Answers to sprawl include easements, zoning, taxes

By Greg Lakes, editor
Headwaters News
Aug. 7, 2002

There's no shortage of examples of suburban sprawl in the Rockies, but there's a fairly narrow range of options to maintain a little green as communities grow outward: conservation easements, open-space taxes, and strict zoning and density regulations.

In Colorado's Sangre de Cristo Mountains, conservation easements are the choice on an unprecedented scale. A half-dozen ranchers have agreed to cede their development rights to three conservation organizations in an orchestrated move that will keep houses off a swath of green half the size of Manhattan.

That will mean no condos, no trophy homes and no golf courses on 11,000 acres of prime valley land in an area that's expected to sprout 4,100 new homes by 2025, doubling the local population. The agreements are heralded as the start of a new era of cooperation between ranchers and environmentalists to preserve open space and ranchers' lifestyles.

Advocates note similar agreements in Montana, where ranchers zoned their own land to limit houses to one every 640 acres, and near Steamboat Springs, Colo., where a coalition has protected 16,000 acres of ranchland from development.

The ranchers give up what could be lucrative development rights. But if they don't, they and their families aren't likely to remain long on the land. The average cattle rancher is 70 years old, and ranching is not an affordable choice for most heirs without significant tax breaks.

Estimates say that throughout the West, as much as 75 percent of all ranches will change hands, with an unknown proportion lost to traditional uses.

What fuels that kind of growth? In the relatively remote southern end of the Selkirk Range in northern Idaho and southern British Columbia, far from industry, transportation and most other ingredients of a thriving economy, the answer has three parts, according to a Montana economics professor's study.

The robust economy of Sandpoint, Idaho, and Nelson, B.C., is due to more tourism and recreation jobs, more retirees and more telecommuting, the study said. Thomas Power, chairman of the University of Montana Economics Department, said losing jobs and revenue from traditional timber and mining industries hasn't sent the area's economy into a tailspin. Population on the U.S. side grew 34 percent in the 1990s, and 21 percent on the B.C. side.

A fair share of the region's sprawl is attributed to people with more money than is strictly seemly. Metro Phoenix is pushed outward in part by demand for elaborate second homes. Analysts estimate that about one-fourth of the valley's 110,000 new and used home sales are to people who aren't primary residents.

That's contrary to the national trend, in which 1999's record number of second-home sales slipped by 4 percent in 2000.

In the words of the Arizona Republic: "Metro Phoenix has become a mecca for second-home buyers, who spend the winter months at their golf retreats in north Scottsdale, mansions in Paradise Valley or retirement communities in the West and East Valley, and then head to cooler climes during the summer."

And in the words of one Phoenix real estate analyst: "The Valley's still an affordable place for second homes. A million-dollar house here would be at least twice that much in California."

Arizona is sixth in the nation for its proportion of vacation homes, and Scottsdale is the state's most popular second-home venue.

In north Idaho, the Rathdrum Prairie between Coeur d'Alene and Spokane is one the fastest-growing areas in the region, and it may be the spot where city-bred techniques are adapted to the country.

Kootenai County officials are mulling a tax to buy farm and ranch land to preserve open space. It would be a new approach for a relatively rural area, although last year, Boise voters passed a $10 million levy to buy land in the Boise foothills.

Missoula voters passed a $5 million bond levy in 1995 to buy 1,500 acres on Mount Jumbo, a visual cornerstone of the community. And since 1993, a Spokane County property tax -- 6 cents per $1,000 in assessed value -- has raised more than $6 million to buy wildlife habitat and other sensitive lands.

In Portland last May, voters for the fourth time rejected developers attempts to loosen limits on a regional board's authority to wield state law to control housing density, essentially an attack on the limits that have made the city a national poster child for growth management.

The vote was 57 percent against the initiative and 43 percent in favor.

Oregon law requires cities and towns of a certain size to draw a boundary around their urban areas, keeping forests, farmlands and open space free of development. Portland is the shining example, a city with a mass transit system, compact neighborhoods, and protected forests and farms outside the city limits.

But critics -- builders, property rights advocates and some environmentalists -- have complained that the restrictions packs houses too tightly into the urban boundaries and drives up prices by limiting supply in the face of growing demand.

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