In the News

from The Baton Rouge Advocate 10.15.04

Former Maryland governor cites changes to fuel smart growth

By KEVIN BLANCHARD
Acadiana Bureau

LAFAYETTE -- Urban sprawl can be combated with the right policies and incentives to developers, the president of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute said Thursday.

Former Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening was in Lafayette to speak to the Louisiana Chapter of the American Planners Association.

The association includes government officials responsible for planning and implementing development regulations.

Glendening said developers have too much incentive to build farther and farther away from the center of town.

That leads to more traffic congestion, air pollution and the need for more schools and infrastructure at taxpayer expense, Glendening said.

In his two terms as governor, Glendening changed Maryland law to try to correct this problem, promising state infrastructure funding -- for things such as roads or schools -- and economic development grants only for areas that had adopted and were following long-term growth plans.

Glendening said that when developers build in open land out in the suburbs -- rather than redeveloping existing areas -- it creates a need for costly infrastructure that has to be carried by all taxpayers.
Glendening said the focus should be on developing areas in town, where the infrastructure is already in place.

Incentives for that type of redevelopment -- or the lack of incentives for "sprawl" types of development -- help shift developers' bottom lines toward projects that encourage smart growth, Glendening said.
Sometimes the most-humble rules or laws can cause sprawl, Glendening said.

In South Carolina, and in many other states, state law requires new high schools to be built on a certain number of acres.

But to find tracts of land big enough, schools are built well out of town, Glendening said.
South Carolina just changed their law, allowing more neighborhood schools to be built by being designed to fit on smaller acreage, Glendening said.

City-Parish Chief Administrative Officer Dee Stanley said Lafayette has been following many smart-growth principals.

Downtown, older buildings have been renovated -- rather than demolished -- to house the Acadiana Center for the Arts and the Lafayette Natural History Museum.

The city-parish is also pursuing a plan to renovate the Lafayette Parish Courthouse and old Federal Building, tied in to further development of the downtown area, Stanley said.

For more information, visit the Smart Growth Network's Web site at http://www.smartgrowth.org.