In the News

from the Advocate, Baton Rouge, LA, 7.7.03

Smart-Growth Advocate Says Baton Rouge Could Lead Way

By
Advocate staff writer

PA former Maryland governor promoting an end to suburban sprawl and bringing people back to more densely redeveloped areas said the change won't be quick nor without controversy.

"We did not get into this development problem of sprawl ... overnight," said Parris Glendenning, president of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute and former governor.

"This is a long-term battle," and "land use battles are not for the faint of heart," he said.

Glendenning spoke to an audience of about 200 people Tuesday night at the Old State Capitol in a talk sponsored by Plan Baton Rouge and Forum 35.

Glendenning supports bringing investment back into areas that have been abandoned and stopping the movement of people to the outskirts of cities where costly infrastructure must be extended to serve them.
"Smart Growth" is designed to lessen the time people spend in cars and to discourage suburban sprawl.

The Smart Growth Leadership Institute chose Baton Rouge as one of nine cities to survey for Smart Growth barriers and opportunities as part of its effort to create a handbook to promote the concept.

"Baton Rouge can do a lot more to encourage compact development patterns," the report said in one of its recommendations. "It seems very clear that new development is not achieving historic density patterns and new mixed-use development is scarce."

Glendenning and two of those who conducted East Baton Rouge Parish's Smart Growth audit reported earlier in the day to a task force created by Mayor Bobby Simpson 30 months ago.

Simpson ended that talk by reminding those present that the stock of developable lots is shrinking in the parish, particularly in the southern portion.

"If we are going to go to encouraging in-fill" or rebuilding in areas that have been abandoned, "now is the time" to set up the structure and incentives, he said.

People in the room represented all viewpoints, but everyone has to work together, Simpson said.
For example, he said, everyone seems to favor connecting streets from older subdivisions with newer ones "as long as it is not my subdivision."

Glendenning told the task force Tuesday afternoon that he thinks Baton Rouge has the potential to be a national leader in the Smart Growth movement. The audit can be used "to help move Smart Growth forward," he said.

Regulations and incentives will have to be changed to encourage more dense and more mixed-used development, he said.

"Right now it is more viable to buy a farm or tear down a forest than to build" where infrastructure already exists but has been abandoned or skipped over, Glendenning said.

Real success in Smart Growth comes with good leadership and a community movement that "is pushing upward" and "demanding change," he said.

Planner Jessica Millman told the group that the audit was conducted using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency funding earmarked to help encourage Smart Growth. Baton Rouge was one of more than 100 communities that applied to be audited.

The study looked at how Smart Growth principles are being applied - or lacking from - the parish's Horizon Plan, or long-range blueprint for land use and the Unified Development Code, which sets out the rules for land development and zoning uses.

Susan Wesson of the University of Southern California, who also worked on the audit, went through the findings with some specifics on each of Smart Growth's 10 principles, which include:

-Provide a variety of transportation choices.
-Mixed land uses.
-Create a range of housing opportunities and choices.
-Create walkable neighborhoods.
-Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration.
-Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place.
-Make development decisions predictable, fair and cost-effective.
-Preserve open spaces, farmland, natural beauty and critical environmental areas.
-Strengthen and direct development toward existing communities.
-Take advantage of compact building design and efficient infrastructure design.

The 79-page draft audit and report can be found on the Plan Baton Rouge Web site: http://www.planbr.org.