Missoula News

Conference Coverage

Planning in the West: Morning Sessions, Key Word “Sustainability”

By Joan McCarter, 6-18-09

The morning sessions at New West’s Planning in the West Conference has been devoted to the key issues facing planners today: the challenges faced in an economic downturn; how to turn the buzzword of “sustainability” to actual, on the ground planning; moving beyond planning to sustainable design; and the granddaddy of all issues--the massive growth facing the region.

The first session brought together a seasoned team of private developers and planning officials to focus largely on the idea of community, and how to plan in a region where the sentiment for unfettered private property rights tends to overwhelm the desire for planning growth, and how particularly the economic crisis facing the region has effected planning.

There was strong consensus among the panel participants that an engaged community can help overcome some of the natural hostility to bureaucracy, but getting them to the table can be the largest part of the problem. Outside of offering free food for coming to meetings, citizen engagement over the long term remains a challenge. It might be fun to show up for the “visioning” session of what you want your community to be, but how is that translated to the dry job of creating the nuts and bolts of ordinances, zoning regulations, all those things that make the average person’s eyes glaze over.

Teton Valley planner Jennifer Zung offered up an example from Victor, Idaho, Envision Victor, a project that brings people to planning process, take grassroots input on city values for city planning, and is more in-depth than usual city planning, putting the human face to planning coming from residents.

The consensus among the panelists was that the economic downturn actually has provided some interesting opportunities in planning. It’s changed market demand in some areas for more centralized, less car-dependent, and smaller homes. It’s created more of a demand for city officials to worry about “taking care of the basics,” making sure that the things like transit, water and other utility services are well maintained and responsive to citizen needs. One of the downsides of the economic downturn--slowed development--has created an upturn in the opportunity to have some breathing room, allowing for some evaluation of the impact of the development boom in the region.

Making ‘Sustainability’ More Than a Marketing Term

First Keynote speaker Christopher Duerksen then transitioned the discussion into sustainability, the new buzzword for planners and developers. His focus was in part on how to make sure that sustainability was more than a marketing term, but was actually a fundamental principle in design. He gave the example of a new development in rural Colorado that is touting itself as a a carbon-neutral development, but that is located five miles from the nearest town with a grocery store, and 15 miles from a town that provides other services. Isolated from bus service, residents could have an energy efficient, carbon neutral home, but lose all the benefits of that when they have to get in their car to accomplish anything. That kind of greenwashing, using the kinds of language that appeals to a market that’s increasingly concerned about living sustainably, Duerksen argues, has to be combated by planners on the look-out for it, who can create sustainable codes on so many levels: energy, food supply, public health and safety, habitat protection.

Carrying on the sustainability theme, the next panel represented some planners and officials in the thick of it, from more urban communities including Seattle, LA, Boise, and Denver. The takeaway from this panel was that demand is increasing in these urban areas for sustainability, which includes mixed development--allowing mixed commercial, residential, public services. Those market demands have led to more and more developers factoring in green and sustainable developments. In the Seattle area, and much of California, the standard for any development now is a silver LEED. That’s the new reality for urban areas, and likely to filter down to smaller localities in the coming decade.

That point was brought forcefully home by Dr. Arthur “Chris” Nelson, professor of planning at the University of Utah, who had some astounding projections for growth in Idaho’s Snake River Corridor--from Idaho Falls to Ontario, Oregon. The region could reach a population of 2 million by 2050, according to his modeling, creating a need for nearly 300 billion new square feet of development. The demographic profile of that population growth is going to have as massive an impact on the housing needs forty years hence as the sheer numbers involved. The population is aging, and there are growing numbers of childless families, and singles. The housing needs for those demographics will dramatically change the demand for housing in the region. This presentation, more than anything, brought home the need for sustainable planning--conservation of energy, of water, of open space--to begin now, ahead of the demand curve.

What was missing in the morning’s discussion? Except for Ryan McEvoy from Gaia Development in the Denver area, and Diane Sugimura from Seattle, the issue of how to make sustainability affordable to everyone was rarely discussed. The region as a whole has been so go-go, grow-grow, affordability hasn’t been as critical an issue in development. The economic downturn, however, is going to change all that, and that’s going to be the next hurdle for the region’s planners to face.

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