Are We Stimulating Sprawl?

Report: Western States Spending Too Much Stimulus on New Roads

A report out this week from the national Smart Growth America group takes a look at where transportation stimulus money is going on the state level and it found that in most cases, especially in the West, states are spending too much on new roads and not enough on maintenance and repair of existing infrastructure or on public transportation options.

The report is exhaustive, and you can read the whole thing here, but two main points from the group are these:

Not enough money is being spent on repair and maintenance: “Despite a multi-trillion dollar backlog of road and bridge repairs, states committed almost a third of ARRA STP money—$6.6 billion—to new capacity road and bridge projects rather than to repair and other preservation projects”

Not enough money is being spent on public transportation: “By allocating few funds (3.7%) to public and non-motorized transportation, states made less progress on modernization, rapid job creation, enhancing public transporation, long-term economic growth, reducing greenhouse gases, oil dependence and providing low cost transportation choices,” the report states.

Read on to see the report’s findings on how specific Western states rank in the group’s assessment.

FRACKING FRACAS

‘Fracking’ Bill Gets Buried - Again

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., made headlines last month when she introduced legislation to regulate chemicals used in a part of the gas-drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. “Fracking” pumps a brew of chemicals into the ground to help the gas flow and open up gas plays once considered too tough to drill. These chemicals were regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act until the 2005 Energy Bill exempted them. DeGette wants that exemption taken away.

The energy industry has balked, though, saying the chemicals are safe and further regulation would be both costly and unnecessary. Environmentalists say the chemicals could contaminate groundwater and may have already poisoned people who were exposed to them.

DeGette has introduced similar legislation before, but it never caught the attention of the energy industry as much as this time. An Obama White House and a Democratic Congress -- now filibuster-proof -- has boosted its chances. New gas plays in places like New York and Pennsylvania have raised the profile.

But DeGette’s legislation probably won’t see a vote this year, either. She tells New West that fracking will see more studies before it sees more regulation.

gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day

Interior Unveils Solar Hot Spots Across West

The Interior Department released maps on Tuesday detailing vast stretches of public land in the West that could be opened to utility-scale solar development.

The so-called Solar Energy Study Areas make up 670,000 acres in Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and California.

The proposed areas focus on lands considered to have excellent solar access and manageable slopes, with roads and transmission lines or corridors nearby, and with at least 2,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land. Sensitive areas, wilderness areas and other lands with high-conservation values were ruled out.

Let There Be Dark

AMA Links Light Pollution to Cancer, Health Woes

The American Medical Association this month passed a resolution that recognizes a host of problems with light pollution, including health issues -- such as breast cancer -- that are "associated with human eye exposure to light at night."

The AMA resolution (view it in full here) explains that the increasing amount of light in the world, including streetlight glare and intrusive light that "trespasses" into bedroom windows and homes, is linked to higher rates of cancer and other health woes. It harms wildlife as well, the medical group says.

As the AMA puts it: "Light trespass has been implicated in disruption of the human and animal circadian rhythm, and strongly suspected as an etiology of suppressed melatonin production, depressed immune systems, and increase in cancer rates such as breast cancers." In addition, it "disrupts nocturnal animal activity and results in diminished various animal populations’ survival and health," the group says.

Stimulated!

Downtown Missoula Snags $1 Million From Feds

The Missoula Downtown Association today announced that the federal government is sending more than $1 million in economic stimulus money to downtown Missoula. The money will be used to beautify and boost user-friendliness on North Higgins Avenue between Broadway and Circle square, providing more safety for cyclists and pedestrians.

The ultimate goal? "Creating a more inviting, attractive and interactive street environment" to stimulate the downtown economy, according to the announcement from the MDA. Another chunk of the allotment money will pay for repaving three blocks of downtown Higgins, the association says.

Planners Under Fire

Flathead Planning Lawsuit: Secret Meetings, or Sour Grapes?

Flathead County planners might be saying amen to that this week, in the wake of a lawsuit and ongoing allegations by a group of vocal locals who claim the county and a planning committee conducted a too-secretive planning process that violated Montana's open meeting laws.

Planning processes everywhere in the state, it seems, are a battlefield in which elected officials and disgruntled private landowners are accusing planners and others of violating proper procedure. Insert the nation's legendary litigiousness into this recipe and you get a sulfurous stew, one that makes it increasingly difficult for anything with the word "plan" in it to get off the ground.

The battle gets particularly strident where property-rights groups like American Dream Montana -- whose members are among those who filed the Flathead suit -- campaign against people they denounce as "smart-growthers" and (in their view) socialists run amok.

The Zoning ReWrite

Missoula City Council Compromises on Zoning Controversy

The divisions within the Missoula City Council were on full display this week as members tried to move past the most contentious issue in the new zoning rewrite, voting 8-4 on Wednesday morning to strike a provision that would have allowed so-called Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) - essentially additional living spaces on existing lots - to be built in single-family zoning districts.

“This was the big political thing,” said Bob Jaffe, who chairs the Plat, Amendment and Zoning committee and voted against the motion to prohibit ADUs. Jaffe said that now the committee could focus on the remaining issues, including minimum lot sizes and maximum building heights.

Ward 4 representative Jon Wilkins introduced the motion prohibiting ADUs in all single-family zones, and Stacy Rye of Ward 3 introduced a motion allowing ADU’s to be built “by right” in all districts that are zoned multi-family. Both motions passed.

Live Long and Prosper

Planning in the West: A Few Lessons

If we all live to be 120 years old, we'll have a lot of things to worry about besides land-use planning. But consider this: serious people involved in biomedical research think that such longevity is likely, if not necessarily imminent, and if it were to transpire it would in fact have huge implications for the design of our communities. It would bring huge population growth, far more old people and a far smaller ratio of children - and drive growth patterns towards urban centers and away from the the suburban fringe.

That was one of the more provocative arguments put forth last week at NewWest.Net's 1st annual Planning in the West conference. Keynote speaker Arthur C. Nelson, Director of Metropolitan Research at the University of Utah, said these kinds of drastically changing demographics would alter land-use patterns in ways we are only beginning to understand.

This kind of thinking is more than a little removed from the quotidian arguments over planning that still rage across the West. Just last week, residents of the Flathead County, Montana town of Somers almost came to blows over whether a preliminary discussion of a neighborhood plan for the lakeside community was appropriate. Here in Missoula, a city council meeting on Monday went past midnight as people argued over a new zoning code, and especially whether the city should allows "accessory dwelling units" - which might, not incidentally, be an important type of housing for an aging population, but are considered anathema by University-area residents who fear they will fill up with students.

Yet planning, by its very nature, is all about the long term, and it can be a lot more inspiring than the day-to-day politics of subdivisions and infill and roads and sewer systems. Here are a few of the highlights from our recent conference:

Deja Boo

Missoula City Council Hears Nays and Yeas About Zoning Rewrite

After more than five hours of hearing public comment Monday night, the visibly exhausted Missoula City Council sent the proposed zoning rewrite ordinance revision back to the Plat, Annexation and Zoning committee for re-evaluation.

If passed, the new zoning ordinance would replace the existing zoning ordinance, which Office of Planning and Grants Director Roger Millar described as confusing and contradictory.

“Everything we do depends on zoning, and our regulatory foundation is broken,” Millar said during his brief presentation last night. “It’s time for a change.”

Following Millar’s presentation and continuing until past midnight, about 50 Missoula residents representing commercial, organizational, neighborhood and personal interests lined up in the aisles of the Council Chamber and, one by one, voiced their concerns before the weary Council members, Mayor John Engen and City Attorney Jim Nugent. The meeting was adjourned at 12:30 a.m.