A new report, Getting to Smart Growth: 100 Policies for Implementation, offers concrete suggestions to help policymakers at the state and local level create more livable communities. The 97-page report [download 2MB pdf] is also a valuable tool for architects looking for specific ways to improve the quality of life in the communities where they live and work. Released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Smart Growth Network (SGN) earlier this year, the report outlines techniques that promote the 10 principles advocated by the SGN:
• Mixed land uses
• Taking advantage of compact building design
• Creating a range of housing opportunities and choices
• Creating a walkable neighborhood
• Fostering distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place
• Preserving open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas
• Strengthening and direct development toward existing communities
• Providing a variety of transportation choices
• Making development decisions predictable, fair, and cost-effective
• Encouraging community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions.

Limited free copies in print of Getting to Smart Growth are going quickly. Request a copy by faxing your name and mailing address to Juanita Smith, U.S. EPA, 202-260-0174, or by email. The publication is also available as a PDF document [download 2MB pdf]

Another report, Community Rules: A New England Guide to Smart Growth Strategies, by the Conservation Law Foundation and the Vermont Forum on Sprawl, is a guidebook for volunteer board members, planners, concerned citizens, and others who want to achieve smart growth in their communities through better planning, zoning, and permitting. Community Rules features examples of communities in New England and elsewhere that have laid the groundwork for smart growth through sensible planning, zoning, and other strategies.

SGN is a coalition of private, public, and nongovernmental partner organizations seeking to create smart growth in neighborhoods, communities, and regions in the U.S.

Planning for Smart Growth

The American Planning Association (APA) recently surveyed planning reform and smart-growth activities across the country. Its 147-page report, Planning for Smart Growth: 2002 State of the States, finds that outdated planning laws prevent states from "effectively implementing smart growth measures to address urban sprawl, scattered rural development, farmland protection, and other issues."

APA Executive Director W. Paul Farmer says state budget shortfalls are likely to be the "single most significant impediment to further state planning reform in 2002."

Specific findings include four indicators that smart-growth initiatives are on the rise.
• Close to one-third of all states are "actively pursuing their first major statewide planning reforms for effective smart growth."
• Twenty-seven governors (15 Republicans, 10 Democrats, and 2 independents) made specific planning and smart-growth proposals in 2001.
• Seventeen governors issued 19 executive orders on smart-growth-related topics from 1999 to 2001, compared to 12 executive orders on these topics issued during the previous eight years combined.
• Twenty percent of states are strengthening local planning requirements or improving local or regional planning reforms.

Free copies of Planning for Smart Growth: 2002 State of the States are available in PDF format at the APA Web site.

The APA also recently released its comprehensive Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook: Model Statutes for Planning and the Management of Change (Stuart Meck, FAICP, general editor) and an accompanying User Manual. The publications are the result of a seven-year effort to develop model planning and zoning legislation for a myriad of smart-growth issues. A few of the topics covered in the Guidebook's 15 chapters include a wide range of state, regional, and local comprehensive and functional planning issues, subdivision control, development impact fees, innovative land-use regulations, farmland and historic preservation, and redevelopment. The publication is available as a PDF document by registering with the APA site or can be purchased for $20 (paper and full-text CD) via the Web site.

For more information, contact Denny Johnson, 202-872-8611.

Smart Growth in New Jersey

Architects working on brownfields, school construction, and smart growth projects in New Jersey could find better assistance from the state in creating more livable communities. If it is successful, the Smart Growth Policy Council, a new policymaking body created by Governor James McGreevey (D), after he cut many of the state's planners from the payroll, may become a model for other states, following the example of Maryland's Smart Growth regulations.

McGreevey created the council by executive order to promote "sound and coordinated planning" in New Jersey. The council includes cabinet members and other senior administration officials who deal with agriculture, economic development, environment, transportation, community affairs, education, and public utilities. McGreevey said the council will "ensure that state government works cooperatively to promote smart growth and implement the State Plan" and "protect open space and farmland from development, direct growth to our urban and suburban centers, and ease traffic congestion." The governor is expected to create a new Smart Growth Office, which would include a "scaled-down" version of the Office of State Planning. The planners were cut as part of efforts to make up a $2.4 billion budget shortfall. McGreevey laid off nonunion middle management in all state departments, a category that includes the state planners.

Specific council responsibilities listed in the executive order include ensuring that school construction initiatives "promote smart growth, open space, and revitalization of communities" and coordinating state brownfields initiatives to reduce bureaucracy for municipalities and developers. The council would also help resolve interdepartmental conflicts regarding specific public and private sector projects, expedite projects that would help implement the State Plan, and develop ways to help local governments and communities to achieve their smart-growth objectives.

For more information, contact Megan Susman, program manager, in the Center for Livable Communities, 202-626-7442.

—Tracy Ostroff and Megan Susman

Copyright 2002 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.