Sprawl in Maryland - Frontier Group · 2 Sprawl in Maryland We express our gratitude to the Surdna Foundation for their financial support of this project. We also thank the experts

Chapter 1

Sprawl in MarylandA Conversation with the Experts

Elizabeth RidlingtonBrad HeavnerDave Algoso

MaryPIRG Foundation

Summer 2004

2 Sprawl in Maryland

We express our gratitude to the Surdna Foundation for their financial supportof this project.

We also thank the experts who agreed to be interviewed for this report, all ofwhom gave generously of their time in order to help forward the publicdiscussion of how best to reduce sprawl in Maryland. Special thanks go to DruSchmidt-Perkins of 1000 Friends of Maryland and Dan Pontious of CitizensPlanning and Housing Association for their peer review of the factualinformation in this report.

Copyright 2004 MaryPIRG Foundation

The MaryPIRG Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to protectingthe environment, the rights of consumers, and good government in Maryland.The Foundation’s companion organization, the Maryland Public InterestResearch Group, founded in 1973, has members throughout the state and astudent chapter at the University of Maryland’s College Park campus.

For additional copies of this report, send $10 (including shipping) to:MaryPIRG Foundation3121 Saint Paul Street, Suite 26Baltimore, MD 21218

For more information about MaryPIRG and the MaryPIRG Foundation, call(410) 467-0439 or visit our website at www.marypirg.org.

Acknowledgements

Chapter 3

Executive Summary 5

Introduction 7

The Conversation 9

The Participants 10Transportation 12Urban Revitalization 16Retrofitting Older Suburbs 20Priority Funding Areas 24Other Policies 28Personal Choice 32

Conclusion & Recommendations 36

Notes 40

Table of Contents


Executive Summary 5

Executive Summary

A s a result of sprawling growthpatterns in recent decades,development of open space in

Maryland has far outpaced populationincreases.

A growing number of Maryland’scitizens have come to recognize the truecosts of the poorly planned, widely-dis-persed development that is characteris-tic of sprawl—sprawl that has requiredthe expenditure of billions of taxpayerdollars for new infrastructure, while de-grading air quality, increasing trafficcongestion, consuming farmland, andcontributing to a declining quality of lifefor the state’s residents.

The MaryPIRG Foundation en-gaged ten individuals with a long-stand-ing interest in and knowledge ofland-use issues in a broad discussion ofpublic policy concerns related to sprawl.Though the participants did not agreeon all matters, they did reach somebroad points of consensus:

• Transportation policy affectsgrowth patterns. For example,roads built in rural areas make newland accessible for development,while an extensive rail system in acity can encourage people to livethere.

• Revitalizing Baltimore will requirevaried housing choices; investmentin schools; and regionally balancedeconomic growth with jobs andhousing distributed throughout thearea.

• Tackling the problem of sprawl willrequire retrofitting existing commu-nities to make them more walkableand attractive to current and newresidents, in addition to changingthe shape of new development.

• Protecting open space will requiremore than just the state’s priorityfunding areas (PFA) policy. The law,which provides incentives forbuilding new development indesignated growth areas rather thanin rural areas, must be supported bystrong zoning that limits sprawlinggreenfield development and byplanning policies that make it easierto develop in growth areas.

• At least some Maryland residents areready to change their lifestyles inorder to achieve an end to sprawl.The first step is to provideMaryland’s citizens with choices inhousing and transportation thatallow those wishing to live moresustainable lifestyles to do so.


The experts suggested a range of newpolicy solutions that the state or coun-ties could add to current sprawl-controltools. Their ideas included:

• A split-rate property tax thatincreases the tax rate on land anddecreases the tax rate on buildingsto create greater financial incen-tives for private urban revitalizationefforts.

• Long-term buildout maps thatshow what a community will looklike—how many people will livethere, how congested the streetswill be, how much open space willremain—if construction werecompleted as permitted by existingzoning.

• Better statewide guidance forcounty-level planning.

• Greater attention to zoning ruralland for rural use rather than low-density development.

• Preservation charges or impact feeson sprawling development tocapture the social costs of privatedecisions about how and where tobuild.

In conclusion, the MaryPIRG Foun-dation recommends that public officialsadopt a multi-pronged approach todealing with sprawl in Maryland:

• Protect Maryland’s remainingfarms, forests, open spaces, andwetlands.

• Create livable communities that area desirable alternative to sprawlingdevelopment by retrofittingexisting towns and by directingfuture growth into already devel-oped areas.

• Focus the state’s transportationfunding on rail, bus, bicycle, andpedestrian options, and away fromhighway projects that encouragesprawl.

• Reduce taxpayer subsidies forsprawling development.

Details of these policies and how theycould be implemented are discussed inthe conclusion of this report.

Introduction 7

I n the past 50 years, Maryland’slandscape has changed dramati-cally. Rustling cornfields have given

way to rows of identical ranch houses.Wetlands full of frogs and birds havebeen drained to allow construction ofhighways. Forests that provided cool,shady relief in summer have been re-placed with asphalt parking lots thatradiate heat.

Even the human-built environmentis different. Cities that were once fullof bustling neighborhoods, each with itsdistinctive mix of housing and shops,have changed. Local stores have closedand residents have to drive to jobs andshopping centers. Local schools andparks are no longer community gather-ing points. New developments that havesprung up are single-purpose projects,offering only homes or stores or offices.

At the same time, traffic congestionhas gotten worse. And many Maryland-ers feel that their quality of life is de-clining.

All of these changes are the result ofthe sprawling development that has be-come the norm for accommodatinggrowth in Maryland. The amount of de-veloped land has increased faster thanthe state’s population in recent years,meaning that the average amount of

land consumed for each resident hasrisen. From 1982 to 1997, the amount ofdeveloped land in Maryland increased by35 percent.1 In the same period, the num-ber of people living in Maryland grew byonly 19 percent.2

Maryland’s population undoubtedlywill continue to grow as the state’s natu-ral beauty and strong economy attractnew residents. With the AppalachianMountains to the west, the AtlanticOcean to the east, and the ChesapeakeBay and extensive farmland in between,Maryland is an appealing state for peoplenew to the region. And the state’s twomajor centers of employment—Wash-ington, D.C., and Baltimore—drawmany people. The federal government inWashington is a consistent economicdriver and a steady source of jobs. Eco-nomic growth in the Baltimore regionwas strong throughout the 1990s and thatlikely will continue. These dual economiccenters and Maryland’s relatively smallsize mean that a tremendous portion ofthe state is within commuting distanceof jobs—and therefore potentially sub-ject to low-density development.

Construction to accommodate newresidents is not the only cause ofMaryland’s sprawl problem. Lack of in-vestment in existing urban areas pushes

Introduction


current Maryland residents to new de-velopments where schools are newerand roads are less crowded. Large hous-ing-only suburban developments ongreenfields—current undeveloped ar-eas—are more profitable for develop-ers than are smaller urban infill projects.

In the absence of concerted action topromote urban redevelopment andhigher-density new projects, populationgrowth and problems in urban areas willfoster more sprawling development. Anextensive road network has made ruralland readily accessible from urban areas.And Maryland’s residents are relatively

affluent: they can afford to build bighouses on large lots and to buy an addi-tional car when their new home is be-yond the reach of transit.

Though a growing population isclearly in Maryland’s future, sprawl doesnot have to be. Maryland can shape fu-ture development patterns by adoptingpolicies—at the community, county andstate level—that promote urban revital-ization and compact development, andprotect open space. What those poli-cies are and how they might be imple-mented are at the center of theconversation that follows.

The Conversation 9

The Conversation

Sprawl is a significant problem inMaryland that damages the state’senvironment, drains government’s

finances, and affects residents’ dailylives. The state and counties haveadopted policies to try to reduce futuresprawl and undo some of its past im-pacts. This report engages ten expertsin a discussion of which policies areworking, which are not, and what elsethe state, counties, and cities could do.

The people whose opinions are pre-sented here have long experience instudying and curbing sprawl. Theiropinions as to the forces causing sprawland the public policy steps that need tobe taken to restrain it are as diverse astheir backgrounds. They are currentand former government officials, law-yers, planners, and leaders of nonprofitorganizations. They are Democrats, Re-publicans, and Independents.

They were willing to take the timeto discuss, from their own perspectives,how sprawl has affected life in Mary-land, why the state’s current growthmanagement policies have not stoppedit, and what kinds of public policies canbest safeguard the state’s environmentand quality of life.

The ten experts whose thoughts formthe heart of this report were interviewedindividually by telephone and email be-tween May and July 2003. We presenttheir comments here in the form of a“conversation.” The reasons to do so areboth practical and symbolic: practical be-cause the “roundtable” format providesfor a focused discussion of the majorgrowth management issues facing thestate, and symbolic because it representsthe type of dialogue that needs to takeplace in Maryland regarding how thestate will continue to grow and develop.


The Participants

Tom Downs, former director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research andEducation at the University of Maryland, College ParkTom Downs is President and CEO of the Eno Transportation Foundation, a fo-rum for the discussion of emerging issues and policies in all fields of transporta-tion. Previously, he directed the University of Maryland’s National Center for SmartGrowth Research and Education. He has also served as New Jersey’s Commis-sioner of Transportation, as the District of Columbia’s City Administrator, and asthe CEO of Amtrak.

Paul Gilligan, Mid Maryland Land Trust AssociationPaul Gilligan, a retired U.S. Public Health Service Officer with 25 years of experi-ence in the health field, is the former Mayor of Burkittsville. He developed theBrunswick Region Planning Committee and the Mid Maryland Land Trust Asso-ciation, which successfully designed the Rural Legacy Grant for Frederick County.While Mayor of Burkittsville, Paul also attracted federal preservation funds, whichcombined with Rural Legacy funding resulted in the near-complete preservationof battlefields and historic sites in the Burkittsville area.

Arnold F. ‘Pat’ Keller, III, Director, Baltimore County Office of PlanningA member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, Mr. Keller has beendirector of the Baltimore County Office of Planning since 1994. He manages a$1.8 million-dollar budget and 42 employees, reports to the County Executive andCounty Council, and serves as Secretary to the Planning Board. Mr. Keller re-ceived a Masters degree in Public Administration from the University of Iowa.

Dan Pontious, Regional Policy Director, Citizens Planning and Housing AssociationDan Pontious is regional policy director for the Citizens Planning and HousingAssociation (CPHA), a 63-year-old civic organization working on neighborhoodand quality-of-life issues facing the Baltimore metropolitan area. Before joiningCPHA in January 2004, Dan served as director of the Baltimore Regional Partner-ship—a land-use and transportation coalition—and executive director of MaryPIRG.

Dru Schmidt-Perkins, Executive Director, 1000 Friends of MarylandDru Schmidt-Perkins became 1000 Friends of Maryland’s first staff person in 1998after serving on the founding steering committee for two years. Prior to joining1000 Friends she was the Maryland State and Chesapeake Regional Director ofClean Water Action for nine years. During this time she helped pass the 1997Smart Growth Legislation. Dru lives in Baltimore City with her husband and threechildren.

The Participants 11

Terry Schum, Planning Director, City of College ParkTerry Schum is the planning director for the City of College Park, Maryland. Shehas over 28 years of experience working in local government in the areas of plan-ning and community and economic development. She holds a B.A. degree in Ge-ography from the University of Maryland and an M.S. degree in Urban Planningfrom the Johns Hopkins University.

Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director, Coalition for Smarter GrowthStewart Schwartz is the executive director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, anetwork of civic, environmental and transit groups in the National Capital Region.Their Blueprint for a Better Region makes the case for urban revitalization, transitand transit-oriented development, affordable housing, and more walkable com-munities. An attorney, he was recognized as a Business Person of the Year by theWashington Business Journal.

Audrey Scott, Maryland Secretary of PlanningAudrey E. Scott was appointed Secretary of Planning for the State of Maryland inJanuary, 2003, by Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. She has served three terms asMayor of Bowie and two terms as a Prince George’s County Councilwoman. Sheworked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for 10 years.She and her husband reside in Bowie.

Hilary Spence, Talbot County CouncilwomanHilary Spence was elected to the Talbot County Council in 1998 and served asPresident from 2000-2001. She works as a grants management specialist for TalbotCounty Schools. Hilary serves on numerous local and state advisory boards, in-cluding the Legislative Committee for the Maryland Association of Counties. Sheearned her Masters degree in Educational Administration from Loyola College inBaltimore.

Bill Struever, President and CEO, Struever Bros. Eccles & RouseAs President and CEO of Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse for 30 years, Mr. Strueverhas led the company in its efforts to “Build Better Communities” through com-mercial and residential projects throughout the Baltimore and mid-Atlantic re-gion. He has developed SBE&R from a small company to a $180 million real estatedevelopment and general contracting company. His vision for the future is to helpBaltimore lead the country in urban revitalization, adaptive reuse of economicallyobsolete industrial buildings, and Brownfields development.


SchumDevelopment has traditionally followedtransportation. New roads, rather thanalleviating congestion, tend to createmore congestion over time. The factthat, traditionally, most of the state’smoney has gone to new road construc-tion rather than transit or improvingexisting roads has definitely affected usin a negative way.

Also, congestion in existing placeshas to be managed better. In CollegePark, U.S. Route 1, a state road, bisectsour community. Access management isnot effectively dealt with by the StateHighway Administration on these oldroads. I think retrofit programs for stateroadways like ours are very importantin helping to improve the places theyrun through. This land use and trans-portation nexus is important not just fornew roads and how they affect devel-opment patterns, but also in how invest-ment in existing roads can help revitalizecommunities.

I really believe that we need to ac-cept a certain level of congestion untilwe as a population make personal deci-sions that help to address that. Nobody’sgoing to be giving up their car, butmaybe people will give up one of theirseveral cars, or will live in more mixeduse areas and do some of their trips bywalking. Maybe more people will endup living where they work and not hav-ing to drive there. I think there is somehope.

ScottAbsolutely it has had an impact. It isperhaps one of the main factors af-fecting any state and any jurisdiction.There hasn’t been a coordinated effort

between land use policy and transpor-tation policy. That has been, I believe,one of the errors that has contributedthe most to sprawl.

PontiousTransportation and zoning are two ofthe strongest shapers of growth, but ifyou can’t get to some areas becauseroads aren’t there, then it doesn’t mat-ter what the zoning is. That’s the situa-tion we had earlier in this century.There was a lot of land in the regionthat you couldn’t get to in a reasonabletime frame and that stopped it fromgetting developed.

When Baltimore County startedtheir innovative land use policies in thelate 1960s and 1970s, it was because theysaw that their entire county, which waszoned for one-acre lots at the time, wasgoing to be run over by development ifthey didn’t do something. Prior to that,no one had even thought of developingall that farmland because you couldn’treally get to it. But as the Beltway andI-83 were built, people started realiz-ing that these one-acre lots were newlyaccessible and they were going to getdeveloped very quickly if the countydidn’t do something about it. So that’swhen they started looking at their zon-ing codes again.

In the late 1940s and 1950s, the riseof the automobile and the constructionof the interstate highway system allowedpeople to move farther and farther outfrom cities. And that’s when this muchmore dispersed pattern of growthstarted. The automobile, though, whichwas a tool of freedom of the twentiethcentury, is going to be something of aprison of the twenty-first century.

TransportationWhat have been the effects of transportation policy on growth patterns? Can trans-portation policy be a tool for curbing sprawl?

Transportation 13

Both Baltimore and Washington areexperiencing greater growth in trafficcongestion than in population growth.Baltimore alone more than doubled theamount of time people spent sitting intraffic congestion between 1982 and2000. People are realizing that if youcan get to things only in your car, that’snot the biggest freedom.

We can improve our quality of lifewith greater transportation choices,whether that’s better sidewalks, bikelanes, or a much improved transit sys-tem. Having the option to drive or dosomething else to get where you’re go-ing could well shape growth in thetwenty-first century, enabling people tolive in neighborhoods where you don’thave to rely on your car as much.

DownsAbsolutely. There’s an old real estatesaying that there are three things aboutreal estate that count: location, location,

l o c a t i o n .Planners saythere are threethings aboutlocation thatmatter: trans-p o r t a t i o n ,t ransporta-tion, transpor-tation. If you

can’t get there, you can’t develop it.Transportation investments are gate-

ways for development. Maryland hastried to construct a framework that pri-oritizes state transportation capital in-vestments to projects inside priorityfunding areas (PFAs), has tried to struc-ture capital programs in a way to pre-serve community, and has set up anoffice that deals with nothing but tran-sit-oriented development.

Unfortunately, the Maryland statetransportation capital investmentbudget—both its one-year version andfive-year version—carry huge numbers

“If you can’t getthere, you can’t

develop it.”— Downs

of capital investment projects that areoutside of PFAs and are a continuationof business as normal at the state Depart-ment of Transportation.

SchwartzFrom the earliest days, development hasfollowed transportation corridors,whether it was rivers in the colonial pe-riod where towns were built to where theriver was no longer navigable, to the rail-roads and trolley lines that were used bydevelopers to open up the first suburbs,like Chevy Chase. There’s no questionthat transportation projects, whetherhighway or rail, can change land use pat-terns for better or for worse.

Good transportation choices can leadto good land use patterns, but it’s not agiven. You have to plan well. We have anamazing 103-mile D.C. Metro systemthat we haven’t used to its full potential.Prince George’s County has 13 Metrostations with very little development atany of them. Putting development atthose stations could mean more jobs fora county that could use jobs and enablinguse of the Metro in the reverse commut-ing direction. In Baltimore also, theydidn’t tie the light rail system enough toredevelopment.

The current battle is over highwaycorridors, in particular the Inter-CountyConnector between I-270 and I-95 as thefirst segment of an outer beltway aroundthe region. A connecting road, theTechway, and the western bypass acrossthe Potomac, will shift population andjobs away from D.C. and PrinceGeorge’s. This mirrors the effect of I-270’s expansion, which actually did shiftpopulation and jobs away from D.C. andPrince George’s.

We have one of the best examples oftransit-oriented development in this re-gion, so we know that it can happen. Thatexample is the Rosslyn-Ballston corridorin Arlington. Huge numbers of peoplewalk, bike, and use transit in that corridor.


Two Transportation Plans for Montgomery County

S eeking to improve mobility, protect livability, and maintain astrong economy, the Montgomery County Planning Boardinitiated a comprehensive review of its transportation options

in the late 1990s.3 In its study, the Planning Board considered twodifferent growth and transportation scenarios: a “status quo” planthat assumed a continuation of current growth trends and empha-sized the use of roads to meet growing demand, and a transit/bal-anced use scenario (balanced plan) that relied more on transit and analtered growth pattern.4

Unlike the status quo scenario, the balanced plan envisioned sev-eral considerable expansions to transit service in MontgomeryCounty—the addition of an Inner Purple Line to the current net-work of Metro and MARC commuter lines, extended rail in the I-270corridor, and new light rail connecting Langley Park to White Oak.While planning no new freeway projects except for high occupancylanes on I-270, the balanced plan included upgrades of bus service tomaximize the usefulness of the existing road network.

The balanced plan also revised the plan for growth in Montgom-ery County. In the status quo scenario, most job creation was tar-geted for the western part of the county and most housing was plannedfor the eastern portion, which would require extensive east-west com-muting by workers. To correct this distortion, the balanced plan movedsome employment growth to the east and some housing to the west.The plan also emphasized siting more growth near transit stationsand reducing the amount of low-density housing in suburban areas.

In the county’s transportation modeling, the balanced scenarioshowed positive results. The scenario reduced projected vehicle milestraveled, hours of travel, and miles driven in congested conditions.Transit received greater use and more people were projected to walkor ride a bike. The balanced plan also protected more open spacethan did the road scenario. In a survey of attendees at public meet-ings on the transportation options, two-thirds favored the balancedscenario.

Though neither the balanced plan nor the status quo growth planwas adopted by the Transportation Policy Task Force that oversawthe modeling process, the Planning Board and the MontgomeryCounty Council have adopted the principles articulated in the bal-anced plan. As the county’s Master Plan is updated, those principles,including the idea that the county needs better placement of homesnear jobs, will be incorporated.

Transportation 15

”Regional rail works. It’s a huge attraction to businesses

and to individual families and is a major factor in their

decisions on where to locate.“ — Struever

Auto usage and ownership are very low.This is the best proof to date that tran-sit-oriented development can work.

GilliganAbsolutely. It can be used as a policy tocurb sprawl. However, the currenttransportation policy is that every timethere is an outcry for better transporta-tion, the answers tend to be roads as op-posed to mass transit.

To change this would be slow, but theresults would be profound. You have totrain the population, or a generation,back onto public transportation. Itdoesn’t come easily because people whobuy big houses in central Maryland cer-tainly have nice cars, and they’re per-fectly willing to travel by private vehicle.They’re not your normal mass transpor-tation population. They don’t grow upon it. They’re not used to it.

Residents won’t be ready for a changeuntil the gridlock really hurts. There’ssuch an attraction to private vehicles.And right now you don’t have manyoptions. The train you pick up fromFrederick County out of Brunswick andPoint of Rocks is well used but the park-ing is horrific down there.

StrueverThe determining factor in the growthand prosperity of cities in the next half-century will be which have a viable re-gional rail-based transit system andwhich don’t. I say rail-based, becausepeople with choice choose rail and willuse bus for supplementary service butwill not choose buses as a primary meansto get around. I’d define viable as a

comprehensive rail network that reliablyand conveniently gets people from wherethey are to where they want to be.

Rail’s impact is enormous in urban re-development. Washington, D.C., has aviable regional rail-based transit systemand Baltimore has fragments of one. Anenormous issue going forward will be thepolitical willpower to invest in imple-menting the regional rail plan for Balti-more.

Rail-based transit depends on densityand a diversity of uses and activities, anddensity and diversity are the essential el-ements of prosperous cities and urbanneighborhoods. They’re inherentlylinked.

Regional rail works. It’s a huge attrac-tion to businesses and to individual fami-lies and is a major factor in their decisionson where to locate. You can see this inthe prodigious growth even in challeng-ing neighborhoods around Washington’srail stations.

KellerThis is the age old question: does onebuild the roads after the houses and peoplecome or before? If you build the roadsfirst, then it will be easier for people mov-ing out there and one will then get pres-sure to rezone. On the other hand, if youwait until people move out there and thenbuild the roads, they start screamingabout traffic. In the Baltimore County con-text, the county has a good history of notletting one affect the other. In other words,I-83 up from Hunt Valley was not allowedto stimulate development and additionalzoning. In other cases such as along ourcommercial corridors, it’s not as true.


StrueverIn terms of the state making Baltimoremore livable, implementing the regionalrail plan would be among the highestpriorities. The state can also play a sig-nificant role in encourag-ing property develop-ment. Enterprise zonesin every jurisdiction inMaryland, especially inolder communities, canbe a powerful tool to at-tract and keep business.Other economic devel-opment incentives, suchas the state historic taxcredit, are also enor-mously effective tools instimulating reinvest-ment in our older communities.

Though the state typically isn’t in-volved with permit approvals, it is in cer-tain special circumstances. One isbrownfields—contaminated industrialsites—which tend to be in older com-munities. If you’re doing smart growthand infill development, a reasonable, ex-pedited brownfields process is essentialto encouraging responsible redevelop-ment of those sites.

Another example would be in assist-ing with public infrastructure, such asthe promenade and parks alongBaltimore’s waterfront. The state’s beena critical investor in that.

Another important role of the stateis investing in our schools. The state’sthe biggest funder of Baltimore Cityschools—almost two-and-a-half timesas much funding from the state as fromthe city. Other strategic investments in-clude state funding for higher education

institutions, which are important eco-nomic generators for the city in their ownright.

It is worth the state spending moneyon Baltimore because the city should be

an engine for and not abrake on the stateeconomy. Strategic in-vestments in the revital-ization of Baltimore willhave a terrific payback tothe state: alleviatingproblems that cost thestate money, stimulatingnew business, and pro-moting smart growth.

Most importantly,state investment paysback in terms of creating

a stronger economic climate for the stateas a whole. An example would be ourhigher education institutions like Univer-sity of Maryland-Baltimore and Morganand Hopkins that both spiritually andeconomically are important drivers of thelarger state economy. For example, ahealthy and growing Hopkins biotechpark and research campus will pay off forthe state as a whole.

Another benefit from investing in thecity is encouraging smart growth. By re-investing in our older communities, thestate will protect its magnificent environ-mental resources—its farmland, wood-lands, the bay—and limit congestion andimprove air quality. A city dweller con-sumes, on average, a fraction of the en-ergy and produces a fraction of the airemissions that directly relate to air qual-ity and a healthy environment.

Revitalization creates three kinds ofbenefits. One, reversing the costs of a de-

Urban RevitalizationBaltimore has been losing population even as the state as a whole grows. What stepscould the state take to make Baltimore more livable? What are the biggest obstaclesto revitalization of Baltimore?

“It makes sense forMaryland to investheavily in Baltimore

because it is thelargest city inthe state...”

— Scott

Urban Revitalization 17

clining poverty-stricken city as a drainon the state economy. Two, as a driverof the state economy through the im-portant nature of Baltimore’s institu-tions—art and cultural institutions,educational institutions, and Baltimoreas an international symbol for Mary-land. Finally, limiting the negative im-pacts of sprawl and congestion on ourenvironment and our lives.

ScottThe biggest obstacles are education andcrime. They can’t be solved separately.You can’t improve the education systemand forget about crime. You can’t decreasecrime and forget about the education sys-tem. You can’t revitalize neighborhoodsand forget about either of the other two.It’s got to be done jointly, cooperatively,and with coordination, so that the endresult is effective. Otherwise you put in alot of effort, a lot of money, and you lose.

It makes sense for Maryland to in-vest heavily in Baltimore because it isthe largest city in the state and the hubof our universe. You can’t not invest inBaltimore.

We’d be wasting our money if wetackled the pieces of the problem in iso-lation without a coordinated plan, butwith coordination and planning it’s aninvestment that will pay off for Maryland.

PontiousThe things that tend to get the mostattention from our elected officials andthe public are education and crime, andthose are certainly important. But acouple of things that often don’t get asmuch attention are attractive choices intransportation and in housing.

One of Baltimore’s strengths is itshuge variety of housing types, includingmany historic homes and buildings.Some of its most successful neighbor-hoods, such as Roland Park and TuscanyCanterbury, tend to be neighborhoodsthat have a decent array of housingchoices, from apartments to row housesto free-standing houses. Baltimoredowntown living is increasingly sought-after—a new choice that wasn’t nearlyas available ten years ago.

I think building on those strengths,as Baltimore City is doing with its“Healthy Neighborhoods” work, is asmart strategy—being strategic aboutusing underserved market demand forcertain housing choices to boost up-and-coming neighborhoods. In the longrun, the more that we can make Balti-more City and the whole region a placewhere you can find attractive neighbor-hoods with a mix of housing types andopportunities, the more it will help usfoster places with a mix of backgroundsand income levels and make both the cityand the whole region more successful.

Another key for revitalizing Balti-more City and the region, as I men-tioned before, is giving peopletransportation choices. Baltimore Citydoesn’t have the road space to accom-modate tons of traffic. It can’t providethe same parking a suburban locationcan. You would destroy it’s historic ap-peal with big ugly parking garages if youtried, which would be a blow to thewhole region. We need to have a worldclass transit system in Baltimore, that’seasy to use, that gets you where youneed to go quickly, without worryingabout driving and parking.

“Another key for revitalizing Baltimore City and the region

. . . is giving people transportation choices.”

— Pontious


Schmidt-PerkinsThere are a number of factors. There’sthe sucking of people out of Baltimoreand the pushing of people out of Balti-more. As we’ve continued to build outin the cornfields and the soybean fields,people are chasing new schools and newdevelopment. At the same time, they’rebeing pushed out by higher taxes, crime,and poor public schools. They feel thatif they want to improve their kind ofquality of life they need to relocate toone of these other communities that’sso well advertised in the Sunday news-paper.

So what do we need to do to makeBaltimore more livable? We need towork on both ends. We need to stop thegiant sucking sound by curbing sprawl.The better we protect our remainingopen space, the fewer homes will bebuilt out there.

The more we reinvest in our oldercommunities, especially older schools,and start making up for 50 years of dis-investment, the better those schools andneighborhoods will be, encouragingpeople to move back or not leave in thefirst place. And it’s all, as I like to say,intertwingled. You can’t work on anyof these policies in isolation. Crime andschools go together. Schools andneighborhoods go together. We have towork very comprehensively on all thesepolicies.

But we also need to be giving placeslike Baltimore City better press. Itdoesn’t help when the lead story everynight is someone getting shot in Balti-more City. We need our media to starttelling all the positive things that arehappening.

A great example of the degree towhich Baltimore gets a bad rap is a storyon a Baltimore City school that made itinto the final round of a major nationalacademic competition. The headline inthe Baltimore Sun was “City SchoolLoses in the Fourth,” not “City SchoolWins, Makes the Final Four.” The storywas how they lost, missing the oppor-tunity to say the city school is great, it’sdone this wonderful thing. We need tobe marketing the city more. The city ofBaltimore and a number of organiza-tions are doing it, and it’s paying off.But we need the media to be doingmore.

DownsBaltimore is one of four major jurisdic-tions, along with Detroit, St. Louis andPittsburgh, that continued to lose popu-lation from 1990 to 2000. Like Detroit,Baltimore’s local economy was based onmanufacturing and the assembly fromraw materials of hard manufacturedgoods. Manufacturing jobs lost over thelast decade probably number near onemillion. There wasn’t a definable sub-stitute tax base in Baltimore.

The city, the governor and the Gen-eral Assembly did several things that areimportant if they’re managed right. Oneis that the city decided to take down alltraditional high rise public housing andreplace it with a series of projects thatare infill and new urbanist in design.They have created a smart growthbuilding code—like New Jersey andDelaware did—that makes it mucheasier to rehabilitate older houses. Inaddition, the state has the most aggressivepreservation tax credit in the country.

“The more we reinvest in our older

communities, especially older schools . . . the

better those schools and neighborhoods

will be, encouraging people to move back

or not leave in the first place.”

— Schmidt-Perkins

Urban Revitalization 19

They’ll not only give tax credits, butthey’ll reimburse you in cash for somepreservation expenses.

SchwartzSocial programs within a city aredoomed to failure if you don’t have aregional approach that creates morebalanced economic growth. This caninclude a number of things, not justthe location of jobs in a downtown,but each of the jurisdictions also hav-ing a fair share of affordable housingfor all income levels. A lot of differ-ent pieces have to fit together, fromreducing the supply of land you can

sprawl on in the outer areas, to invest-ment in transit, to smart codes to pro-mote downtown revitalization, toaffordable housing policies, and perhapstax base sharing.

The incentive for suburbs not to fightthe state’s efforts to invest in olderneighborhoods is that most suburbs loseout if the state focuses on a new ring ofdevelopment. Many suburbs wind up onthe wrong side of the favored corridorof growth. In the D.C. region, PrinceGeorge’s County lost out to Montgom-ery County. Inner suburbs have manyurban problems now and thus have anincentive to ally with the city.

The Baltimore Regional Rail Plan

Good transit in urban areas is a vital component of any effort to limitsprawling development and to urban revitalization efforts. In 2002,the Maryland Transit Administration proposed expanding

Baltimore’s rail system to create a full-fledged network of six lines, 109miles of track, and 122 stations.5 This rail system would provide numer-ous benefits to Baltimore and the state.

A rail system would offer Baltimore-area residents transportation choicesand would make urban living more attractive. More than half the region’s1.4 million jobs and more than one third of its 2.5 million residents wouldbe within one mile of a transit station.6 As more people commute to workor travel to entertainment venues by rail, miles driven will be reducedfrom what they otherwise would have been. This will help protect airquality, reduce the strain on existing roads, and slow demand for new roadsthat consume open space.

The rail system will stimulate economic activity in growth areas. Anestimated 6,900 to 12,800 new jobs will be created by construction of therail system and by easier travel throughout the region.7 Personal incomecould rise by $113 million to $209 million due to new employment andgreater profitability of businesses.8

The commitment of public funds to such a substantial project inMaryland’s older communities could help spur the private developmentthat is important to revitalizing existing urban areas. Increased develop-ment near rail stations would improve the usefulness of transit for com-muters and could raise property values by $641 million to $1.2 billion.9


GilliganInterspersing commercial and residen-tial buildings. Years ago, businessesnaturally accumulated in residentialneighborhoods, concentrated aroundeach other for mutual support. Therewere little shopping areas within theneighborhoods. Everyone had somestores they could walk to. They weren’tanything big or overpowering. Theywere called squares and those squareshad ten or twenty business. They wereallowed to grow up interspersed withinthe neighborhoods.

Zoning has mostly been used as ameans of separating commercial fromresidential. When it went into effect,zoning did not allow the businesses thatwent into these neighborhoods to fitthemselves in. Now we do dumb thingslike level 40, 50, 60 houses and put abox store in. They don’t fit anymore.When I’m talking about commercial in-terspersed within a neighborhood, it hasto fit the neighborhood and allow somedegree of attractiveness. Make it prof-itable for the commercial interest butalso pleasant for the surrounding neigh-bors, so they’re not driven out by 5-acreparking lots.

Zoning messed things up by not al-lowing businesses to grow up on theirown within neighborhoods, but now weneed zoning to get the businesses backthere.

ScottJobs, jobs, jobs. You’ve got to create em-ployment centers in the bedroom com-munities. You’ve got to bring the jobsto the people. There has not been a realcommitment to that.

Retrofitting Older SuburbsSprawling development patterns have been the norm for decades in Maryland.What can be done to retrofit these sprawling communities to lessen their impactson traffic and to make them more pedestrian- and transit-friendly?

Bowie is a good example. It’s a bed-room community with 54,000 people andno employment base. Everyone gets intheir car to go anywhere. There’s no pub-lic transportation. So they created a spe-cial science and technology park onhundreds of acres in the city. Infrastruc-ture was provided through state dollarsto be an enticement for marketing thesite. Then the county council approveda bill to modify the zoning and the cov-enants there to allow housing on the site.Now that, to me, is compromising theintegrity of the master plan and counter-

“You’ve got to create

employment centers in the

bedroom communities.

You’ve got to bring the jobs

to the people.”

— Scott

productive to the efforts to provide em-ployment so that people will get off theroads, work where they live, and providea self-contained community.

DownsTransit-oriented development. Neitherthe Mass Transit Administration nor theMaryland Department of Transportationhad any serious strategy until recently fordealing with issues related to infill devel-opment around transit stations on theWashington Metro rail lines or in Balti-

Retrofitting Older Suburbs 21

more on the light rail and subway lines.The state incentives are not clearenough and certain enough about in-vestment in those station areas.

The state Department of Planningdoesn’t know what to do about transit-oriented development. The Baltimoreplanning office has no real focus abouttransit-oriented development. This af-fects hundreds of transit stations in bothBaltimore and the Washington metro-politan area. This is a tremendouslypowerful resource that is languishing forlack of focus and attention.

We need to look at rail transit that isalready in all of these neighborhoods asthe resource to build infill and mixeduse around, and start from that premise,not from the premise that road corri-dors are what you concentrate your de-velopment around. The planningalmost by gravity tends to focus on cor-ridors that are developed as a result ofmajor road investments. The I-270 cor-ridor and the I-70 corridor and the twobeltways are in effect the focus of mostof the planning process.

SchwartzThere’s a decade-old movement callednew urbanism, or traditional neighbor-hood development. It’s about re-creat-ing walkable towns and cities, placeswith real main streets, places where kidscan walk to school or to the store or thelibrary, instead of separate pockets of de-velopment with the townhouses in onearea, the single family homes in another,the retail in another, and the office spacein another. It uses mixed-use develop-ment, often mixed vertically. You canhave ground floor retail, perhaps a layerof offices, and then some apartmentsabove that. There are a number of de-velopers who are building this now.

It’s important that we use these designtechniques to fix the existing suburbsfirst before building new communities.There’s a huge opportunity—what I call

a land bank—in all of the land that we’vealready put aside in strip malls and theirparking lots, and office parks and theirparking lots. These places can be turnedinto high-quality, well-designed com-munities, with a mix of housing, retail,and offices.

Many local planners, a number of de-velopers, and certainly some architectshave seen this. Fewer average citizensare aware of this. There’s a significantamount of additional public educationfor local elected officials to local citi-zens that needs to be done by the archi-tecture community, planners, thenon-profit community, and by develop-ers themselves.

KellerRetrofitting is the future for BaltimoreCounty. We’ve been working on rede-velopment and revitalization for the lasteight years and will be working on it inthe future. The County’s struggle is totake suburban-type development andmake it workable and usable for thefuture. This effort involves a wholerange of things. One has to have a re-ally big tool chest, because what worksin one neighborhood doesn’t work inanother.

The fundamental issue is improvingthe quality of life, and one has to thinkabout what would be helpful to the com-munity. This might involve providingincentives to upgrade older structuresfor central air and heat, rehabbing in-teriors to make the spaces more mod-ern, little things like more closet space.And then conversely not taxing people

“We need to look at rail transit that is already

in all of these neighborhoods as the resource

to build infill and mixed use around...”

— Downs


or increasing their taxes due to theimprovements, rather provide someincentives. In some cases we need tointroduce mixed uses to make the com-munity more vibrant. In other cases itmeans providing more open space,maybe little local parks. Some commu-nities in Baltimore County have no side-walks. Some have parking problems.Some have street and infrastructureproblems.

SchumCollege Park is an example of retrofit-ting. We’re trying to get more compactdevelopment. We have very little vacantland left. We have a Metro station anda commercial corridor, so we’re tryingto create more density in these areas andmore mixed use development. It’s notrocket science, but it’s hard to do. Weneed it to enable our community toprosper.

By helping to put in place tools toachieve more density and more mixeduse we’re ultimately going to get a bet-ter quality of life in the community, be-cause we’ll be able to give folks whatthey want to have close by. They wantbetter shopping. They want jobs withinthe community. They want better re-tail and restaurant options within town.You can’t do that without creating moredensity. In order to do that the com-munity needs to be more inclusive, be-cause by more density it usually meansmore multi-family housing.

What we’ve done here recently is torezone our commercial corridor to amixed use zone that permits housing. It

never did before. It’s a strip commer-cial corridor because that’s what thezoning allowed. We have a pent up de-mand for housing. If we get it—andwe’ve seen a lot of developer interest—it’s going to be in the form of multi-fam-ily housing.

You have to build on what you have.In most instances that doesn’t mean awholesale urban renewal of areas, al-though in some instances it could. Inmost places there are opportunities forretrofitting, whether a mall that has shutdown or a big commercial shoppingcenter where you have no quality ten-ants and a huge parking space. Mostcommunities are looking at creatingtown centers that provide a mix ofuses—services, shopping, jobs, and rec-reation—combined in a single area. It’smore costly, but developers will do itand make money at it, and that’s ulti-mately what you need. You need ex-amples of successes and that breedsmore success.

Schmidt-PerkinsRetrofitting many of these places istough. But it can be done well. Onething that’s always needed is excellentcitizen participation. Without that, youget increased resistance to more den-sity, increased resistance to the changesthat we need to make. That resistancecan be avoided if we incorporate peoplebetter into the process.

SpenceSilver Spring is a wonderful example ofthe revitalization of a downtown that

“By helping to put in place tools to achieve more density

and more mixed use we’re ultimately going to get a better

quality of life in the community . . .”

— Schum

Retrofitting Older Suburbs 23

was decaying. The Discovery Channellocated there and the Silver Theater wasrevitalized with a combination of pub-lic and private dollars. They’re invest-ing hundred of millions of dollars in thatcore area, and it seems to be quite suc-cessful. They put a Metro stop right atthe epicenter of where this multiplex isgoing to be, and they’re building park-ing garages and office space.

We’re trying to do the same thing inEaston using county dollars to keep thecounty administrative office buildingdowntown. We needed more space forthe Talbot County administrative officesand were looking at a site about a mileand a half away—still in a commercialarea but not in the core historic down-

town. After meeting with town officialsand having public meetings about it, wedecided not to do that. We insteadbought a building in the historic areaand have rehabbed it, and now we’relooking to expand it even further.We’re also trying to build a new librarynearby.

Government will hopefully be mak-ing this investment and then the privatesector will come along with it. That’sone way to keep these older and moreinteresting downtown areas more at-tractive to tourists as well as residents.And it isn’t only for retail shopping—alot of it is for entertainment. All our bestrestaurants are in downtown Easton, thehistoric area.

Retrofitting a Sprawling Development: Bethesda Row

In 1993, Bethesda Row was a five block-long strip of offices on theedge of a business district, but today is a vibrant, pedestrian-orientedmixed use area. Montgomery County planners hoped the district could

become a pedestrian-oriented mixed use area and make better use of itsproximity to a Metro stop.

Federal Realty Investment Trust purchased the entire area and beganto rehabilitate the neighborhood. The project took place in phases, en-abling the developer to fund each part sequentially.10 The first phaseresulted in a 37,000-square-foot Barnes & Noble bookstore and 14,000square feet for specialty shops. The next three phases added over 100,000additional square feet of retail space and over 100,000 square feet of of-fice space. Ultimately the project will contain 600,000 square feet of com-mercial and office space.

The final product is a pedestrian-friendly area with outdoor cafés, lo-cal and national restaurants and retailers, and a mix of neighborhoodservices such as dry cleaners and hair salons. The architecture is varied,suggesting shops that were built independently over time and adding tothe urban feel of the area. This approach has worked: the area is busyduring both day and evening, a variety of businesses have flourished, andnearby property values have risen.11

The redevelopment has attracted significant acclaim. In 2002, theproject received the Small-Scale Mixed-Use Award for Excellence fromthe Urban Land Institute, a national organization focusing on urban plan-ning, development, and growth whose awards are regarded as the mostprestigious in the development community.12


PontiousWhen we did our analysis of the coun-ties’ projected residential growth in theBaltimore region, it really showed howmuch growth they’re planning to haveoutside of their growth areas. It showedus the power of county zoning policies:if the land is zoned for development, thelikelihood is that it will be developed.

In the Baltimore region only Balti-more County has firmly decided “we re-ally want to preserve agriculture and sowe will zone our agricultural land to al-low only one house per fifty acres.”

On the other end of the spectrum,Howard County allows houses everyfour acres in its rural western portion,and since that jurisdiction is in a primelocation between Washington and Bal-timore, the pressure is really on to de-velop it. In Harford County the mostrestrictive zoning category is one houseper ten acres, but they allow more de-velopment than that by letting landown-ers build extra houses supposedly forfamily members.

What the PFAs have done is providea framework that wasn’t there before tolook at how to focus our limited statefunds and target our public policies. Itstopped schools, for example, from be-ing located in outlying areas and help-ing to fuel growth out there. It’s had acertain amount of effect on transporta-tion decisions.

It has also helped fuel the success ofrevitalization efforts around Route 40in Harford County and Route 1 inHoward County, because people real-ize these are efforts to capitalize onavailable land within growth areas. So

it’s helped, but what our report showedwas that doing all those things and notlooking at rural zoning is still going tohurt us a lot in terms of stopping ruralsprawl over the next few decades.

Schmidt-PerkinsIt was never envisioned that PFAs wouldbe the solution to sprawl problems.What was envisioned was that the statewould no longer be funding sprawl de-velopment. We have to be clear on theexpectation of that law.

Why is it happening? Number onebecause development is in the pipelinefor decades. It was approved a long timeago, before the Smart Growth Act waspassed, and we’re seeing the results ofit now. Two, because we don’t have theother policies in place that steer growthto the priority funding areas and awayfrom areas that shouldn’t be developed.Our counties make the vast majority ofland use decisions and they are not us-ing their tools effectively, especially zon-ing.

We need to look at existing policies—parking policies, zoning, street widths,all those different policies—to figureout what is driving development some-where else, making it more difficult todevelop within a PFA. PFAs have beeneffective at using state dollars more ef-fectively, which is the law’s purpose. Ithas been somewhat less effective at ac-tually steering growth to the PFA ar-eas, because there are so many otherthings impacting those decisions—theprice of land, zoning, availability, ease,policies.

The law was never envisioned as the

Priority Funding AreasThe Baltimore Regional Partnership and 1000 Friends of Maryland predict thatmost counties in the Baltimore area will experience substantial growth outsidetheir PFAs, contrary to the purpose of the legislation that created them. Why isthis happening? What can be done to channel growth into PFAs?

Priority Funding Areas 25

sole solution to rampant sprawl. It wasjust one part. The year that the SmartGrowth Act was passed five other piecesof legislation accompanied it. So it wasalways seen that we needed a whole suiteof policies that had to work hand in handto control growth.

DownsIt’s happening because residential zon-ing densities that look like greenfieldsare already on the maps all over the Bal-timore and Washington regions ofMaryland. Counties never thoughtabout the cumulative effect of all of thesubdivisions they approved over theyears.

The other reason is that the law is anincentive-based and not a regulatory-based framework. That’s both its weak-ness and its genius. You cannot build ahouse outside the growth boundary ofany city in Oregon unless the family thatlives in it receives more than 40% ofthe family income from the land. Hereit’s an incentive: if you want state fund-ing for schools, water, and sewer, youcan get that if you’re building inside ofa priority funding area. If you’re out-side of a PFA you’ve got to pay for it allyourself. In some places, developers willsimply cough up all of the necessaryfunds for roads, water, sewer, andschools as part of the price of develop-ment.

One big problem with PFAs gener-ally is that they’re not dense enough.The minimum density for a PFA is 3.5units per acre, while a realistic numberis between 6 and 10 units per acre. Mak-ing the density requirement inside aPFA realistic would allow better utili-zation of land.

Another big problem is that there areno priorities—all land within priorityfunding areas is treated the same. Thereare no gradations of areas to developdensely. A greenfield adjacent to a streaminside a PFA has the same densities and

the same requirements as land adjacentto a transit station, which is pretty stupid.

SchumPlans and land use regulations have notbeen updated or revised to the extentneeded to address growth outside ofPFAs. Partly it is the cost of housing.Partly it’s that the inner suburbs now haveurban problems. It takes a lot of moneyto make better schools and to lower crimerates, and it’s easier just to move furtherout. As long as land use plans enablesprawl, that’s what people will do. Untilwe can create more desirable, more at-tractive communities—really build com-munity character in your priority fundingareas—this is going to continue to happen.

StrueverThe issue here is the commitment of thestate to follow through on its stated policyof trying to use incentives to encourageredevelopment in infill areas and oldercommunities, and to work with local

County 1990-1999 2000-2020

Anne Arundel 21% 30%Baltimore 15% 9%Carroll 39% 58%Harford 17% 26%Howard 16% 17%

County 1990-1999 2000-2020

Caroline 76% 72%Cecil 60% 50%Kent 51% 54%Queen Anne’s 45% 74%Talbot 40% 26%

Proportion of NewHomes Outside PFA

Proportion of ProjectedHousehold Growth

% of ResidentialUnits Constructed

Outside PFA

% of ProjectedResidential Units to Be

Constructed Outside PFA

Table 2. Non-PFA Residential Growth in the Upper Eastern Shore14

Table 1. Non-PFA Residential Growth in the Baltimore Region13


governments to discourage growthoutside of those areas. That takes asustained focus and leadership effortby the state in partnering with localgovernments.

SchwartzIt’s hard to put the cat back in the bagonce it’s out. Most counties haveoverplanned and overzoned. Manycounties should have set aside land inpure agricultural no-developmentzones, and did not. They put land intolow-density residential zoning overlaid

on an existing agricultural fabric, and foryears nothing happened because therewas no demand. Now the demand ishitting.

The first thing a county should do is abuild-out analysis: how many people,how many houses, and what that meansin infrastructure. How many schools, etc,and what’s it going to cost. Usually thepicture is so scary that it wakes the countyup to realize they have got to change thecomprehensive plan and their zoning toreduce the sprawling development in ruralareas, because they simply can’t afford it

Significant Growth Projected Outside of PFAs

Where growth occurs in Maryland is determined by countyregulations and zoning laws, and is influenced by state policies such as the priority funding areas (PFA) legislation. Mary-

land adopted PFA regulations in 1997, restricting state subsidy ofgrowth-related infrastructure improvements such as roads, housing,and sewage systems to priority areas designated for growth by thecounties.

Though counties have identified selected areas for receiving moreconcentrated growth, projected development patterns show that PFAsalone cannot end sprawling development. The Baltimore RegionalPartnership—a coalition of 1000 Friends of Maryland, the BaltimoreUrban League, the Citizens Planning and Housing Association, theChesapeake Bay Foundation, and Environmental Defense—and 1000Friends of Maryland studied projected residential growth patterns inBaltimore-area and Upper Eastern Shore counties to evaluate howwell existing policies steer growth into PFAs.

In the Baltimore area, four of the five counties studied expect sub-stantial residential growth outside the PFAs. (See Table 1.) Over halfof the residential growth in Carroll County, for example, is plannedfor outside of designated growth areas. The situation is worse on theEastern Shore, where more growth will occur outside PFAs than in-side for three of the five counties. (See Table 2.)

These findings reveal that though the counties have identified ar-eas to receive relatively compact development, they are planning for adifferent, less-compact growth pattern.

Priority Funding Areas 27

and they’re going to have a taxpayers’revolt. That level of awareness is prob-ably the first stage.

The second is to do what is legallypermissible in downplanning areas fora reasonable rate of population growth,and with your comprehensive plan, re-create real agriculturally zoned land.Use very large lot sizes, 50 acres or moreis best, not because those are necessar-ily farm acreages but because those willallow you some time to use delegatedconservation easements and purchase ofdevelopment rights to get that land offthe market for development.

The priority funding areas in manycounties were defined abnormally large,far beyond the amount of growth thatthe county really needed. The PFAswere always a compromise between

then-Governor Glendening and the lo-calities to get the localities’ support forwhat was perceived as more state govern-ment involvement in local land use. Inother words, they were given a role—thatthey could define their PFAs—and thenit became a negotiation between the De-partment of Planning and the localitiesto try to define the PFAs more compactly.

One of the fundamental problems isthat most jurisdictions don’t understandthat we’ve already paved over enoughland for at least the next 20 years ofgrowth, not what we’ve zoned but justwhat we’ve paved over. If we were tomake communities on a more walkablescale, you would use significantly lessland, have more open space in each com-munity, and certainly not have to go out-side the PFAs.


SchwartzOne very useful tool would be the splitrate property tax, used for urban revi-talization in a number of cities in Penn-sylvania. It’s very much for cities anddowntowns. The tax basically increasesthe rate of tax on the underlying landand decreases the tax on buildings andimprovements. This lowers the price ofland in downtown areas, land that’s beenheld by speculators for far too long. Itincreases the taxes so that there’s moreincentive to redevelop the land to ahigher use. And in turn when a land-lord adds buildings or rehabs existinghousing buildings, they’re not punishedwith a higher tax rate for doing a goodthing.

It’s been used in Pittsburgh, Harris-burg, and about 15 other Pennsylvaniacities. It’s been used in Australia andsome European cities. That would be aterrific tool for the cities and towns ofMaryland. It’s not a tool to use in isola-tion but it’s a very good tool.

DownsI was a bit of a cynic about Massachu-setts’ mandatory buildout maps thatrequire municipalities to project popu-lation size and infrastructure needsfrom existing zoning, thinking it’s just

another stunt. Counting the units,counting the people, counting the cars,counting the water, counting the sewer,counting the schools, counting theparks. And then what does it look likeon a map. What does your county, whatdoes your borough, what does your mu-nicipality look like when it’s all built out.

It’s actually a very powerful interven-tion tool to show counties and cities andcommunities what their places are go-ing to look like in 20 years and whetherthat looks like anything they want fortheir kids. I’ve become a convert tocounties and local jurisdictions showingthe buildout visibly. It’s too arbitrary andabstract when you talk about an FAR4in a C2 zone. Nobody knows what thatmeans.

SchumStatewide planning is not popular inMaryland, so any policy you introducethat would be really effective probablywill never be implemented. It would begreat if state planning were more po-litically acceptable. You could createstatewide standards or benchmarks thatwould have some teeth, be monitoredby the state, and maybe be tied to fund-ing. But that’s politically very tricky.

I think you need more of a stick toforce better planning in localities. Plan-ning is still a local issue in the State ofMaryland. I think that’s right—I thinkit should be—but there needs to be bet-ter statewide guidance.

SpenceFormer Governor Glendening prettyaggressively touted state funding for in-frastructure to support development inPFAs or incorporated towns to keep it

Other PoliciesWhat one policy could the state or counties adopt that would have the greatestimpact on controlling sprawl in Maryland?

“...show counties and

cities and communities

what their places are going

to look like in 20 years...”

— Downs

Other Policies 29

from sprawling outside. I don’t know ifit’s because of the budget crisis in thestate, but we haven’t heard much aboutthat. In other words, increasing fund-ing in areas where you want develop-ment. That is a real financial incentive,particularly for rural areas. A lot of thesetowns are small. They don’t have capi-tal to put into infrastructure projects.Using state dollars for infrastructurewould go a long way in rural areas tosupport smart growth and anti-sprawlmeasures.

PontiousFollowing the findings of our report ongrowth outside of growth areas, I thinkcounty rural zoning is an incrediblypowerful tool that is not on the table asmuch as it could be.

Historically, it has made a huge dif-ference. Look at the difference betweenBaltimore County, for example, and theother suburban counties in the region.Zoning is the main thing. It’s not theonly thing—they created a line wherecounty water and sewer service ends,and they stopped a proposed outerbeltway, too. But they also decided thatthey needed to zone the land outsidetheir growth area for rural uses, not fordevelopment, because they realized thatthe other things alone would not do thejob. Other counties have just not takenthat idea as seriously.

For the other counties to take actionalong the lines of Baltimore County’s,it would take an organized local con-stituency to push for it. It is very diffi-cult—developers, land speculators, andthose who want to build as many housesas possible on their land tend to bewealthy and well-connected. So it’s go-ing to take an organized, ideally well-funded effort to put together aconstituency to push through importantreforms if people in their counties wantto preserve their rural way of life.

One small example of citizen power

on zoning issues occurred last year whenthe Carroll County commissionersdownzoned some land around the townof Hampstead, something the town ofHampstead had been trying to get themto do for years. Hampstead decided “Wedon’t want a lot of burdensome growtharound the town, we want to have ruralland, and we want you to zone the landaround the town for agriculture ratherthan for development.”

The previous board of commissionersalways rejected their pleas. That boardwas ousted by county voters—Republi-can voters, I might add—who were so fedup with growth that they kicked out thetwo pro-growth, laissez-faire countycommissioners, and instead elected twomoderate-growth reform candidates.This new board then quickly approvedHampstead’s request to downzone landaround Hampstead.

KellerIf one’s goal is to keep people in devel-oped areas where services and jobs arelocated, then one has to provide disin-centives for going out. In other words ifyou buy into the concept of rural preser-vation then one should be paying a pres-ervation fee if one chooses to live in therural areas because one is enjoying thebenefits of living in that rural area andone is actually impacting the rural area.That’s a real far-fetched kind of a deal.

Providing incentives is probably amore realistic way to go. If you live withina certain distance of work or travel bypublic transit you are having less impacton the air and the water quality, soshouldn’t we give people incentives to dothat? Lower taxes? Tax rebates? In otherwords, use the private market as your wayof dealing with where people choose tolocate.

GilliganRestriction on land use development inrural areas. There’s considerable lack of


understanding of the public cost ofsprawl development. What the publicdoesn’t seem to understand is that build-ing and supporting a neighborhoodcosts you as a citizen of the county asubstantial amount of money. You gettaxed for it every day, even if you don’tknow it. That’s the kind of policy deci-sion that really needs to be talked aboutmore, to understand the cost of devel-opment the way it currently exists.

One option is to charge more for thatdevelopment. You’re going to have todrive school buses out there. You haveto get fire and police out there. Nowthey have to drive, instead of one or twomiles in the city, five or ten miles upthe road. Water and sewer is even worse,but now the money’s simply squeezingthat down. The public pays for allamenities.

Some counties put an impact fee onthat. Well, most of the impact fees be-ing charged right now are mostly goingto school funding. Is it enough? I sus-pect not. Quite often, if you simply dothe tally of your total impact fees basedon the housing that is being created andcalculate if that will buy a new school,

the answer is no. Public funding getsthrown in there, in a lot of ways, just forthe physical building.

Just as an example, Program OpenSpace gave a small town substantialmoney and they acquired 20 or 25 acresfor parkland. They acquired and devel-oped a park at public expense and assoon as that was completed, all the landaround that public park went into hous-ing. Did that town charge enough tohave that land developed into housing?The developer who acquired the landwas able to sell those houses likehotcakes because they overlook the park.That park benefited the developer. Didhe share in any way the income or profitthat came from that development withthe public sector that paid for the park?I doubt that he coughed up a nickel forit. In other words, he paid the same feesas anyone else, yet those houses are allsold out because of their location. Lo-cal government has to begin to under-stand how they create benefits fordevelopers, and those developers basi-cally should cough up the money to re-imburse the public for the substantialbenefits they’re getting.

Other Policies 31

1969: Program Open Space was created, funded through asmall tax on the sale of homes or land.15 For decades, this pro-gram has been nationally recognized as an effective model forland preservation. More recently, its funding has been divertedfor other purposes. This year, the state has allocated no gen-eral funds to support the purchase of state park land and just$2.25 million for protection of ecologically significant spaces.16

1980s: The Critical Area Act, adopted in 1984, placed mildlimits on development in rural areas within 1,000 feet of theChesapeake Bay and imposed strict limits on developmentwithin 100 feet of the water.

1992: The General Assembly passed a law known as the Eco-nomic Growth, Resource Protection and Planning Act withseven vision points for future growth in Maryland.17 Thoughthe law had little practical impact, it did begin to lay out a broadervision of concentrating growth in appropriate areas, protect-ing sensitive areas and natural resources, and using fundingmechanisms to further those goals. Local governments wererequired to include these visions in their comprehensive plans.

1997: The General Assembly passed several components ofGovernor Glendening’s Smart Growth legislation.18 This cre-ated five separate tools for directing growth.

1. Priority Funding Areas: The legislation recognized thatstate expenditures for infrastructure could be better usedif they were focused on specific areas. Following guide-lines established by the state and reviewing existing andanticipated local growth patterns, counties identified pri-ority funding areas (PFAs) targeted for growth. Statemoney for transportation, housing, economic develop-ment, and environmental projects can support growthinside PFAs only. Growth can continue outside of PFAs,but will not necessarily receive any state infrastructurefunding.

2. Rural Legacy Program: Previous land protection pro-grams targeted small patches of land for protection. TheRural Legacy Program’s goal is to protect large contigu-ous stretches of threatened open space or agriculturalland by permitting the use of state funds for creating con-servation easements that maintain the broader contextfor open space. The program’s sole funding for the com-ing year is through $2 million of bond funding allocatedby the General Assembly.

3. Brownfields Cleanup: This voluntary cleanup programlimits the legal liability of those who purchase and rede-velop abandoned or unused properties that are polluted.A developer must explain to the state how the proposedremediation will satisfy public health and environmental

History of Sprawl Control Efforts in Maryland

protection criteria. By limiting the liability of those whoseek to clean up contaminated sites, the state hopes toencourage redevelopment on typically urban sites andreduce greenfield development pressure.

4. Live Near Your Work: Through this program, the stateseeks to encourage home ownership in neighborhoodssurrounding major employers and to make living in es-tablished cities more attractive, reducing pressure to con-struct sprawling new development on the urban fringe.Additionally, locating homes near jobs reduces the needfor workers to commute long distances and eases con-gestion. Finally, high home ownership rates add stabilityto older neighborhoods. However, this program is notfunded for the coming year.

5. Job Creation Tax Credits: Owners of small businessesthat create 25 or more jobs that pay at least 150 percentof the minimum wage and that are located inside PFAscan receive an income tax credit from the state of Mary-land. With this program, the state promotes the creationof jobs near existing labor pools.

Also in 1997: The Heritage Preservation Tax Credit offers astate income tax credit equal to 20 percent of the cost of reno-vating a historic structure.19 The program has been importantin encouraging redevelopment of Baltimore’s Hippodrome andthousands of smaller projects throughout the state.20

2000: The General Assembly passed the Building Rehabilita-tion Code. Known as “Smart Codes,” the Maryland BuildingRehabilitation Code allows renovations of buildings to improvehealth and safety conditions without requiring that all workcomply with modern building codes regulating plumbing, elec-trical, fire, mechanical and other standards. This removes apossible barrier to investment in existing buildings.21

2001: The General Assembly adopted five more programs tofurther the state’s efforts to direct growth to appropriate areasand to protect open space. Two particularly notable programs are:

1. Community Legacy: This program, modeled on theRural Legacy program, provides state funds to cities andcounties for community revitalization projects such asstreetscape improvements and housing initiatives.22 Theprogram is currently funded through $5 million in bondsand $250,000 in state general fund support.

2. Office of Smart Growth: The Office of Smart Growthhas three goals: 1) directly support and facilitate non-sprawling development in line with the state’s growthplans; 2) educate the public about the benefits of plannedgrowth; and 3) coordinate the state’s growth-relatedresources.23


SchumNot everybody is, but I think more andmore people are making that personalchoice, having reached their limit onhow far they’re willing to commute andhow much traffic they’re willing to sitin. People reach a point where they sayenough is enough. But I think ultimatelypeople have to be given choice. If theyfeel like people are telling them wherethey have to live and how they have totravel they get resentful.

Once there are better choices, whenthere’s great housing and safe streets andcities that are more desirable, morepeople will make the choice to livethere. It’s important for our planningregulations and processes to providepeople with more choice so they canmore clearly compare the costs and ben-efits of living in one place versus another.

SpenceHere in Talbot County, we have a de-veloper who has put together a projectcalled Cook’s Hope. It’s within the townof Easton, albeit on the border betweenthe county and the town. The develop-ment is divided into an area the devel-oper calls the village and an area wherepeople have 2-acre properties. The vil-lage homes are single-family homes onlittle postage-stamp lots and town-houses, so it’s good density. Those

things are selling like hotcakes and thedeveloper is getting an incredibleamount of money for them. My senseis, particularly for people in their late40s, early 50s, baby boomers, that mar-ket is very popular.

If you are a younger person withthree kids and you want a yard, the vil-lage-style development is going to beless appealing. There’s always going tobe the appeal of a one-acre lot or a two-acre lot. The Cook’s Hope develop-ment, however, has proven to me thatyou can create these higher density de-velopments with lots of open spacearound them and still make a very goodprofit.

Schmidt-PerkinsI don’t think smart growth is about ask-ing for any personal sacrifices. I thinkin Maryland we want to offer a choiceof lifestyles. All we have been offeringfor a long time are big lawns, cul-de-sacs, and three car garages, and so that’swhat people have bought. But when weoffer other alternatives—whether it’sliving downtown in an historic olderhome with incentives to fix them up ora wonderful condo on the water or amixed use new urbanism community—people flock to those.

We want to make sure that we main-tain a level of choice in Maryland to meet

Personal ChoiceAre people in Maryland willing to give up big lawns, three-car garages, and quietcul-de-sacs in exchange for an end to sprawl?

“The Cook’s Hope development...has proven...that you can

create these higher density developments with lots of open

space around them and still make a very good profit.”

— Spence

Personal Choice 33

all needs at every stage of people’s lives.There should be an appropriate placefor a person starting out and an appro-priate place for people whose kids haveleft. It’s about having all options avail-able, not denying anybody any of theoptions, because that’s really what wedid with sprawl.

Unfortunately, we disinvested in anumber of different perfectly wonder-ful community types that people had en-joyed for generations and gave them onetype. Harriet Tregoning has this won-derful analogy about lettuce. For yearsand years we ate iceberg lettuce, becausethat’s what there was on the grocer’sshelf. But when we were offered all sortsof different lettuces like red leaf, andBoston, and so many others, people be-gan to eat all different kinds of lettuce.But they could still buy iceberg.

We need to be offering people a fullchoice of living options. People shouldn’tbe required to live in a high-rise, norforbidden to live in rural areas. We needto provide all the different alternatives,for all the different affordability levels,mobility levels, and options.

DownsSome are, some aren’t. The youngergeneration, as shown in preference pollsand marketing studies, has a propensityto like urban neighborhoods, denser,lots of choices, walkability. About halfof the aging boomers have that prefer-ence as well. The other half of agingboomers want an even bigger house fur-ther out on a suburban tract of ground.So like everything in America there areall kinds of contradictory signs, butthere are more people now willing tochoose something other than traditionalsuburban than any time probably sincethe early 1950s.

StrueverThe market demonstrates that a grow-ing and diverse array of Marylanders do

put high value on smart growth ideals.This is important in the growing de-mand for a variety of housing types in awide range of urban neighborhoods—from the infill suburban revitalizationprojects of southeast Baltimore Countyto Baltimore’s waterfront to neighbor-hoods around its colleges and major in-stitutions—that reflect smart growth’sappeal to empty-nesters and retirees atthe older end of the market to youngcollege graduates and urban workers.

I’ve been satisfied with the demandfor our projects, and I think the resi-dential market continues to gainstrength in the city, evidenced by therapidly increasing market values andaccelerating rental housing absorptionand home purchases. If anything, theissue is the lack of appropriate housingstock in Baltimore.

One example of this growing demandwould be downtown housing, where justa few years ago there were only a hand-ful of apartment buildings in all ofdowntown, and now you have 2,000units nearing completion or completed,and that much again in the advancedplanning stage. Also, rents today arehigher than they were when all thedowntown housing started.

That kind of accelerating demanddemonstrates the market truth of thecontention that cities prosper with moredensity and more diversity, so that themore you offer of well-planned, well-executed mixed-uses—uses which in-clude office development as drivers of

“...there are more people now willing

to choose something other than

traditional suburban than any time

probably since the early 1950s.”

— Downs


urban economies; residential, becausethey create the activity on evenings andweekends; hotels and restaurants thatattract visitors; and the public spaces andcultural institutions that create the rich-ness of urban life—all of the above sus-tain the retail and restaurants that arethe life of our streets and the social fab-ric of our neighborhoods. So the moreredevelopment that happens the moreattractive older neighborhoods become,and the more likely people will aban-don suburban sprawl.

Choosing Alternatives to Sprawl: The Market forDowntown Living

A city facing growing housing demand would seem to have theoption of building up or building out. However, a third optionhas become important in Baltimore. New upscale apartment com-

plexes in the Atrium, the Munsey Building, and the Standard exemplifya recent trend toward renovating commercial and office structures forhousing.

The Atrium, built in 1924 as the Hecht Company Store, was reno-vated and opened for residential use in 2001.24 It was the first majorpart of the ongoing West Side Revitalization Initiative. Both privateand public funds are supporting this effort to create more housing unitsin the area, as well as to turn the historic Hippodrome Theatre into astate-of-the-art performing arts center.25

The Munsey Building, located in Baltimore’s central business dis-trict, has a similar history. The apartments there opened in 2002, thoughthe building itself dates back to 1918. The management describes theresidences as a “landmark for world-class, urban luxury living.”26

Even more recently, in the spring of 2003, the Standard reopened itsdoors. Formerly Baltimore’s Standard Oil Building, it was built by theRockefeller family in the 1920s and was used as an office building. Thenew apartments are now billed as “the best of yesterday in a lively,urban setting.”27 In the first three months after opening, the buildinghad already achieved 75 percent occupancy.

These new complexes offer tenants a downtown lifestyle along withliving in buildings already steeped in history. The consumer responsehas been positive, demonstrating that there is a market for more thanjust sprawl.

GilliganNo, because sprawl is a nebulous con-cept to them. They don’t know what itcosts them. They don’t know what itdoes to them. It’s simple, “I want.”

If you want them to give up sprawl,what’s in it for them? We can influencethis by making it better to live in an ur-ban area as opposed to the five-acre lotdevelopment. Residents in the quasi-ru-ral developments complain about fire,police, the condition of roads, the in-convenience of the school bus, and all

Personal Choice 35

“We need to focus on providing the types of choices that

folks are looking for: communities with greenspace but where

they can walk to a park, walk to a store, walk to school.”

— Pontious

that. They chose to move out there andwant us to pay for all their amenities.

We need to say “Live in the city, thePFAs, and you’ll have public transpor-tation, convenient shopping, safety.”For people to live in an urban environ-ment, it’s got to be nice, with conve-niences such as a library down the streetand well-funded local parks. Peoplewant to know what’s in it for them ifthey move into a city.

PontiousMore people are willing to live in an ur-ban or village-type area than we offerthat choice to. There’s evidence all overthe state for that. Downtown apart-ments are some of the hottest real es-tate in Baltimore right now. The biggestpopulation gain in Baltimore is in thedowntown area.

New town- or village-type develop-ments with transit access, such asKentlands and King Farm in Montgom-ery County are extremely rare. They’realso extremely popular. When they go onthe market, they’re highly desirable andthey become expensive places to live pre-cisely because there’s this untapped mar-ket that they’re catering to.

Bethesda, right around the Metrostop, is an extremely attractive place tolive. In Silver Spring, there are newtownhouses across the street from theMetro stop. I think there are many morepeople who are looking for that type ofoption than we are giving that option to.We need to focus on providing the typesof choices that folks are looking for: com-munities with greenspace but where theycan walk to a park, walk to a store, walkto school.


Conclusion and Recommendations

While many different ideas canbe gleaned from the precedingconversation, two general

points emerge.First, there are many practical and ef-

fective policy handles for fightingsprawl. Although sprawl is a complexproblem with no “magic bullet” solu-tion, good tools exist that each can dotheir part. Those tools are available tosmall towns seeking to preserve thequiet character of their neighborhoods,to counties trying to protect their re-maining agricultural land, and to thestate.

Second, attacking sprawl may not beeasy, but it must and can be done. Thestate’s ecosystems and infrastructure arealready feeling the strain imposed bysprawling development. Maryland resi-dents face a declining quality of life ascommutes grow longer, open space ismore limited, and even the simplest er-rand requires driving. Continuing onthe current trajectory of building low-density housing far from jobs, shopping,and entertainment, all inaccessible bypublic transit, will further exacerbatethese problems. Maryland must investin creating sustainable, livable commu-nities, through both retrofitting exist-ing urban areas and promoting compactdevelopment of new growth areas.

Achieving these goals will require aconcerted effort by city, county, andstate governments, with persistent sup-port from citizens.

PlanningMaryland should create sustainable, liv-able communities that provide a desir-able alternative to sprawlingdevelopment.

• Existing urban and suburban areascan be retrofitted to make themmore attractive places to live.Redevelopment can replace over-sized shopping complexes sur-rounded by vast parking lots withmore varied and accessible shops.Mixed-use development can allowresidents to complete errands onfoot rather than in a car. Theaddition of sidewalks and bike pathscan increase transportation options.

• Increased funding for urban infra-structure needs can help upgradeschools, libraries, parks, and otherpublic facilities. With improvedamenities in existing communities,residents have less incentive tomove to new, sprawling develop-ments with new public buildings.


• Counties can help focus newdevelopment in growth areas.Changing zoning laws to promotemixed-use development at higherdensities will allow more efficientuse of land already designated forgrowth. Residents of these newcommunities will be able to walk ortake transit, rather than drive, toshops, restaurants, and work.

• Citizens should ask that countyplanners produce detailed mapsshowing the long-term conse-quences if growth follows existingzoning regulations. These maps canfacilitate organizing communityfeedback on planning decisions.

• Brownfield redevelopment pro-grams can help restore land inurban areas. The state should seekadditional federal funding for itsbrownfield assessment programsand allocate increased funds tobrownfield cleanup efforts.

• All levels of government should seekoffice space in downtown areas andin renovated buildings, or new build-ings on previously developed land.

• Private mortgage lenders, withencouragement from the state,could offer location-efficientmortgages, which allow householdsliving near transit services toborrow additional money becausetheir reduced transportationexpenses increase their disposableincome. Such mortgages can helpdraw residents to urban areas.

Land PreservationMaryland must protect its remainingfarms, forests, open spaces, and wetlandsfrom development.

• Counties should update theirzoning to limit development inrural areas. Baltimore County has

zoned its agricultural areas for adensity of one house every 50 acres,thereby largely preventing low-levelsprawl on greenfields. Other coun-ties have far more permissive zoningregulations that allow one house perfive or ten acres, which has resultedin greater rural development.

• County governments should adoptpurchase-of-development-rights andtransfer-of-development-rightsprograms that preserve agriculturaluse of farmland.

• Increased funding for programs suchas Program Open Space will allowthe purchase of more land for parksor permanent conservation ease-ments.

• Property taxes for farms should bebased on the land’s agricultural orconservation uses only, not itspotential for development. This willreduce the financial pressure onfarmers to build on their land.

• Governments should invest in urbanopen space by maintaining existingparks and requiring parks in newdevelopments.

TransportationMaryland should reorient its transporta-tion system to move people and goods—not vehicles—efficiently. Further, thestate’s transportation policy should sup-port, not undermine, growth manage-ment goals.

• The state should increase fundingfor existing and new transit projects.Half of all new transportationrevenue should go to transit. At thesame time, funding from the Trans-portation Trust Fund should bemaintained.

• Maryland should prioritize construc-tion of the Baltimore regional railsystem. Equally important is


constructing the Inner Purple Line.The line, connecting Bethesda,Silver Spring, and the University ofMaryland, would enhance theusefulness of the entire Washing-ton, D.C., Metro system.

• Cities, counties, and the state canincrease the benefits of transit bypromoting transit-oriented devel-opment. Zoning should be adjustedto allow commercial uses andhigher densities near transitstations. Creative funding arrange-ments, such as public-privatepartnerships, can facilitate largerprojects.

• Bicycle and pedestrian accessshould be improved in existingcommunities and incorporated intoplans for all new development.Traffic calming, crosswalks, side-walks, bike lanes, and human-scaledevelopment can make it safer andmore pleasant for people to travelby foot or bicycle.

• Funding for road constructionshould be focused on fixing existingroads before the building of newones. Any new roads should becarefully scrutinized for theirpotential to foster more sprawl bymaking rural land accessible fordevelopment.

• Counties and cities can revise theirzoning laws to replace parkingspace minimum requirements withcaps on the number of parkingspaces built at new stores andoffices. This reduces the totalamount of space that a new build-ing occupies.

• Companies can promote alterna-tives to driving to work by allowingemployees to use pre-tax income tobuy transit passes or by offering acash incentive to those employees

who do not need a company-sponsored parking space.

SubsidiesMaryland should continue to limit tax-payer subsidies of sprawling develop-ment and explore ways to ensure thatfiscal and tax polices support smart-growth goals.

• New projects outside of PriorityFunding Areas should not receivepublic money for supportinginfrastructure. State transportationfunding, in particular, should notgo to projects outside of PFAs.

• Counties should assess impact feesthat cover the public costs of newdevelopment, including roads,schools, and public safety services.These fees can be waived orreduced if development isconducted in line with principlesof sustainable growth or toencourage the development ofaffordable housing. The GeneralAssembly can facilitate countyadoption of impact fees by grantingall counties the authority to assesssuch fees.

• A split tax rate, with higher taxes onland and lower taxes on buildings,can promote urban redevelopmentby raising the cost of land held byspeculators who have no interest inimproving their property andlowering the cost of remodelingexisting buildings or constructinga high-density project.

• Developers should be required todemonstrate that adequate naturalresources and public facilities—abroader requirement than what isincluded in many existing publicfacilities ordinances—are availablebefore they receive approval fornew developments. Taxpayers


should not be expected toautomatically pay for publicinfrastructure required by sprawlingprojects.

Maryland is feeling the impacts ofsprawl but has the resources and policies

“The determining factor in the growth and prosperity of

cities in the next half-century will be which have a viable

regional rail-based transit system and which don’t.”

— Bill Struever, President and CEO Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse

available to tackle the problem. Theideas put forth in this report by thepanelists and the general principlesarticulated above contain many of thetools that the state and its citizenswill need to create new patterns ofland use.


Notes

1. Natural Resources Conservation Service,U.S. Department of Agriculture, Acreage andPercentage of Non-Federal Land Developed, 19December 2000.2. U.S. Census Bureau, Intercensal Estimatesof the Total Resident Population of States: 1980to 1990, August 1996; and U.S. CensusBureau, State Population Estimates andDemographic Components of Population Change,Annual Time Series, 1 April 1990 to 1 July1999, 29 December 1999.3. Montgomery County/Maryland andNational Capital Park and PlanningCommission, Transportation Policy Task Force,Final Report, 28 February 2002.4. Pamela Lindstrom, Transportation PolicyTask Force member, personal communica-tion, 18 September 2003.5. Report of the Advisory Committee, BaltimoreRegion Rail System Plan, August 2002.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Urban Land Institute, Bethesda Row:Creating a Sense of Place, February 2003.11. Ibid.12. Ibid.

13. Adam Gordon, Baltimore RegionalPartnership, Planning for Sprawl? A Look atProjected Residential Growth in the BaltimoreRegion, September 2001.14. 1000 Friends of Maryland, SmartGrowth: How Is Your County Doing? A Reporton the Upper Eastern Shore, no date.15. Department of Natural Resources,Maryland’s Program Open Space, downloadedfrom www.dnr.state.md.us/rurallegacy/pos/

pos_101.html, 13 April 2004.16. Chip Price, Director, Program OpenSpace, personal communication, 27 May2004.17. Maryland Department of Planning, SmartGrowth Background, downloaded fromwww.mdp.sate.md.us/smartintro.html, 14April 2003.18. Office of Smart Growth, Smart Growth inMaryland, January 2003.19. Maryland Historic Trust, MarylandRehabilitation Tax Credits, downloaded fromwww.marylandhistoricaltrust.net/taxcr.html, 9May 2004; Dan Sams, Preservation Officer,Maryland Historic Trust, personal communi-cation, 13 May 2004.20. Historic Takoma, Benefits of the MarylandHeritage Structure Rehabilitation Tax CreditProgram, downloaded fromwww.historictakoma.org/programs/historic/htaxbens.htm, 9 May 2004.21. Department of Housing and CommunityDevelopment, Maryland Building RehabilitationCode, October 2001.22. See note 18.23. Ibid.24. Southern Management, The Atrium,downloaded from www.atriumapts.net, 17September 2003.25. Baltimore City, The West Side Revitaliza-tion Initiative, 11 January 2001, available atwww.baltimorecity.gov/news/westside.26. Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, MunseyBuilding, downloaded fromwww.sberspace.com/munseybuilding.html, 17September 2003.27. Southern Management, The Standard,downloaded from www.thestandardapts.net,17 September 2003.

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Sprawl in Maryland - Frontier Group · 2 Sprawl in Maryland We express our gratitude to the Surdna Foundation for their financial support of this project. We also thank the experts