The following is from an email sent to the ECOS (Environmental Council of Sacramento) Land Use committee in response to its chairman's request for what we'd like to see ECOS do. What ECOS does currently is react to project proposals with comments, and even lawsuits. They have been doing this for decades now, yet the predominance of development proposed in the region remains auto-centered sprawl rather than the market-preferred alternative: pedestrian-friendly mixed use (AKA New Urbanism, Transit-Oriented Development, Smart Growth, Traditional Neighborhoods, etc.)
None of this is new, but it remains important. For one thing, if policies described below were actually implemented, they would significantly reduce both commuting and congestion.
Surveys say vehicle miles traveled (VMT) could decline 1/3 - 2/3 -- or let's say roughly half if pedestrian-friendly mixed use replaced sprawl. That would have enormous benefits in reducing emissions and in improving the health of the population. After all, Americans are suffering from epidemics of the diseases of chronic inactivity--obesity, heart disease and diabetes, to name a few--and even a 10-minute daily walk makes for a significant reduction in late-life health problems. There are other benefits (see Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by Duany, Speck and Plater-Zyberk for more)
Here's the letter:
Hi all,
Thanks for the thought-provoking recent ECOS Land Use meeting. My thoughts have been slow to arrive, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth a look. Here they are:
Among other things, those present were less-than-pleased that for many projects, ECOS' comments often come too late, after the design decisions have already been settled. The alternatives considered often maximize profits in the most conventional way possible, but infrequently maximize public or environmental benefits. This can occur in any public planning process. Builders and developers arrive with their minds made up, ready to do battle--and in fairness, the process is often at least adversarial. See "Petrovich, Paul."
My humble suggestion is that the solution to this problem is to have ECOS lobby to change the process, not necessarily a specific project, although ECOS could still make project-specific comments.
ECOS has tried commenting on specific projects to the point of burnout, and has done so for decades. The most commonly approved big developments remain greenfield, not infill, and sprawl, not pedestrian-friendly mixed use. That is enormously profitable for land speculators, but it lengthens commutes, and is more expensive to maintain. Vehicle miles traveled for the sprawl, which is largely what the region builds, can be roughly twice those of pedestrian-friendly mixed-use (AKA New Urbanism, Transit-Oriented Development, Traditional Neighborhood Development, and Smart Growth).
The myth is that this is what the market prefers. Not so. The market actually prefers pedestrian-friendly, mixed use, and tolerates the transit-friendly densities far more in such neighborhoods than in sprawl. Density is necessary so enough patrons are within a walk of the transit stops. I’d also suggest that the Uber-bus idea now being tested by West Sacramento and Citrus Heights will encounter a need for density to be viable too.
In any case, the most valuable real estate in the region is not sprawl, it’s McKinley Park and its surroundings (old urbanism). This is true nation-wide, not just locally too--witness the premiums paid for neighborhoods like Seaside, FL (600%!), Orenco Station Oregon and Kentlands, MD (40%).
I've not heard ECOS mention launching a campaign to change the process, at least so far.
The three process-related areas that need change:
a. The current use-based planning is designed to fail. We must have form-based planning to have anything resembling a plan that can at least potentially work. Trying to decide uses (commerce, residences, offices, etc) decades before builders build real projects is simply not realistic. Form-based planning (deciding building size, but not necessarily use) is not some otherworldly, exotic request. Towns from Hercules, CA to McKinney, TX already use it. Smartgrowth.org even offers open source plans of this type, training, etc… The state already mandates complete streets, so that “pedestrian-friendly” piece is set for the future. Now, let’s lobby for form-based planning and mixed-use (residences, stores, offices, etc. in the same neighborhood). This cuts the VMT roughly in half. Density-favoring measures like 4- or 8-plexes even among single family homes is also something to encourage.
b. Building fees must match actual costs. This has its roots in Prop 13. Local communities must either collect for infrastructure, affordable housing, etc. up front or impoverish the existing population of their jurisdiction. As it stands now, every new house means worse schools, roads, etc. for everyone else. Building fees vary widely throughout the region, while prices for infrastructure do not. These fees are just a measure of how hard the BIA has lobbied, not an indication of actual costs. What are the actual costs? I’ve asked Sacramento County staff that question for decades. The response? [crickets]
c. Tax the unearned increment. When land speculators (many call them "developers," but I say call a spade a spade) can buy ag land for a few thousand dollars an acre, then resell it to builders after they get permission to develop the land for 50 - 100 times more than they paid, tax free (if they exchange out of the newly profitable land).
With these kinds of profits (5,000 - 10,000%!), no end to greenfield development is in sight. That kind of economic incentive means cockroaches will come out from under the baseboards to do land speculation.
These outrageous profits not only encourage the worst possible developments--floodplain surrounded by weak levees, large developments without water, etc.--they also provide an enormous temptation for elected officials to become lackeys of the speculators. After they’re out of office, the speculators bribe…, er, I mean “hire” them as “consultants.” The “revolving door” is not confined to the beltway or Wall Street.
One alternative: In contrast to the enormous economic rewards available for land speculation in California, German developers have to sell the ag land to the local government at the ag land price, then repurchase it at the up-zoned price. The public realm gets the money.
The Germans have nice infrastructure, an education system that is world-class, despite accommodating many immigrants and East Germans, single-payer healthcare and free college tuition even for foreigners. The arts budget for the City of Berlin exceeds the National Endowment for the Arts for the U.S. of A. In other words, the German public realm is well funded, while in our area, the public realm is on its last legs as austerity continues to be the recommended solution to virtually all public policy problems.
Notice, incidentally, that even the relatively enlightened Mayor Steinberg is proposing yet more (regressive) sales taxes to fill budget holes--which, incidentally, are inevitable since sprawl is so expensive to maintain--while all of the above provide benefits that at least approach the economically progressive.
Again, I've heard no move to campaign about process changes like a, b, or c, even if such a campaign amounts to a boilerplate declaration that accompanies ECOS' comments saying something like "Please read all of our comments below within the context of the following statement: Even if you adopted all of our project-specific comments on this particular project, it would not be sufficient to address the real underlying core problems with how this jurisdiction does all of its planning and approves all developments. The reality is that use-based planning does not and cannot work--we need to implement form-based planning. And fees must cover actual costs or existing neighborhoods will suffer in the current tax environment. Unless and until this jurisdiction changes how it does planning and approvals, no amount of modifications to specific projects will ultimately result in good outcomes for the community or region's people and natural resources.”
I’d even add that the unearned increment must be taxed out of existence before the planning process in any jurisdiction can be considered legitimate. Otherwise, it's just a racket set up to support land speculation.
“You Yanks don’t consult the wisdom of democracy; you enable mobs.” --Director of planning, Perth, Australia. (Quoted by Andres Duany)
Other process changes that actually would consult the wisdom of democracy:
1. Rather than hearing after hearing, the County could empanel what amounts to a grand jury about big projects and hold a single hearing. No CPACs, and no planning commission would insulate those making the decision from public outrage. In such “grand juries,” citizens could get educated and advocate for unbiased public good, rather than biased NIMBYism. This provides a disinterested perspective in hearings otherwise full to overflowing with bias and contentiousness.
2. Have facilitators summarize the arguments of the different sides in a hearing...pro, con and "Grand Jury"... Provide baseball hats of three different colors so policy makers can see the size of the crowds for each point of view. This avoids endless hearings in which dozens, even hundreds of citizens line up to say “I don’t like it!” again and again, while taking account of the size of public support or dissent. The current exhaustive redundancy grinds any intelligent policy making to dust.
...
And finally, ECOS should endorse public banking. Bankers have the final say about what's built. Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous saying “Form follows function” is currently (really) “Form follows finance.” The final decision about what’s built and civic design comes not from the political process, or the builders, or the developers, or the policy makers or public. It comes from the banks and their underwriting standards.
Current magical thinking guiding public policy naively believes that the marketplace really does all the real planning, and government merely meddles to make things inefficient. It’s a religious idea, really. God has an invisible hand, you see.
But the truth is that economic planning is absolutely necessary, and government traditionally provided some guidance for what was built, even for what was invented. The components assembled into the iPhone were based on government research into transistors, integrated circuits, touch screens, GPS, etc. Seventy-five percent of pharmaceutical innovation comes from government-funded research, not big Pharma.
I’ve read that the military and banks are the ones doing the real planning. Could one get financing to build that affordable housing over park-n-rides? Could builders finance residences over existing retail (that land is “free”!)? Getting that kind of financing would be pretty doubtful from private bank sources, but both would provide public service, and a potential source of more affordable housing.
Incidentally, the notion that builders can’t include smaller apartments in multi-family dwellings, or granny flats or multi-family dwellings among the mansions, or other “inclusionary zoning,” mixed-income solutions to avoiding a ghetto of the impoverished are all completely unbelievable. This is also true for the businesses complaining about taxes and regulations. Taxes on corporate America are at a 60-year low, profits are at a 60-year high. And … where are the jobs? All of that is just a distraction ginned up by business to cry poor mouth rather than solve real problems. Some of the complaining about regulations, and the wish for "streamlining" can have a just cause, or just be bad actors seeking to game the system. A "simpler" tax code is a common plea, but all the complexity serves to tamp down such bad acting. In any case, an ECOS focused exclusively on threats to litigate does nothing to discourage the illegitimate call for "streamlining," and may actually encourage it...another reason to encourage process-based solutions rather than litigation.
Objections from ECOS about endorsing public banking requested something more specific than simply ECOS saying it supported it--and I'm working on getting that specific stuff--but I'd also suggest that there's a wealth of specificity in existing planning practices that aren't enforced, so specificity itself is not guarantee of good behavior. As the above says, use-based planning is impossible to enforce, really. Specifics do not always deliver, and bad actors can sabotage virtually anything related to public policy, no matter how specific.
So endorsing something general, not specific, may actually be useful, especially if ECOS wants to get out of the business of arriving too late to have a design or policy impact. Personally, I don’t see how one can specify underwriting standards (who gets the loan) before a public bank study says what public service is missing from current banking when it comes to the public realm. Supporting a study of public banking would be a good first step. Oakland and several other cities (L.A., Seattle, etc.) are doing this now.
In any case, counting on the private sector to protect the public realm--which includes the protecting the environment (ECOS’ mission)--further undermines the public realm as long as profit is the only guidance for what is permissible. Public benefit needs to be at least as motivating as profit in guiding our economy, or we’ll simply continue to have more of the same, no matter how much we expect a different outcome. ECOS can monitor projects until the cows come home, but won’t have much impact without a well-funded public realm.
Unfortunately, the current, widely promoted “solution” to what ails society is austerity--lower taxes, and a smaller, less intrusive public realm...and privatizing everything. Everyone from Supervisor Frost to the Kochs are promoting this “anti-collectivist” meme.
The object is to make governance and public policy into supports for unrestricted private property rights and precious little else. But hey, who cares about a little pollution as long as you own the land, right? Ownership makes that not matter, right? The people downstream just need to suck it up!
Part of this agenda is to strip previously treasured public enterprises of funding and privatize them, as Margaret Thatcher did with England’s trains, and as some in U.K. government are proposing to do with the NHS (National Health Service). The privatized item can be schools, or roads, or healthcare, or pensions, or really any public good. Whether the proposed privatization is beneficial is of no consequence, at least to the austerians who seek to neutralize any threat from government, and extract all economic excess.
The object of austerity is to set up privatization by making these collective enterprises so ill-funded and incompetent that the public will clamor for a change. The oligarchs can then pick up these distressed public assets for dimes on the dollar--like the Wall Street firms who bought Sacramento’s (and Chicago’s) public parking revenues.
The economy then becomes a series of toll booths, with tolls collected by the 1%, the rentier class, while the rest of the population is reduced to debt peonage, and the environment predictably degrades. This is the intersection of social justice and environmentalism. Things like homelessness and even the draconian incarceration regime (the U.S. incarcerates people, per-capita, at about five times the world average) are public policy mechanisms to enforce the tyranny of the propertied classes. Yet such policies even sacrifices international economic competitiveness because the rentiers benefit from any economic excess, and hoard their winnings rather than reinvesting in productivity, human or mechanical. Ultimately it harms all of its practitioners…
So… please have ECOS start a campaign to change the process, in addition to its commenting about specific projects...and endorse public banks.
--Regards,
--Mark Dempsey
None of this is new, but it remains important. For one thing, if policies described below were actually implemented, they would significantly reduce both commuting and congestion.
Surveys say vehicle miles traveled (VMT) could decline 1/3 - 2/3 -- or let's say roughly half if pedestrian-friendly mixed use replaced sprawl. That would have enormous benefits in reducing emissions and in improving the health of the population. After all, Americans are suffering from epidemics of the diseases of chronic inactivity--obesity, heart disease and diabetes, to name a few--and even a 10-minute daily walk makes for a significant reduction in late-life health problems. There are other benefits (see Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by Duany, Speck and Plater-Zyberk for more)
Here's the letter:
Hi all,
Thanks for the thought-provoking recent ECOS Land Use meeting. My thoughts have been slow to arrive, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth a look. Here they are:
Among other things, those present were less-than-pleased that for many projects, ECOS' comments often come too late, after the design decisions have already been settled. The alternatives considered often maximize profits in the most conventional way possible, but infrequently maximize public or environmental benefits. This can occur in any public planning process. Builders and developers arrive with their minds made up, ready to do battle--and in fairness, the process is often at least adversarial. See "Petrovich, Paul."
My humble suggestion is that the solution to this problem is to have ECOS lobby to change the process, not necessarily a specific project, although ECOS could still make project-specific comments.
ECOS has tried commenting on specific projects to the point of burnout, and has done so for decades. The most commonly approved big developments remain greenfield, not infill, and sprawl, not pedestrian-friendly mixed use. That is enormously profitable for land speculators, but it lengthens commutes, and is more expensive to maintain. Vehicle miles traveled for the sprawl, which is largely what the region builds, can be roughly twice those of pedestrian-friendly mixed-use (AKA New Urbanism, Transit-Oriented Development, Traditional Neighborhood Development, and Smart Growth).
The myth is that this is what the market prefers. Not so. The market actually prefers pedestrian-friendly, mixed use, and tolerates the transit-friendly densities far more in such neighborhoods than in sprawl. Density is necessary so enough patrons are within a walk of the transit stops. I’d also suggest that the Uber-bus idea now being tested by West Sacramento and Citrus Heights will encounter a need for density to be viable too.
In any case, the most valuable real estate in the region is not sprawl, it’s McKinley Park and its surroundings (old urbanism). This is true nation-wide, not just locally too--witness the premiums paid for neighborhoods like Seaside, FL (600%!), Orenco Station Oregon and Kentlands, MD (40%).
I've not heard ECOS mention launching a campaign to change the process, at least so far.
The three process-related areas that need change:
a. The current use-based planning is designed to fail. We must have form-based planning to have anything resembling a plan that can at least potentially work. Trying to decide uses (commerce, residences, offices, etc) decades before builders build real projects is simply not realistic. Form-based planning (deciding building size, but not necessarily use) is not some otherworldly, exotic request. Towns from Hercules, CA to McKinney, TX already use it. Smartgrowth.org even offers open source plans of this type, training, etc… The state already mandates complete streets, so that “pedestrian-friendly” piece is set for the future. Now, let’s lobby for form-based planning and mixed-use (residences, stores, offices, etc. in the same neighborhood). This cuts the VMT roughly in half. Density-favoring measures like 4- or 8-plexes even among single family homes is also something to encourage.
b. Building fees must match actual costs. This has its roots in Prop 13. Local communities must either collect for infrastructure, affordable housing, etc. up front or impoverish the existing population of their jurisdiction. As it stands now, every new house means worse schools, roads, etc. for everyone else. Building fees vary widely throughout the region, while prices for infrastructure do not. These fees are just a measure of how hard the BIA has lobbied, not an indication of actual costs. What are the actual costs? I’ve asked Sacramento County staff that question for decades. The response? [crickets]
c. Tax the unearned increment. When land speculators (many call them "developers," but I say call a spade a spade) can buy ag land for a few thousand dollars an acre, then resell it to builders after they get permission to develop the land for 50 - 100 times more than they paid, tax free (if they exchange out of the newly profitable land).
With these kinds of profits (5,000 - 10,000%!), no end to greenfield development is in sight. That kind of economic incentive means cockroaches will come out from under the baseboards to do land speculation.
These outrageous profits not only encourage the worst possible developments--floodplain surrounded by weak levees, large developments without water, etc.--they also provide an enormous temptation for elected officials to become lackeys of the speculators. After they’re out of office, the speculators bribe…, er, I mean “hire” them as “consultants.” The “revolving door” is not confined to the beltway or Wall Street.
One alternative: In contrast to the enormous economic rewards available for land speculation in California, German developers have to sell the ag land to the local government at the ag land price, then repurchase it at the up-zoned price. The public realm gets the money.
The Germans have nice infrastructure, an education system that is world-class, despite accommodating many immigrants and East Germans, single-payer healthcare and free college tuition even for foreigners. The arts budget for the City of Berlin exceeds the National Endowment for the Arts for the U.S. of A. In other words, the German public realm is well funded, while in our area, the public realm is on its last legs as austerity continues to be the recommended solution to virtually all public policy problems.
Notice, incidentally, that even the relatively enlightened Mayor Steinberg is proposing yet more (regressive) sales taxes to fill budget holes--which, incidentally, are inevitable since sprawl is so expensive to maintain--while all of the above provide benefits that at least approach the economically progressive.
Again, I've heard no move to campaign about process changes like a, b, or c, even if such a campaign amounts to a boilerplate declaration that accompanies ECOS' comments saying something like "Please read all of our comments below within the context of the following statement: Even if you adopted all of our project-specific comments on this particular project, it would not be sufficient to address the real underlying core problems with how this jurisdiction does all of its planning and approves all developments. The reality is that use-based planning does not and cannot work--we need to implement form-based planning. And fees must cover actual costs or existing neighborhoods will suffer in the current tax environment. Unless and until this jurisdiction changes how it does planning and approvals, no amount of modifications to specific projects will ultimately result in good outcomes for the community or region's people and natural resources.”
I’d even add that the unearned increment must be taxed out of existence before the planning process in any jurisdiction can be considered legitimate. Otherwise, it's just a racket set up to support land speculation.
“You Yanks don’t consult the wisdom of democracy; you enable mobs.” --Director of planning, Perth, Australia. (Quoted by Andres Duany)
Other process changes that actually would consult the wisdom of democracy:
1. Rather than hearing after hearing, the County could empanel what amounts to a grand jury about big projects and hold a single hearing. No CPACs, and no planning commission would insulate those making the decision from public outrage. In such “grand juries,” citizens could get educated and advocate for unbiased public good, rather than biased NIMBYism. This provides a disinterested perspective in hearings otherwise full to overflowing with bias and contentiousness.
2. Have facilitators summarize the arguments of the different sides in a hearing...pro, con and "Grand Jury"... Provide baseball hats of three different colors so policy makers can see the size of the crowds for each point of view. This avoids endless hearings in which dozens, even hundreds of citizens line up to say “I don’t like it!” again and again, while taking account of the size of public support or dissent. The current exhaustive redundancy grinds any intelligent policy making to dust.
...
And finally, ECOS should endorse public banking. Bankers have the final say about what's built. Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous saying “Form follows function” is currently (really) “Form follows finance.” The final decision about what’s built and civic design comes not from the political process, or the builders, or the developers, or the policy makers or public. It comes from the banks and their underwriting standards.
Current magical thinking guiding public policy naively believes that the marketplace really does all the real planning, and government merely meddles to make things inefficient. It’s a religious idea, really. God has an invisible hand, you see.
But the truth is that economic planning is absolutely necessary, and government traditionally provided some guidance for what was built, even for what was invented. The components assembled into the iPhone were based on government research into transistors, integrated circuits, touch screens, GPS, etc. Seventy-five percent of pharmaceutical innovation comes from government-funded research, not big Pharma.
I’ve read that the military and banks are the ones doing the real planning. Could one get financing to build that affordable housing over park-n-rides? Could builders finance residences over existing retail (that land is “free”!)? Getting that kind of financing would be pretty doubtful from private bank sources, but both would provide public service, and a potential source of more affordable housing.
Incidentally, the notion that builders can’t include smaller apartments in multi-family dwellings, or granny flats or multi-family dwellings among the mansions, or other “inclusionary zoning,” mixed-income solutions to avoiding a ghetto of the impoverished are all completely unbelievable. This is also true for the businesses complaining about taxes and regulations. Taxes on corporate America are at a 60-year low, profits are at a 60-year high. And … where are the jobs? All of that is just a distraction ginned up by business to cry poor mouth rather than solve real problems. Some of the complaining about regulations, and the wish for "streamlining" can have a just cause, or just be bad actors seeking to game the system. A "simpler" tax code is a common plea, but all the complexity serves to tamp down such bad acting. In any case, an ECOS focused exclusively on threats to litigate does nothing to discourage the illegitimate call for "streamlining," and may actually encourage it...another reason to encourage process-based solutions rather than litigation.
Objections from ECOS about endorsing public banking requested something more specific than simply ECOS saying it supported it--and I'm working on getting that specific stuff--but I'd also suggest that there's a wealth of specificity in existing planning practices that aren't enforced, so specificity itself is not guarantee of good behavior. As the above says, use-based planning is impossible to enforce, really. Specifics do not always deliver, and bad actors can sabotage virtually anything related to public policy, no matter how specific.
So endorsing something general, not specific, may actually be useful, especially if ECOS wants to get out of the business of arriving too late to have a design or policy impact. Personally, I don’t see how one can specify underwriting standards (who gets the loan) before a public bank study says what public service is missing from current banking when it comes to the public realm. Supporting a study of public banking would be a good first step. Oakland and several other cities (L.A., Seattle, etc.) are doing this now.
In any case, counting on the private sector to protect the public realm--which includes the protecting the environment (ECOS’ mission)--further undermines the public realm as long as profit is the only guidance for what is permissible. Public benefit needs to be at least as motivating as profit in guiding our economy, or we’ll simply continue to have more of the same, no matter how much we expect a different outcome. ECOS can monitor projects until the cows come home, but won’t have much impact without a well-funded public realm.
Unfortunately, the current, widely promoted “solution” to what ails society is austerity--lower taxes, and a smaller, less intrusive public realm...and privatizing everything. Everyone from Supervisor Frost to the Kochs are promoting this “anti-collectivist” meme.
The object is to make governance and public policy into supports for unrestricted private property rights and precious little else. But hey, who cares about a little pollution as long as you own the land, right? Ownership makes that not matter, right? The people downstream just need to suck it up!
Part of this agenda is to strip previously treasured public enterprises of funding and privatize them, as Margaret Thatcher did with England’s trains, and as some in U.K. government are proposing to do with the NHS (National Health Service). The privatized item can be schools, or roads, or healthcare, or pensions, or really any public good. Whether the proposed privatization is beneficial is of no consequence, at least to the austerians who seek to neutralize any threat from government, and extract all economic excess.
The object of austerity is to set up privatization by making these collective enterprises so ill-funded and incompetent that the public will clamor for a change. The oligarchs can then pick up these distressed public assets for dimes on the dollar--like the Wall Street firms who bought Sacramento’s (and Chicago’s) public parking revenues.
The economy then becomes a series of toll booths, with tolls collected by the 1%, the rentier class, while the rest of the population is reduced to debt peonage, and the environment predictably degrades. This is the intersection of social justice and environmentalism. Things like homelessness and even the draconian incarceration regime (the U.S. incarcerates people, per-capita, at about five times the world average) are public policy mechanisms to enforce the tyranny of the propertied classes. Yet such policies even sacrifices international economic competitiveness because the rentiers benefit from any economic excess, and hoard their winnings rather than reinvesting in productivity, human or mechanical. Ultimately it harms all of its practitioners…
So… please have ECOS start a campaign to change the process, in addition to its commenting about specific projects...and endorse public banks.
--Regards,
--Mark Dempsey
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