Planning activist praises local zoning strategy

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

‘‘You’re probably doing 99 percent more things right than most of the municipalities in the United States. You’re really, really doing well,” said Thomas Hylton, founder of Save our Land, Save our Towns and chairman of the planning commission in his hometown, Pottstown, Pa.

In his talk, Hylton started from the proposition that the quality of individual lives and the pattern of social interactions are determined by the design of physical surroundings.

The core of Hylton’s vision is the old-fashioned small town, where neighbors know each other and life without a car is not a burden. He showed a map of Pottstown and traced out his own commute to work — about three minutes on foot. His children’s school, a post office, a fire station and other amenities were likewise only minutes from his home.

Hylton termed set-ups like these ‘‘heart-healthy communities” because they encourage residents to exercise as they move around. Pedestrian-friendly towns can help fight obesity and heart disease, the latter being of particular concern for Hylton as his father died of a heart attack when he was a small child. Lower air pollution would also reduce illness and help mitigate the severe weather believed to be associated with global climate change, which he said was ‘‘an issue we have to face.”

But the benefits of compact town centers go beyond the obvious, according to Hylton, who believes that a good town design, one that fosters community, could alleviate problems as disparate as stress, social inequality and Welfare dependency.

‘‘Beauty and order are vital to our well-being,” he said.

He said he realizes this vision would require swimming against the tide, as current trends have segregated old from young and rich from poor, he said, which is devastating for ‘‘the sense of community you can only have when you have people of all ages, backgrounds and walks of life living together in the same physical place.”

While his vision is undoubtedly idealistic, he insists it is also practical — in fact, more practical than the current dependence on cars and the sprawling development patterns that go with it. Traveling on foot or by bicycle is far more efficient, in terms of space, than driving cars, because far more people or bicycles than cars can travel in limited space at the same time. These forms of transit don’t require a ‘‘sea of asphalt” for storage, either — Hylton estimated that five or six parking spaces exist in America for each car.

The preservation of fields and wild land have been a hallmark of Calvert County’s planning strategy since the 1980s, but, according to Hylton, land preservation can only be achieved with higher-density development elsewhere.

‘‘The only way you can protect farmland is the time-tested development pattern of the city, village or town,” he said.

Current zoning regulations limit density to one home per four acres outside the county’s seven designated town centers, and a patchwork of building-height and other restrictions limit the development of high-density housing downtown. But at least one county official thinks this is a good thing.

Commissioner Linda Kelley (R), who has denounced high-density development proposals in the past, suggested that ‘‘Mr. Hylton should go back where he came from” after she heard about his ideas from a reporter. She did not attend the presentation.

Hylton’s suggestions reflected a persistent ideology among planners that is not realistic for this county, Kelley said.

‘‘I won’t be supporting high-density housing anyplace, thank you very much. I think it all goes to the maintaining the rural environment that’s left,” she said. ‘‘We’ve got town centers and certainly people can make suggestions on how they can [change them], but in the end I don’t hear any public outcry for that. I only hear it from the planners and that’s always been a very ‘in’ thing with the professional planning community, to recreate these little towns in the visions of folks strolling on the sidewalk. I just don’t think that’s a realistic vision for Calvert County.”

But in his presentation, Hylton dismissed the idea of commuters living in rural areas.

‘‘I hear Pennsylvanians say, ‘Well, I live in the countryside.’ They’re not living in the countryside. They’re living in a car ... They might as well be seeing it on television,” he said.

Roberta Safer, president of Affordable Development for All Calvert, enthusiastically endorsed Hylton’s recommendations because she believes it would lead to cheaper housing. Safer’s organization lobbies the county government and private developers to build lower-cost housing.

‘‘I love what he said. Walk to work? My God, wouldn’t that be the ideal thing for Calvert County?” she asked.

Calvert planners assume everyone has a car, which makes life harder for those who don’t and contributes to high housing costs, she said. This is one reason her group decided to push — successfully — for zoning changes permitting accessory apartments attached to businesses; these residents would already be in commercial areas and in a better position to get by without a car.

Greg Bowen, county director of planning and zoning, said that while the county has shied away from the mixed zoning suggested by Hylton, concentrating commercial development in the county’s nine designated town centers has been good for both residents and businesses.

The county commissioners have mostly stuck to the town center idea since it was enacted 24 years ago, ‘‘which is pretty amazing. ... [Without proper zoning] new commercial development all seems to march up roads, and ours has stayed within the 1984 boundaries, and it helps. Business next to business is a good thing.”

Kelley also defended the town center development strategy, and thinks housing mostly belongs outside them. High-density housing inside towns wouldn’t bring down prices, anyway, she said.

‘‘You think they’re going to build high-density housing and make it cheap? I don’t think so,” she said. ‘‘You’re buying property in the town center. .... I don’t think anybody is going to build housing that’s less expensive unless there are some significant incentives to do that. ... I supported that — if somebody wants to do it, power to ’em — but I don’t really see that happening.”

According to Bowen, town center regulations permitting townhouses and apartments leave room for higher-density construction, with Prince Frederick ordinances permitting up to 15 residences an acre. Despite Hylton’s vision, Bowen doesn’t see urban-style development fitting in here. Nonetheless, he points to areas in Calvert that conform to the broad outlines of Hylton’s recommendations.

‘‘In terms of walkability, most of the towns aren’t there yet. Parts of Solomons are doing well,” Bowen said. ‘‘ ... I’d say another one of our success stories is in the Chapline area of Prince Frederick: sidewalks that run to shops; you can live in Chapline houses, walk to two grocery stores, walk to the library, walk to an ice cream shop ... What we need to continue to work on is other elements of the town as it develops and provide that nice mix of housing and commercial [zoning].”

At his presentation, Hylton urged the assembled planners to take his message to heart.

‘‘In my part of Pennsylvania it’s a dream. It’s something you can actually do in Calvert County,” he said.