The September release of a Smart Growth America study charging that North Carolina’s Triad and Triangle regions are home to the second and third most serious sprawl problems in the country put discussion of so-called “Smart Growth” back in the state’s news. But despite prominent media coverage of the survey rankings by planning professors at Rutgers and Cornell universities, growth policies took a backseat to economic issues in the Nov. 5 election.
Days before North Carolinians headed to the polls, a high-profile Smart Growth activist told The News & Observer of Raleigh that she was surprised by the apparent disinterest of candidates and voters in an issue that once held great political cachet in the state.
“It seems to me that there isn’t as much discussion on the issues of growth and traffic, which baffles me,” said Cara Crisler, executive director of the North Carolina Smart Growth Alliance, a Carrboro-based coalition of environmental and planning groups and a partner in Smart Growth America.
Smart Growth policies typically regulate land use to control growth boundaries and limit housing choices to high-density developments. Advocates say these government regulations are needed to preserve open space and natural resources. Opponents decry the infringement on personal property rights and basic lifestyle choices such as where to live and how to get to work, preferring instead to allow market forces, voluntary land-use guidelines, and flexible zoning to create growth that balances development and the environment.
The political irrelevance of Smart Growth in North Carolina’s midterm elections may have baffled Crisler, but it dovetails with the General Assembly’s declining interest in state-dictated Smart Growth regulations, particularly as it grapples with the state budget, taxes, and other issues.
Legislative report shelved
That’s an abrupt turnaround from recent history when Smart Growth was on the political fast track at the local and state levels. In 2001, a number of mayors were elected around the state on anti- or slow-growth platforms, including a sweep in the Triangle cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill.
That followed the legislature’s creation in 1999 of the Commission to Address Smart Growth, Growth Management and Development, cochaired by Sen. Howard Lee and Rep. Joe Hackney, Democrats from Orange County. The 37-member group released its recommendations last year, but today the report lies dormant in Raleigh.
That’s frustrating to Lee, a proponent of some growth restrictions and regional planning. “It’s just laying on the shelf at the legislature,” Lee said.
But according to one commission member, the North Carolina Home Builders Association, the report and the Assembly’s failure to implement its recommendations are encouraging signs for North Carolinians who disagree with state government intervention in growth issues. Paul Wilms, the association’s director of government affairs, questioned the validity of the commission’s assertion that the state’s water and air quality have worsened, and said the report lacked credible data and sources. He considers the commission report “just a collection of random observations.”
Wilms is also critical of the lack of meaningful debate among commission members. “It was released without members having the opportunity to give substantive comments or debate it as a group,” he said. In spite of his concerns, Wilms considers Lee a positive force in the discussion. “I have a lot of respect for Senator Lee,” he said.
Lee vows to continue to champion the report and its policy recommendations with legislators, although he will do so as a community advocate after losing his bid for re-election to the Senate.
Wilms said his organization won’t hesitate to enter the debate when Lee begins working the issue with his former colleagues at the Assembly. “We advocate comprehensive land use planning at the local level, not the state or federal level,” he said.
Lee and like-minded Smart Growth activists will also face opposition from other groups that disagree with growth management theory and are concerned with the negative impact the policies have on individual liberty, particularly for home buyers and land owners.
“Smart growth tries to implement what the ideal community should look like,” said Leonard Gilroy, research fellow at the Los Angeles-based Reason Public Policy Institute. “It advocates highly prescriptive growth controls and discourages low-density development. Groups like Smart Growth America tend to get a lot of publicity,” he said, but Gilroy also think the media are beginning to listen to people who point out the fallacies of the policies.
Gilroy contends the fundamental problem with Smart Growth is its assumption that communities are static. “Communities evolve, demographics can change and the housing market evolves over time,” he said. “The idea of putting restrictions on things the community desires is wrong.”
Shutting the door on homebuyers
The result, Gilroy said, is that Smart Growth “tends to shut people out” who want a lower-density lifestyle. Studies consistently show many people want as large a home as possible on as large a piece of land as possible, the opposite of what high-density Smart Growth policies create.
Growth restrictions also price people out of the market as land and housing prices go up, particularly first-time buyers, many of whom are minorities.
“Economics 101 still applies,” Gilroy said. “Efforts to contain growth limit supply of land for development. Affordable housing might not be produced,” he said. Gilroy thinks more North Carolinians would question growth restrictions if they understood the tangible effects on people rather than only the abstract theory.
Durham thwarts landowner
In Durham, a recent decision by the City Council illustrated the serious impact of land-use regulations on personal freedom. In mid-September, the Durham City Council voted 4-3 to limit commercial growth adjacent to the recently opened Streets at Southpoint mall by designating land for medium-density development, not commercial use. Mayor Bill Bell characterized the vote as a “defining decision” about the future of the area.
To some observers, that was the end of the story, but the vote had far-reaching economic implications for Rosa Tucker, an elderly black woman who owns about 12 acres of land affected by the council’s designation.
According to news accounts, Tucker’s land was of prime interest to “big box” retailers because it adjoins 50 acres already slated for commercial projects. By combining Tucker’s acres with other nearby parcels, a retailer could create an area large enough for development.
That lucrative economic opportunity prompted the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People and the Durham chapter of the NAACP to support Tucker’s request for commercial designation of her land. The argument fell on deaf ears. The council’s vote limited Tucker’s land to medium-density use and effectively killed her chance to work with the interested parties.
Similar scenarios may play out around the state if land-use regulations impede farmers and other landowners from deciding when and to whom they can sell.
Steve Woodson, associate general counsel for the North Carolina Farm Bureau, is concerned about this limitation on personal property rights and economic opportunity for his members.
“If a farmer needs to sell part of his land, sometimes just to keep the other part operating, we want to preserve the right to sell at the highest price possible,” Woodson said. Like the Home Builders Association, Woodson said the Farm Bureau recognizes the desire to preserve open space but approaches the issue with a different perspective than Smart Growth advocates. “We want to find voluntary and incentive-based ways to preserve farm land, not state mandates,” he said. “We don’t oppose local zoning as long as our farmers have input.”
While Wilms thinks Smart Growth is “not on the radar screen” at the state level, he cautions that it’s unlikely to disappear. “Too many groups have too much invested in it,” he said.
Martinez is a contributing editor to Carolina Journal.