Live From New West's Real Estate and Development Conference
Q&A: Dennis Glick, the Sonoran Institute
By Richard Martin, 10-06-06
Described by Todd Wilkinson, who introduced him at today's New West conference on Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies, as "having one of the most diverse backgrounds of anyone I've ever known," Dennis Glick has been a Peace Corps volunteer, a World Wildlife Fund official working to help create sustainable natural preserves in Latin America, and an activist with the Greater Yellowstone Institute. Now, he's the regional director of the Sonoran Institute, which works to help communities in the Rocky Mountain West manage and shape rapid growth.
This dialogue is compiled from Glick's responses to questions from Wilkinson and from New West's Richard Martin, following his presentation.
New West: If I'm a realtor, a developer, or a landowner, and I want to dothe right thing in terms of innovative, sustainable development, what do I do, and where do I go? We've all heard these horror stories about developers trying to do innovative things who get jerked around by their county or city government, to where it ends up costing them a lot of money and they often end up punting on the project. Those kind of encounters breed hostile relations between developers and the people guiding development. What do you say when you hear those horror stories?
Dennis Glick: Let me respond to your second question first. Those horror stories stem from the fact that many communities have not decided what they want to be when they grow up. They're like wild and crazy adolescents, and when developers go in to the city or county offices they find that the planning departments are schizophrenic. These communities really need to come together on shared vision for future. To decide what they want to protect, what they want to change, and codify that in land use reglations, so developers and builders and landowners can get more straightforward answers from planning departments.
Let me add that a number of the developments we've highlighted [in the "Building the Best of the Northern Rockies" project] have faced incredible challenges. Some of them had to apply for 12 variances, and one two-house project on a corner in Bozeman had to apply for four variances. The people on the cutting edge of these innovative projects are really paving the way for making the process easier. Many of these variances have resulted in changes in the codes and regulations. Planning departments are starting to see, that they want these kind of developments, and they're struggling to figure out how to expedite this process.
We need to figure out how to make it really easy. Right now it's really hard.
NW: We live in a place where many people want less government or no government, and they don’t want to pay taxes. I wonder if you can talk about some of the cost-of-services studies that look at the real costs of growth.
DG: I think you're referring to the studies of fiscal impacts different patterns of growth that have been done around the country. And they all show the same thing: commercial and industrial and open space projects cost less to taxpayers than they provide in benefits. Rural residential development, in contrast, costs more than generate in tax revenues. It's often said that cows don’t go to school or dial 911. Naturally we tend to think that more development will increase the tax base when actually it tends to strain county services.
NW: You've mentioned the need for developers to reach out to the community to seek input and buy-in on new, innovative projects. How do you do that when the battle lines are so entrenched that virtually no new development will pass muster with existing residents?
DG: We had an incident in Bozeman, where everybody's favorite grocery store wanted to build in a residential neighborhood, at a busy intersection, and the people in the neighborhood, including members of the environmental community, fought that tooth and nail. That drove the point home for me that the biggest challaenge for advocates of smart growth in many cases is their own colleagues. They could've walked 300 yards to buy their grocery instead of three miles, but they still didn't want it.
You have to show them how more people in their neighborhoods is going to increase their quality of life. Our challenge is to clearly illustrate how these types of developments directly improve the quality of life.
NW: What about cases where there's no convincing existing residents, where there's no common ground despite efforts to find it?
DG: What I would say to those people is, buy it yourself. Thre are some cases where the best development is none. It's incumbent on those saying that, to permanently protect those parcels, to recognize that it often requires large sums of money to purchase them.It's import to recognize when you look at the landscape, whether it's in a cit or in rural areas, that all landscapes are not created equal. There are places where development will have minimal impacts, and some where the impact will be very significant. You need a clear understanding of what is the green infrastucture that you need to protect: the wildlife corridors , riparian areas, and other places that you need to protect through land use plans and regulations or easements.
In Gallatin County we've passed two $10 million open space bonds, and they're planning to use those with a laser sharp focus on the East Gallatin River, to help create easements on adjoining properties. When you look at what the richest habitats in the area are, you look at that corridor. That's a good example of really not trying to protect everything but only what's most important.
NW: How do you see the competing forces between the sorts of innovative developments you're spotlighting and the ones that are just plowing ahead with conventional development?
DG: Well, right now most people are just plowing ahead, but as we see more of these projects on the ground, and they become economically successes, people are going to demand more of them. Think about 20 years ago, when you want to the produce department, all they had was iceberg lettuce. If you asked for raddichio, or arugula, the produce manager would say "There isn’t a market for that." But obviously there was a market, but there was no choice. Once you give people a choice, they demonstrate with their pocketbook that they want something different and they'll pay for something different.
NW: So, if you're a citizen of the Northern Rockies, what are the two or three things that you can do to support this kind of conscious development?
DG: Well, your choice in housing is a good place to start. Try to find the options available, the ways that you can minimize environmental impcts, the impacts on the community depending on where you buy or build.
Second, find out what's happening in the community, talk to the people who track growth issues, there are local organizations in most towns now that can help you get a feel for the big issues facing that community.
Third, just start to show up. Half the battle is just being there, and being tenacious -- the bad guys are really tenacious so the people who favor doing it differently. This stuff isn't always fun, but it's extremely rewarding. I was involved in the fight to keep Livingston's downtown post office open after the U.S. Postal Service said they were going to abandon it for a new facility outside town.
In the end we prevailed, and today, every time I walk by the post office and I see people chatting on the front steps, and there's a line of people, a rancher next to an artist next to a housewife, and half of them walk or rode their bicycle, I feel really good.
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