ONE TOWN SQUARE: at the intersection of peak oil, climate change, and land use

In Oregon both the pro-land use and anti-land use forces seem to have at last exhausted themselves. Now that those of us who fancy ourselves land use advocates are freed from the burden of automatically rising to the defense of a planning program that’s constantly under siege, we can finally admit to ourselves that it’s mostly indefensible.

Our land use laws force us to do the wrong things.

In prepping for a meeting about planning issues in the Lane County community of Blue River, I have been reviewing the rules governing unincorporated communities. Unincorporated communities are defined as those which existed at some time in the past – which means that new ones aren’t possible. The rules are written to ensure that unincorporated communities mostly remain “rural” – development shouldn’t detract from development within UGBs. Only unincorporated communities specifically designated as “urban” are allowed to plan for and accommodate population growth. Of course population growth is assumed to be accompanied by growth of the car population – when you plan for population growth, you have to plan for and provide an enhanced road system as well.

While state law does not impose any minimum lot or parcel size inside unincorporated communities, Lane Code does. And the zoning rules don’t allow for a mix of uses. No tiny streets, lined with narrow three-story buildings with a bakery on the ground floor and apartments above, like in French villages. And Land Code also imposes minimum parking space standards, for residential and other uses alike. Every building and use implies and requires space for cars.

So what’s wrong with this? It locks into place development patterns that were established under historical conditions that may no longer exist. It makes the necessary transition to a relocalized and less energy-dependent way of life more difficult or even impossible.

Villages in Europe developed within easy walking access to surrounding farmlands and woodlands, and mostly within an easy day’s walking distance (and a short bicycle ride) from each other. The countryside is dotted with small, compact villages and towns, each containing a range of businesses and services necessary to carry on day-to-day life. The difficulty of transportation encouraged a proliferation of regionalism in cuisine and culture that far outshines our homogenized mediocrity. Post-WWII and with the rising supremacy of the automobile, many of those villages and towns began wither – but the basic pre-automobile infrastructure is still there and evident, and could easily be revitalized should circumstances require. The varied and vibrant cultures and cultural civilization of Europe are more resilient.

The U.S. population more than doubled after WWII from 140,000,000 in 1945 to over 303,000,000 at present. This explosion in population coincided with an explosion in our car culture. Motor vehicle registrations quadroupled from 62,070,000 in 1945 to 241,200,000 in 2005. Rather than growth being absorbed within existing towns and cities, suburban housing tracts sprawled all over the countryside, engulfing rather than preserving the identity of villages and towns that got in the way. Oregon’s planning program requires that sprawl continue: we have to project population growth out into the future, based on historic trends; and provide a 20-year supply of “undeveloped” farm and forest land to accommodate that growth, again based on historic patterns of land use.

Our zoning laws force us to build inefficient, car-dependent communities. Provisions such as minimum lot size requirements, lot coverage limitations, prohibitions on the number of dwelling units on a lot, and restrictions on commercial and other uses in residential zones prevent efficient development and exclude affordable housing. Walking is a good option only when distances to where you need to go are short. In European cities, shops and markets are always within easy walking distance. There’s a grocery store, a tabac, or a drogerie around every corner. Parking is scarce, so walking is often the easiest option. In America, supermarkets and big box stores with enormous parking lots have sucked all of the air out of the retail atmosphere. This, combined with our exclusionary zoning, makes walking anywhere pretty much out of the question.

Our planning for cities also forces us to plan and provide for growth in the car population. Minimum parking requirements force us to allocate space for and subsidize car ownership. The Transportation Planning Rule (TPR) requires that we project and provide for an increase in automobile traffic. We fall back on the TPR as a tool to use in opposing development not because it’s a good thing, but because it’s often the only effective tool we have at hand.

The mobility offered by the automobile also makes it possible for people to sprawl across the countryside. They don’t need villages or towns to provide for their needs – they can hop in their cars and drive to the Wal-Mart or the Home Depot conveniently located near the interstate. The profusion of ways to get dwelling approvals on rural lands ensures that more and more people live in rural areas every year, regardless of where or how far they have to go to earn a living or engage in all the other activities of life. Measure 49 ensures that there will be tens of thousands of additional opportunities for houses in rural areas, unrelated to any productive activity.

Our land use laws are too restrictive, and in the wrong way. They keep us from living effectively and efficiently within the landscape while failing to protect the health and integrity of our soils, our waters, and our ecosystems. They ensure that our wasteful and profligate land use patterns will be extended into the future. They keep us from creating vibrant, whole communities that provide for the needs of all of our people. They require and ensure the continuation of an oil- and automobile-dependent transportation system whose days we know in our hearts are numbered.

Now that we’ve beat back the barbarians, it’s time to recognize that the real enemy is ourselves. In the immortal words of Walt Kelley’s Pogo:

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”