Cracking the code

In the News

from the Business Report, Baton Rouge, LA 7.19.04

Cracking the code
Baton Rouge's development code undercuts its Horizon Plan

By Hal Cohen,
Business Report staff

The government of a small Southern city approves a comprehensive development
plan. Voters had demanded it, and the plan is created through waves of
neighborhood meetings, technical reviews and public hearings.

The plan calls for all sorts of smart-growthy things: "development of
neighborhood integrity, maintenance of open spaces, orderly growth and
development, and the cost-effective provision of public facilities." It will
do this by encouraging development in areas that already have
infrastructure.

Baton Rougeans can be forgiven for not recognizing in such language their
hometown- characterized as it is by haphazard fringe development and a
stagnant central city- but those words come from our own Horizon Plan,
adopted in 1992.

To understand why the plan has had so little impact, the nonprofit group
Plan Baton Rouge, with the support of the mayor and the planning director,
brought in a consultant team to do a "smart growth audit" on Baton Rouge's
development regime.

The audit had two parts. First, it compared Baton Rouge's growth policy- the
Horizon Plan- to a set of best-practice growth concepts, and found the plan
to be solid. Then the audit compared rules that actually shape development
on the ground- the Unified Development Code- to the Horizon Plan, and found
the UDC was not pulling its weight.

The plan and the code

Calling the Horizon Plan a "policy" requires a bit of wishful thinking.
Yes, it is a guide for decision-makers, but they are free to ignore it.
Elliott Atkinson traces that back to the fact that powerful interests never
wanted a plan in the first place. Atkinson, the long-serving counsel to the
Federation of Civic Associations who helped guide the creation of the
Horizon Plan, says Mayor Pat Screen and many in the real estate industry
fought it. Once it was adopted, Atkinson says, opponents "realized they
could block the Horizon Plan quietly by making sure its principles did not
reach the UDC."

Compromises built into the Horizon Plan also crippled it. The Plan of
Government says codes and regulations must be "consistent with the
comprehensive plan." But a two-thirds Metro Council vote can override the
plan, and "consistency" has been interpreted to mean there should be no
glaring land-use contradictions, not that the UDC must implement things like
pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods or mixing shops, offices and homes.
The UDC, as a result, bears only a passing resemblance to the Horizon Plan.
Since the code controls development, no one has any reason to consult the
plan.

Saving the council from themselves

Compounding its structural weaknesses, the Horizon Plan enjoys little
support from government. The Metro Council frequently allows exceptions to
the UDC's rules. An investigation by The Advocate, for example, found that
from 2000 to 2002 the Metro Council approved about 80 percent of proposals
that violated the Horizon Plan.

Parris Glendening, the former governor of Maryland and head of the group
that did Baton Rouge's audit, says council members should stay out of
nuts-and-bolts planning decisions. He describes that as "a way to protect
elected officials."

Glendening points to fights over exemptions to rules that require streets in
new developments to be connected to the streets in neighboring subdivisions.
He says small groups of vocal neighbors are able to hijack the democratic
process and pressure their representative into blocking the connections. The
effect that has on traffic in the rest of the district- let alone the
city-parish- gets ignored. Other council members defer to the district's
representative, part of an unwritten rule giving council members a free hand
in their own districts.

"Elected officials should focus on the broad policy issues, the kinds of
things that are in the Horizon Plan," Glendening says, "while specific
applications should be left to individuals who have the responsibility to
implement the plan."

That would be the Planning Commission and its staff.Getting to yes
Planning Director Troy Bunch says he views the audit as "very positive."
"It found that the Horizon Plan is a good foundation," he says.
As to the criticisms of the UDC, Bunch considers them to be "improvement
opportunities." He says the Planning Commission will work with Plan Baton
Rouge and the Smart Growth Task Force to resolve the UDC's failures to
support the Horizon Plan.

Mayor Bobby Simpson says his office will work with the Planning Commission
and the authors of the smart growth audit to lay out an action plan. But he
cautions, "The ultimate decision to amend the UDC will still come down to
the Metropolitan Council."

Plan Baton Rouge Assistant Director Rachel DiResto thinks the UDC "as a
whole" must be re-evaluated. "I don't think that Baton Rouge is ready to
stomach an overhaul, but the code can be improved," she says.

Such improvements, she says, include the addition of urban design
guidelines, increased flexibility for mixing uses, and facilitating infill
development and "traditional neighborhood developments."
Glendening says what is really missing in Baton Rouge is an effort to make
smart growth pay.

"Smart growth has got to be good business," he says. "The private sector has
to say, 'I'll get my best return by following the plan.'"

One way is to make desired development patterns- infill, mixed-use, and so
on- buildable "as of right," that is, without requiring the time-consuming
and uncertain variance process.

Another is for the government to better use existing incentives. It has the
power to shape the disbursement of low-interest loans, tax credits and
abatements, TIFs, economic development zones, federal block grants, fee
waivers and mortgage assistance, not to mention direct capital improvements
such as roads and sewers.

Such incentives aren't used that way now in Baton Rouge, Glendening says.
"These are allotted the same for the guy who paves a farm or cuts down a
forest as the guy who puts something right where the Horizon Plan wants it."