person? The upscale gift shops are replacing the tattoo parlors
and pawn shops, but who is being served by these new establishments and
where do the "old timers" go for their shopping, gathering, amusements?

In these places, a "sense of community" is really about change and what/who
is this place going to serve in the future.

George Steirer
City of Duvall
Usually, the smaller the community, the stronger the bond between the
members. People are more likely to know one another.

Paul Inghram
Berryman & Henigar
Madison Park
Montlake
Mercer Island

From observation, it appears that the more people are invested in an area (time and/or money) the more energy they put into their community. Ironically, I have found that at some threshold higher density development results in less sense of community. It appears that when people are living very close to each other there is a greater need to protect personal privacy and therefore neighbors are more reluctant to communicate than in somewhat less dense areas.

Roger Wagoner
Berryman & Henigar
Some of the Seattle urban villages have maintained strong senses of community following neighborhood planning. Wallingford is an excellent example. We work with Enumclaw and it's a shining example for a rural town.

Richard H. Carson
Clark County
Vancouver, Washington has done a better job of creating community than
Portland. I wrote a article comparing them
(http://www.planetizen.com/oped/item.php?id=61).

Paul Krauss
City of Auburn
Auburn dates back to the 1890's and was a free-standing city until it
became engulfed in suburbia in the 1970's. It had its own employment base,
school district, social clubs, downtown and entertainment. It still
maintains elements of a small-town atmosphere that most residents apparently
cherish, even through population is over 45,000 on the way to 80,000.

Shirley Aird
City of Auburn
Community-wide, Gig Harbor. Even with the tremendous growth they've had,
there's a lot of permanence there, a lot of support of youth and schools, a
great deal of public debate and involvement (for better or worse) in the
public process, a willingness to sacrifice convenience for aesthetics, etc.

There's a neighborhood in Auburn (where I work) that is very strong and
mobilized, despite (because of?) a mix of ages, incomes, housing tenure, and
political standing... part of this is, again, a permanence in the community
(a few residents have lived there since the 1930s) and partly due to
community traditions - an annual BBQ, connections with new residents as soon
as they move in, informal "block watch" -- the intangible structures and
connections that make a neighborhood work. This is a neighborhood without
sidewalks, without fancy streetlights, under pressure from encroaching
commercial areas, and surrounded by newer developments, yet it works.

Subir Mukerjee
City of Olympia
I can only speak for Olympia, which has a strong sense of community. We
have a vibrant downtown which is a pride of the community. Residents of the
community are engaged and involved in local government issues, and value the
worth of good design. Urban design, vision and strategy is a key
underpinning of our comprehensive plan.

Bradley Collins
City of Port Angeles
Unless the community has a good marketing plan, most do not take the time to distinguish how they are the only community with a "strong sense of community." Every community generally thinks it has this. Look at its community sponsored efforts like a new public facility or response to a disaster or pride in its school programs (do taxpayers, volunteers, parents really participate?)

Eric Shields
City of Kirkland
If you know a community with a "strong sense of community,"
please send us an e-mail about it, where it is and why. Again, I would
offer up Kirkland - located across Lake Washington from north Seattle.
The City has strong neighborhood identities, an historic downtown that
many consider the community's living room and good (but not yet great)
walkability - to name a few characteristics giving it a sense of
community.

Anonymous
I live in Olympia and I perceive it as having a strong sense of community. There are truly dedicated people who live there. A lot of folks who work for the state are more capable of policy analysis in their personal lives than the average citizen, and there's a lot more environmental (and other forms of) activism from the "Greener" community. The appointed/ elected officials groups in the area are seasoned and knowledgeable, they have good established working relationships, and they're willing to face controversy head-on. There's an active downtown association (not to mention an active downtown!) There's a local newspaper - I think this is more important than many of us give credit to! There's lots of diversity (in a breadth of ways) and that's reflected in community events. Stuff like that...plus, we may be somewhat unique in hosting the State Capitol, which gives a strong sense of presence to the place.

Kenneth Kuhn
Pend Oreille County
Contact Annabel Kirschner, a demographer at WSU, about her knowledge of such communities. Her number is 509-335-4519.

Hal Hart
Whatcom County
Port Townsend - Victorian Seaport
Lynden - Christian/Dutch Community
Olympia - Cool/Anti Establishment
Spokane - Seat of the Inland Empire
Aberdeen - Natural Resources
Port Angeles - Natural Resouces
Long View - Largest Planned Community in Washington - Natural Resources
Walla Walla - Agricultural Valley
Pullman - College Town
Ellensburg - College Town
Bellingham - Outdoors Shiek

5. How do you measure sprawl? Does your city/county have any
criteria to monitor it over time?

Judith Stoloff
Snohomish
Good question. Contact Steve Toy for an answer. We monitor density
of development in an annual Growth Monitoring Report.

Kerstin Krippner
Snohomish County
Everyone around here has to monitor sprawl because they are required by the
GMA. Snohomish County has produced a Growth Monitoring Report for the last
4 years. Check it out on our website at
http://www.co.snohomish.wa.us/pds/900-Planning/Demog/default.asp

George Steirer
City of Duvall
Yes, we measure sprawl based on the King County Buildable Lands Report. I'm
sure you'll get many people with the same answer to this. The previous
county that I worked for was not required to do this by state law. The
county only did this to a very minimal amount. I presume that most small
cities (less the 10,000 people) don't have a GIS department to help out, or
complete a report similar to the buildable lands report. However, because
the city is small, they are usually very aware if sprawl is occurring,
where, and when.

Roger Wagoner
Berryman & Henigar
This would be a good subject for a UW study. Getting below the sprawl "indexes" used by national organizations to measure/quantify sprawl at the city or subarea level.

Richard H. Carson
Clark County
If you can't define "sprawl," then how can you measure it? Is it density?
According to the U.S. Census Los Angeles is more dense than Portland or
Seattle. There is a good definition of sprawl on the Sprawl City website at
http://www.sprawlcity.org/hbis/index.html. According to their methodology
Los Angeles is worse than Seattle, Seattle is worse than Portland, and
Portland is worse than Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Fresno, Omaha and
Bakersfield. Now be honest. Would you really want to spend you life in any
of the latter?

Paul Krauss
City of Auburn
Sprawl is in the eyes of the beholder. Auburn is just now getting its
share of single family residential tracts to counter balance a more
intensively developed older part of the city with numerous apartment and
mobile home complexes. Our entire City is within the King County UGA and is
focused increasingly towards our downtown. Bottom line, we don't worry
about sprawl much.

Shirley Aird
City of Auburn
I have no idea. If you come up with a good measurement, let us all know!

Subir Mukerjee
City of Olympia
Olympia is in Thurston County, which is one of the counties that has to
produce a report under the Buildable Lands Legislation which will basically
show our development pattern. We would like to monitor it over time,
however, the outcome will depend on whether the State will continue to
provide funding for this in the future.

I hope these help to answer some of your questions. I will be happy to
discuss them further with you. Please feel free to call or e-mail me.

Bradley Collins
City of Port Angeles
Benchmarking sprawl is a good theory. Having a few, simple development changes to monitor over a protracted period of time is perhaps doable. The number of new lots created annually in rural, uga, and city areas is pretty standard (and can be done retroactively). Loss of acres of resource lands and critical areas where sprawl really has an adverse impact may now be possible under GMA. Chandler Felt at King County is the planning expert on benchmarking. My city and county are not doing such monitoring yet.
Hope these answers give you points from which to embark on your own ideas.

Eric Shields
City of Kirkland
The King County benchmark program may be helpful. Contact Rose Curran or Chandler Felt in the KC budget office. Another source is Northwest Environmental Watch a non-profit
public interest organization.

Anonymous
Being a newer incorporation, we're still at a point of satisfying basics and haven't gotten to the point of trending/monitoring.

Kenneth Kuhn
Pend Oreille County
Our county does not formally measure sprawl. One could measure sprawl in the County by mapping: the type and location of new building permits; the extension of new power connections by the public utility district; and the type and location of road improvements/extensions, and construction of new roads. There is the impression here that the County can continue to accommodate one- to five-acre single-family residential development in the rural lands with no adverse effect on the rural character of the County or the transportation system.

Hal Hart
Whatcom County
Yes, we are refining it - Contact Sylvia Goodwin at Whatcom County we are spending lots on money on this at the present time!