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8/11/2010 Business&Financial News, Breaking US ...
<br /> In general,35 percent of ballot initiatives pass.But in 2008 and 2009,76 percent of ballot initiatives raising taxes to fund
<br /> transportation did,Jordan said.
<br /> People are increasingly pushing for policy that supports an urban lifestyle,and leaders from the White House to town
<br /> halls are listening,said Alexander von Hoffman of Harvard Universitys Joint Center for Housing Studies.
<br /> This year, President Barack Obama created the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities to coordinate federal
<br /> housing and transportation funding with local development. He designated$2.1 billion in grant money for projects like
<br /> streetcars in Tucson,Arizona and bike trails in Philadelphia.And the House of Representative's version of the Surface
<br /> Transportation Act would nearly double funding for public transportation.
<br /> The president"is helping to coordinate and reinforce a movement that was already gaining momentum. He's helping
<br /> those local and state leaders,"von Hoffman said.
<br /> In California,for example, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 375 in 2008,requiring each region to
<br /> adopt "sustainable communities strategy'to reduce greenhouse gases and give transportation projects top priority for
<br /> funding.
<br /> "It was the coalition of the impossible,"said Darrell Steinberg,president pro tempore of the California State Senate."The
<br /> builders,the local governments,the environmental communityand the affordable housing advocates had been at odds
<br /> for decades on these issues."
<br /> Of course,some critics oppose government's role in"engineering"neighborhoods in cities. During debate over the
<br /> California bill,conservatives mocked government's promotion of urban development."Hasn't everyone always longed to
<br /> live in a dense,crime-ridden urban neighborhood,right next to the nearest railroad hub?"said one Internet ad,of
<br /> Steinberg's bill.
<br /> If anything signals smart growth's newlymainstream status,it's the embrace of Salt Lake City,Utah,said Christopher
<br /> Leinberger,a developer and Brookings Institution fellow."It's a Republican state. It's a Mormon state.It's fallen in love
<br /> with blueprint planning,"Leinberger said.
<br /> Two-thirds of the residents in the two-county region surrounding Salt Lake City voted to raise$2.5 billion for more miles
<br /> of commuter and light rail track by hiking their sales tax,said Chamber of Commerce spokesman Marty Carpenter.70
<br /> miles in 70 years!"is the rallying cry.
<br /> Salt Lake City itself will receive another$5 billion.Ala Rockville,the Mormon Church is replacing two indoor malls with a
<br /> walkable housing and retail complex
<br /> -- Atlanta,Georgia;Boise, Idaho; Minneapolis,Minnesota and others have invited Salt Lake City officials to speak,said
<br /> Natalie Gochnour,the chamber's chief economist."Theywantto know how in a conservative environment like Utah you
<br /> pass ballot initiatives,"she said.
<br /> Utah got buy-in from business,Gochnour said."it goes back to commute times,and the cost of doing business when
<br /> you're congested,"she said.
<br /> FOLLOWTHE MONEY
<br /> Elected officials and bureaucrats like Gochnour and Rockville's Sternbach are also being mindful of the public purse,
<br /> said Joseph Minicozzi,a real estate developer and city planner in Asheville,North Carolina who has done research there
<br /> and in Sarasota County,Florida.
<br /> ` His work shows that local governments reap much more in taxes from urban centers than from malls or"big box'retail
<br /> like a Wal-Mart, but pay more to build suburban infrastructure such as sewers and streets.
<br /> In the city and county of Sarasota,for example, 3.4 acres of urban residential development consumes one-tenth the land
<br /> of multi-family development in the suburbs. But it requires little more than half of the infrastructure investment and
<br /> generates 830 percent more for the county annually in total taxes:that's $2 million from the city structure and $238,529
<br /> from the suburban one.
<br /> What's more,suburban housing takes 42 years to payoff its infrastructure costs.Downtown?Just three."I'm preaching
<br /> to Joe and Jane Six-Pack who want to be subsidized.These (city)centers produce a tremendous amount of revenue
<br /> and then hemorrhage it out to the suburbs,"Minicoza said."We don't have a rational discussion on the true costs of the
<br /> aywe manage land."
<br /> That is starting to change,as cash-strapped governments struggling with the recession's hitto taxrevenue are starting
<br /> to press developers to share the pain of paying for highways and other infrastructure,said Richard Rich,a directorfor
<br /> Thomas Enterprises,whose 240-acre redevelopment of Sacramento's abandoned railyards is the largest urban
<br /> redevelopment project in the country.
<br /> As a result,profitability will come to depend on higher-density construction,said Rich,his voice echoing through the
<br /> cavernous stalls of the former transcontinental railroad being salvaged for a retail plaza."Justas theyevolved to start,
<br /> they will de-evolve the product,"he said,of suburban developers.
<br /> Then again,developers of urban-style neighborhoods get some help from the government,too.From the open-plan
<br /> floor of a former Pontiac dealer strewn with sculpture from northern California artists and mid-century modern furniture,
<br /> http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid... 3/4
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