news story / By Ryan Burns

Social Compact

Rural land development goes under the microscope at local workshops

(Oct. 29, 2009)  Pop quiz: What do a big box store, a freeway interchange and the old walled city of Florence, Italy have in common? Answer: They take up roughly the same amount of space. This was just one of many provocative facts presented to local planners and policymakers at Eureka’s Wharfinger building last Wednesday at a workshop promoting compact community development.

“The point [of the quiz],” explained Alison Pernell, a project manager with the nonprofit Local Government Commission, “is you don’t have to have a lot of space to create great civilization.”

Such was the thrust of the four-hour workshop, the fourth and final training session in a series called “Building Healthy, Active Communities on the North Coast.” “Healthy” and “active,” in this context, implied walkable, which led to talk of compact, mixed-use developments — a planning model that’s near the center of two raging local controversies: the land use element of the county’s General Plan update and the proposed Marina Center development on Eureka’s Balloon Track property.

The workshops, underwritten largely by the California Endowment, included participation from the Humboldt Partnership for Active Living, the local branch of the American Planning Association and the public health arm of the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services. Hoping to sidestep the messy particulars of above-mentioned debates, speakers strove to keep the discussion general.

“Remember that compact communities are not a new concept,” Pernell said as an image of Ferndale appeared on the screen behind her. Conventional modern zoning, by contrast, separates residential neighborhoods from town centers. Consequently, the number of vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. is increasing three times faster than the population, Pernell said, adding that compact development can reduce car usage and infrastructure costs while preserving green space and resource lands.

Her colleague, LGC Director of Land Use and Transportation Programs Paul Zykofsky, said increased density can also combat climate change and the obesity epidemic by encouraging residents to walk rather than drive. “We lost our way when we started thinking of design around automobiles,” he said.

Steve Frisch, president of the Sierra Business Council, a non-profit policy consultation group based in Truckee, took another tack, asserting that conventional planning is tied to outmoded values and demographics. “Married couples with children now make up less than 25 percent of American households, but we seem to keep making the product designed for [them],” he said. The fastest growing demographics — young professionals, single parents, childless couples and senior citizens — tend to measure wealth more through experience than property, which is spurring demand for live/work/walk communities, Frisch said.

Groups like the Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights and the Humboldt Association of Realtors have argued that stricter zoning regulations could potentially jeopardize the rural lifestyle by preventing residents from building homes on large, remote parcels. “We’re not proposing compact development everywhere,” Pernell said, acknowledging such concerns. Rather, she advocated strategically locating compact development within existing cities.

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