Can Smart Growth Develop {New} Neighborhoods?
Lafayette, La., both before and after Hurricane Katrina and Rita's aftermath led to an influx of new residents, has potential for adapting to change, but with no concrete plan in place, Lafayette, one of many coastal cities facing the worldwide impacts of global warming, will have to bear the burden of implementing balanced economic and governing policies while maintaining the environmental survival of its community and peoples.
In addressing population expansion and New Urbanism, the trend for people to relocate in urban areas, some communities have adoptedor at least tried to adoptpolicies that accommodate the concepts of "Smart Growth" as a way to lessen the negative impacts of urban and suburban sprawl.
"Smart Growth is basically geared toward smart planning," commented Teddy Beaullieu, development director for River Ranch, the first Traditional Neighborhood Development, or TND, in Lafayette.
TNDs, Beaullieu said, accommodates "the pedestrian, not the automobile." TNDs "provide access to and resources for (the community's) daily needs," he added about the benefits of TNDs as opposed to traditional neighborhood housing.
River Ranch is the first TND in the state, and according to Beaullieu, it is celebrated across the nation for its uniqueness and location. Beaullieu considers the development at River Ranch a success despite having to deal with outdated city government regulations that haven't taken Smart Growth planning into fruition. Beaullieu said when Robert Daigle conceptualized River Ranch, he had to receive special waivers from the city to begin the project.
"You didn't have these types of developments beforehand is because it was illegal to build them," he said.
A second development, Sugar Mill Pond, is being constructed in Youngsville, which has its own governing body, and he said he is learning from the River Ranch process.
"Youngsville went one step further and created the first TND ordinance, which basically governs the development of traditional neighborhoods so we don't have to go to them every time and get a variance, like we did here in Lafayette," he said.
A lack of ordinances is not the only reason that Lafayette has not accepted a community vision that accepts Smart Growth.
Lafayette City-Parish Councilman Bruce Conque, said the reason Lafayette hasn't widely accepted Smart Growth is because there is no master plan for the city.
"How do you operate without a plan? How do you know what are your goals if you haven't set them?" he answered. "We do have a master land use plan that's sat on the shelf now for about four years. We need to take that off the shelfdust it offand seriously consider implementing it.
"We don't have a comprehensive plan, which is mandated by the state constitution, and is the responsibility of the Planning Commission," he added. "We need to address that and we need to do it soon. There are a lot of issues we need to bring to the publicall of these things are just pending; they're waiting to be done."
As a community, Conque said main concerns are traffic, drainage, lower income housing and, if the budget permits, Smart Growth. Conque said Lafayette isn't hooked on growth, but his concern is how and what we grow.
"Growth is not how many Wal-Marts you can put in, because, in my opinion, Wal-Marts don't really contribute to the economy," Conque added. "Yes, you get sales tax, but those dollars they spend at Wal-Mart come from wherever they were spent before. You don't improve the economic situation of the overall population."
In terms of "how" Lafayette needs to grow, Conque said Lafayette is taking a gamble with the creation of the Light Center and other technological additions, such as the new University of Louisiana at Lafayette computer science facility, which will improve the type of growth the city attracts.
"It's like the field of dreamsbuild it; they will come," he said. "When you have that kind of magnet, or drawing card, that's the kind of industry you wantit's clean; it's smoke-free; it brings in a population that is middle (to) upper income.
"They demand better schools. They demand culture. They demand arts. They not only demand itthey expect it," Conque insisted. "So, I think we're at real good growth pattern right now, we just need to get away from this old way of growing which is: how many Wal-Marts can we bring in?'"
According to Barbara Conner, a member of the City-Parish Planning Commission, Smart Growth is the major driving force to creating a comprehensive plan for the city. Conner said Mike Hollier, director of planning, encourages the public to participate in upcoming meetings to discuss concepts of Smart Growth in a master plan.
Although Conque admits the problem with Smart Growth in Lafayette centers around having no master plan, he said within a small window of opportunity, within 18 months, Lafayette Consolidated Government needs to "identify what needs to be done in terms of capital improvements. We have to identify and suggest revenue sources to pay for them and then we have to go to the voters."
It is uncertain where Smart Growth will be seen in Lafayette in the next 18 months. Groups such as Save the Horse Farm (STHF), which was created to save a considerable portion of university property from commercial development, have decided to bypass waiting for governmental help and have taken Smart Growth issues such as the preservation of green space in Lafayette as their number one concern and hope to educate the community along the way.
Eldred "Griff" Blakewood, Ph.D., UL Lafayette dean of community service and associate professor of renewable resources, has participated in the STHF group to do just that.
"I really think growth is a choice, but it's one of those choices that (are) just out there that everyone has to make on their own," Blakewood commented about the inevitability of growth in communities such as Lafayette.
"The fact isif immigration continues, if people keep reproducing slightly more than people are leaving this planetthere are just more people," Blakewood added. "So, in some places, yes, growth is going to be inevitable, but that would be what Smart Growth meanshow to manage the places where the growth happens such that all of those places remain livable and you don't get this concentration of unplanned growth in some places that makes it much less livable."
"(The) Smart Growth idea is a good one," commented Michael Maher, Ph.D., head of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette communication department, whose concentration includes environmental journalism. Maher said the reason there is so little anti-growth sentiment in Lafayette and other cities nationwide, is that the media is largely controlled by advertisers who support any type of growth, specifically real estate.
Blakewood said part of the reason people respond negatively to Smart Growth issues is that "people just don't think about what's actually happening. They see the isolated pockets of development that affect them, but they don't think of it in terms of a larger scale."
Blakewood said he hopes the public becomes aware of not just the former UL Lafayette Horse Farm, but other undeveloped green spaces as necessities in promoting quality of life issues as a whole. A lack of funding, he said, is not a deterrent of the community uniting to save green space.
"The Horse Farm issue has alerted people and has gotten them thinking about these things and I really believe the university and the city can collaborate on fundraising about green space," Blakewood said. "Based on what we've seen with the Horse Farm is that people are going to step up and support a fund in the Community Foundation for green space. That is somethingthe green spacethat directly benefits every one in town who bothers to go to a place like Girard Park."
Central Park in New York City is one extreme example of how necessary it is to preserve land as a green space. "In terms of mental health, it's probably way more important than people realize," Blakewood said.
Smart Growth is just one way to incorporate green space within a community in order to provide the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs. As far as growth is concerned, there is a limit, but where, when and how do we, as a community, reach that limit?
"Unfortunately, we've all been indoctrinated to think that the choice that makes the most money is the good one and that is certainly not the case," Blakewood said. "If your choice is always what makes the most money, then what you sacrifice is things that actually make life more meaningful and bring more goodness into our lives.
"(Growth) has to stop," Blakewood insisted. "I think the point now, locally as well as globally, is to ask the question: how much more life are we willing to sacrifice for money?'"
Blakewood said because we keep making the same decisions"destroying life in favor of not life,' or technology and economic growthand unless we wake up and realize this is going on (and) unless we change our value system, it will end with the death of the planet."