A Coordinated Approach to Growth Control in Northern Virginia

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE CASE FOR COORDINATING LAND-USE AND TRANSPORTATION POLICIES A. Sprawl: A Growth Problem That Must Be Managed B. Traditional Growth-Control Tools C. Moving Past Traditional Growth-Control Tools: Smart Growth and Regionalism 1. Smart Growth Models Offer Potential Growth-Control Solutions 2. Regionalism Is a Necessary Component for a Successful Growth-Control Plan D. Transportation Policy as a Growth-Control Method, and Its Use in Conjunction with Land-Use Policy II. THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA A. Land-Use Decision Making Suffers from a Lack of Cooperation B. A Number of Stakeholders Create Transportation Policy 1. State Policymakers 2. Metropolitan D.C. Organizations 3. Local Governments 4. Additional Policymakers C. Virginia's Attempts To Combine Land-Use and Transportation Policies III. TOWARD BETTER COORDINATION: WORKING AROUND MARSHALL AND CHANGING THE STATUS QUO IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA A. Higher Density Zoning Mandates Are Needed in Urban Clusters B. Localities Must Forge a Consensus Within the New Zoning Framework C. VDOT Must Capitalize on Regional Consensus in Coordinating Regional Land Use and Transportation CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION Since the 1960s, Northern Virginia has been characterized by varying degrees of sprawl. Sprawl poses significant problems for a number of reasons, including inefficiency, negative environmental impacts, and unattractiveness. These problems can be solved, but only through concerted, coordinated efforts at all levels of government and across land-use and transportation policies. Sprawl is characterized by low-density, leapfrog development that radiates outward from a dense urban core.1 The growth of road networks accompanies sprawl because suburb residents typically drive to many of their destinations across the metropolitan area. (2) But which comes first, the growth or the roads? Are more roads built in order to accommodate growth as the population simultaneously grows and spreads outward, therefore replicating the same low-density pattern that characterizes previously outer suburbs? (3) Or are roads constructed based on growth projections, providing access to previously less-accessible lands? (4) Whatever the answers to these questions, sprawl and road-network growth proceed hand-in-hand. Sprawl presents high public and private costs. From a public perspective, sprawl burdens infrastructure, creates environmental problems, and strains center cities. (5) It is inefficient, as it costs more than compact development in terms of natural resource consumption, economic costs, and even personal costs. (6) Sprawl causes an estimated $72 billion per year in lost productivity, and often leads to social costs such as environmental damage, a decreased urban tax base, and road rage. (7) The fragmented land-use decisions that characterize sprawl also often have the side effect of stripping power from everyone who lives outside of a specific boundary, regardless of the impact that the given locality's land-use decisions might have on such outsiders. (8) No less important are the high private costs that accompany sprawl, which can increase based on a development's type, location, and density. (9) Low-density development, because it necessarily entails the purchase of more land and often brings with it the need for more travel, is associated with higher personal costs (10) and a lower quality of life. (11) Businesses also suffer higher costs in the form of productivity losses. (12) In response to these high public and private costs, local governments have attempted to influence growth patterns through traditional growth-control tools, including regulatory and market-based techniques. …