Gov. Mike Leavitt and GOP legislative leaders were to announce Wednesday their ambitious open space/affordable housing plan earmarked for passage in the 1999 Legislature.
Called the "Quality Growth Initiative," the program will be mandatory for state agencies, but for local governments and landowners it will be purely voluntary, said House Majority Whip Kevin Garn, R-Layton.The program has eight principles, all aimed at three main goals:
- Curtail undesirable urban sprawl.
- Help all Utahns obtain affordable housing and home-ownership.
- Preserve green space and agricultural lands.
"It's incentive based. There will be no mandates to anyone," said Rep. Susan Koehn, R-Woods Cross, a leader of the House's GOP mainstream caucus who worked on the plan.
Ted Stewart, Leavitt's chief of staff, said: "Two very important issues are addressed (in the plan) - preserving green space and starting to solve the problem of affordable housing. The governor is very encouraged by this joint effort with (Republican) legislators."
At an afternoon press conference leaders were to unveil the "Quality Growth Act of 1999," which has seven parts: create a state funding mechanism along with a local option sales tax that will provide money to manage growth; establish "quality growth areas" and provide incentives to manage those areas; create a new fund for those areas; provide funds for community-based planning; require state agencies to follow area growth plans; create a special commission to oversee the whole quality growth agenda; and recognize and protect private property rights along the way.
Critical to the whole process is identifying lands worthy of being saved. Those lands include watersheds; farm land; open, green fields; wildlife lands; and recreation lands, said Garn.
Time and again, GOP legislative leaders stressed that no one will be forced to give up their private lands. All acquisitions and conservation easements will be purely voluntary. But there will be incentives, perhaps great incentives, for landowners, cities and counties to cooperate.
However, Garn said one real problem in dealing with affordable housing and sprawl "is that so few cities are zoning for mixed use. They're zoning half-acre or quarter-acre lots for single family houses, worried that apartments or high-density housing causes crime or whatever."
But that attitude can't continue. So cities "will get incentives" for mixed use, some apartments or condominiums - even 8,000 square-foot lots - along with shopping and commercial areas well planned, he said. "We have a housing crunch that we have to solve."
And as the process moves along, one goal will be not to increase the overall acreage of land held by governments. By far most of the land in Utah is already held by the federal or state governments, and while that inventory may change, it should not increase, said Garn, who was the main moving force behind bringing conservative legislators along with Leavitt to create a unified Republican open space plan.
Cities and counties can form "quality growth areas," which can be relatively small - like protecting 600 acres on the outskirts of a community - or much larger.
"There will be no hint of regional or state planning. It will all be local citizens," said Koehn.
"This plan is not about regulation, debt and state control," said Garn. "Rather, it is based on incentives, local control and a pay-as-you-go system."
Garn said Republicans don't want to bond for the state part of the money, "but fund the effort out of growing revenues." No budget has been set. "We'll deal with that as part of the budget process" for 1999-2000, adopted in the 1999 Legislature.
Counties will get the option of raising their sales tax, with voter approval, the money going to the program. Rep. Evan Olsen, R-Young Ward, ran such a bill in the 1998 Legislature, but it failed. "He'll introduce a similar bill (in the 1999 session) and we expect it to pass," said Garn.
Two-and-a-half years ago Leavitt called a growth summit to talk about transportation, water and open space needs.
While a $3 billion, 10-year road construction effort has been started and water development, enhanced by a special sales tax earmarking, continues at the state and local levels, almost nothing has been done on open space preservation.
Considering that the population along the Wasatch Front will double in 50 years and almost all of the current farmlands and developable open space among the urban centers will be taken up if something isn't done, the lack of planning gave minority Democrats in the Legislature a political opening.
In July, Democratic legislative leaders announced they would put forward a comprehensive open space plan. While GOP legislative leaders deny that spurred them on - Garn said Republicans had been quietly working on an open space plan for months - they soon started meeting with Leavitt to formalize an acceptable, workable proposal themselves.
Leavitt admitted to the Deseret News editorial board two weeks ago that the GOP open space plan would be announced before the Nov. 3 election because Republican legislative candidates wanted to have a firm political rebuttal to the Democrats' soon-to-be-announced open space proposals.
Democratic House leader Dave Jones told the Deseret News several weeks ago that if Republicans deal with open space preservation and affordable housing, Democrats will be pleased they pushed them to do something.
An affordable housing component was added to the GOP plan "because we wanted a complete package. It all goes together - housing, green space preservation and stopping urban sprawl," said Koehn.
A quality growth area will be more than just an effort to preserve a farmer's land, more than just conservation easements or outright purchase of open space.
"We want to stop the leap-frogging of strip malls and other developments" which can occur haphazardly, said Koehn.
But no one's land would be condemned or taken using eminent domain.
"There is not any part of a redevelopment agency" at work in the program, Garn said. All actions will be strictly voluntary by property owners.
Half-hearted attempts in the Legislature involving open space preservation failed in 1997 and 1998 because several powerful GOP legislative leaders didn't want to curtail or infringe on private property rights.
Standing with Leavitt Wednesday afternoon was to be House Speaker Mel Brown, who personally spoke against Olsen's bill last session. Senate President Lane Beattie is also on board, an indication, say GOP leaders, that most conservative legislators will have no problem supporting the growth initiative.
"There will be some changes" to the plan as it moves through the legislative process; there always are," said Garn. "This is a rough draft; our (Republican) caucuses will have significant input." But in the main, it will pass the 1999 session, he predicted. Leavitt is a Republican and even after the Nov. 3 elections Republicans will hold majorities in the state House and Senate.
Areas of the state that don't necessarily need to protect open space can still join up and use other parts of the program, like encouraging affordable housing.
"There are a lot of places in Utah where open space isn't a problem - they are surrounded by open space," Koehn said.
An all-voluntary plan sounds great. But considering Utah state and local leaders have basically failed in putting together some kind of open space program before, why should this one work?
It will, said Koehn, because this plan has worked in other states.
Maryland is a good example where these kinds of growth-planning areas have been successful, she said.
"We studied a number of places where they're working now. It doesn't happen overnight. In some cases it takes three, four or five years," she said.
But, ultimately, open space is protected at the desire of the landowner, affordable housing is built and commercial development to support the housing and residents takes place in a planned, coordinated effort.
At an afternoon press conference Leavitt and leaders were to present the nuts and bolts of the package and show large blow-up maps of places along the Wasatch Front where logical "quality growth areas" could soon be set up and working.