Smart Growth vs. Intelligent Growth
Smart Growth
Smart growth is a philosophy used to identify a set of policies governing transportation and land-use planning for urban areas that benefits communities and preserves the natural environment. Smart growth advocates land-use patterns that are compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly and include mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. This philosophy keeps density concentrated in the center of a town or city, combating urban sprawl.
Proponents of smart growth advocate comprehensive planning to guide, design, develop, revitalize and build communities that: have a unique sense of community and place; preserve and enhance natural and cultural resources; equitably distribute the costs and benefits of development; expand the range of transportation, employment and housing choices; value long-range, regional considerations of sustainability over a short-term focus; and promote public health and healthy communities.
The Bozeman 2020 Community Plan is strategically aligned with smart growth principles.
Intelligent Growth
The Story Mill Center will use land in a balanced manner—-combining residential, industrial, commerce and greenspace. Click to enlarge.
Intelligent growth is smart growth-plus – an amplification of the concepts by organizations, individuals and the city of Bozeman. Intelligent growth is a next-level vision for an integrated neighborhood development. It incorporates all the elements of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Neighborhood Development and seeks innovative partnerships within the community to optimize the new neighborhood for the good of all.
Intelligent Growth—What Is the Risk?
No one moves to Bozeman, or Montana for that matter, seeking traffic, urban sprawl, strip malls and views of tightly packed homes. Yet projections indicate that people are moving into Gallatin Valley, and into Bozeman in particular, at a higher rate than anywhere else in the state. The negative impacts of such rapid and largely unplanned growth are already visible, and are only going to get worse.
According to projections released by the Montana Department of Commerce (2006), population in Gallatin County is expected to increase 86 percent by 2030 to more than 126,000 individuals—effectively doubling the number of residents. The vast majority of those people will be newcomers, and more than 50 percent will reside in Bozeman (Bozeman 2020 Community Plan). These growth-rate projections are now the highest in the state, exceeding even Ravalli and Flathead Counties.
Bozeman Without Intelligent Growth—What Is the Risk?
Land Over-Consumption
The most immediate impact of such growth is the loss of open space—particularly farms and ranches. When people envision Montana, they think of the treasured open vistas of rural landscape that surrounds our cities and towns: fields and pastures dotted with grain elevators, historic barns and bucolic views of horses and cattle. Yet, according to the Montana Smart Growth Coalition, the state is losing more than a million acres of agricultural land each decade. This is particularly unsettling in Gallatin County, which was founded by ranchers and farmers who have made agriculture a driving force in the local economy.
Subdivision the act of dividing land into pieces, known as tracts, lots or parcels.
Agriculture still dominates parts of the local landscape—but for how long? According to the Gallatin County Growth Policy, net income from farming and ranching has dropped from $31.1 million in 1970 to $7.1 million in 2000, and continues to decline. Agricultural economics are important for generating revenue at the state, county and city levels. A study on the costs of community services in Gallatin County found that agriculture is a more cost effective use of land. Farms pay local governments more than they demand in services ($0.25), whereas subdivisions demand more in services ($1.45) than they pay in taxes.
The reduction of farm and ranchland has translated into increased residential subdivisions. The Montana Smart Growth Coalition reports that green spaces are being consumed four times faster than the population is growing—and that is for residential use alone. If this relationship between population growth and residential development were to continue in Gallatin County, land consumption would likely grow by more than 340 percent by 2030, and would increase far more if commercial and industrial development were considered.
It is not just our vistas and agricultural base that is lost to residential sprawl. The loss of open space equates to the reduction of healthy corridors for wildlife to flourish, and over time, the depletion and pollution of groundwater and stream flows. The wilderness that most tourists and newcomers seek to enjoy is becoming increasingly remote, constricted and less wild.
Lack of Housing Options
The cost of rent and home purchases in Bozeman has been rising faster than incomes, and is leaving an increasing number of area residents without affordable housing options. The current housing market has resulted in the displacement of many families who choose more reachable alternatives in Belgrade and Gallatin Gateway. This displacement increases traffic congestion and contributes to further hikes in land prices within the city. To mitigate these issues, Bozeman needs to build a more diverse range of high-density housing within the existing urban infrastructure—a cost-effective solution that takes up less land and offers more options for a range of residents.
Housing Diversity strives to bring equality and a range of housing types and price points to the local market.
Water, Traffic and Pollution
Continued rapid and unplanned growth in and around Bozeman will have negative consequences on transportation, water supplies, and air and water quality. Development outside of the city limits that makes use of a state law permitting the use of septic systems and water-right exemptions for residential wells endangers groundwater quality and creates problems for water-rights holders. Such far-flung developments also increase traffic and congestion in Bozeman. According to the city’s 2020 plan, the annual vehicle miles traveled in Bozeman is expected to increase by more than 165 percent from 111,600,000 to 184,500,000 (roughly equal to 7,415 times around the earth’s equator per year). Traffic congestion is frustrating at best, but at the projected increase, will have a significant impact on air and water quality.
Perhaps one of the most distressing concerns of sprawling growth is its impact on our clean, clear skies. Bozeman is currently classified as a high risk area for “non-attainment” small particle and carbon monoxide, based on thresholds set by the Environmental Protection Agency. Increased traffic congestion will only contribute to the current level of pollution. If Bozeman loses its “attainment area” status, the city will have a more difficult time obtaining federal funding for transportation, and will require additional reviews for air quality effects that may include regulation of wood stoves and other sources of air pollutants.
Attainment area is a zone within which the level of pollutant is considered to meet National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
Unplanned Development
The projected growth is, to say the least, very worrisome in a state that has traditionally favored property-rights zoning and planning. If current development trends continue unabated, the city risks losing its unique character. Intelligent growth is needed to prevent Bozeman and the county from the inevitable consequences of rapid unplanned development: loss of open space, dirty air and water, fractured communities, strained school systems and higher taxes to pay for spread-out infrastructure. From a purely fiscal standpoint, the need for intelligent growth is critically important to the economic vitality of a region. Studies from around the country demonstrate that rural residential developments tend to strain county services far more than they increase the tax base, whereas commercial, industrial and open space projects cost less to taxpayers than they provide in benefits. It should be clear to anyone that the current rate of growth in Bozeman is not sustainable if the city intends to remain “the most livable place,” or even a pleasant and affordable place.
Intelligent Growth Alternatives
Bozeman is in dire need of more compact, integrated communities that support business districts and a wider range of housing options. Fortunately, there are already many successful examples of these smart-growth alternatives that work. Throughout the country and the world, planners have identified a variety of principles that guide (not dictate) the development of vibrant and sustainable mixed-use neighborhoods that reduce energy and resource consumption, provide a diversity of affordable housing types, encourage alternative transportation, mitigate traffic concerns, and respect and protect valuable features of the natural, historical and archaeological landscape.
Integrated communities offer mixed age, economic and eclectic blend of residential architecture types and creates a viable community—as opposed to a vacant neighborhood from 9-5.
By building neighborhoods the way small towns used to grow, where people are in close proximity to where they work, shop and recreate, Bozeman could create higher-density and varied housing opportunities that actually mitigate the potentially negative consequences of all the growth that is headed our way—and reap the benefits of healthy economic growth. Demand for just such communities is already here and increasing as both newcomers and existing residents seek affordable, high-quality opportunities that will allow them to live and work in Bozeman. What the city needs now, more than anything, are citizens and government that will support visionary development projects that promote intelligent growth—before it is too late.
By showing how this can be done, we may contribute to population increase by attracting people to Bozeman because of their values. So be it. As the population of the nation continues to grow, these remain the principles we must embrace.
Innovative Additions to a Green Neighborhood
Story Mill Center, as a LEED-ND, will make is possible for interested community members to live their lives through example. We will promote and enable “carbon neutral” or even a “net zero” lifestyle. Because we all contribute to global warming, we all have a “carbon footprint” which is the total carbon dioxide emissions we create when we drive, fly or use electricity. As a green development, we help residents go a long way to neutralize their impact on the environment and we will extend this by promoting the use of innovative services such as TerraPass (terrapass.com) to reduce our carbon footprint further – even to zero.
When you buy a TerraPass, your money funds renewable energy projects such as wind farms and other renewable energy sources to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Your investment then counterbalances your individual emissions.