Planners have told us about their experiences with Conservation Subdivisions (continued):
“West Vincent adopted NLT's (Natural Lands Trust's) ordinance (conservation subdivisions) in 1998 and the township has preserved 928 acres just through the zoning process, said Township Manager Jim Wendelgass...Wendelglass said most developers like the conservation ordinance because there are fewer roads, less infrastructure, and less grading and laying of sewer lines."
"Another recent development in West Vincent called Woodstone/Addis on Beaver Hill Road is a development of 11 homes on 35 acers with 19 acres including a working farm permanently protected as open space."
Taken from the Natural Lands Trust, Media, PA "Daily Local News" by Ann Pickering
"For the past 10 years, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources [DCNR] has been funding Growing Greener: Conservation By Design (GG-CBD) as an innovative land use planning tool to help communities guide growth and protect open space, wildlife habitat, heritage resources and greenway corridors.
The partnership among the Natural Lands Trust, Randall Arendt and DCNR, and other state agencies that have recognized the value of the program, has been quite successful at providing communities with options for protecting land other than the increasingly expensive method of fee simple or conservation easement acquisition.
The creative design, zoning and conservation subdivision principles of GG:CBD provide communities with a balanced approach that helps developers realize a higher profit margin, that generates tax revenue for the community and that protects their special places. GG:CBD has become one of Pennsylvania's premiere tools in our conservation tool box."
Larry Williamson, Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Special Assistant to the Secretary
“We have a design problem in America due to outdated ordinances. If you show people a slide show, the places they don’t want to live are legal, and the places they’d like to live are illegal. Why are trees illegal?
This perfectly reasonable notion of LandChoices’ campaign suggests that, within each density classification, conservation subdivisions should be by right rather than conditional or “special.”
Turning conventional zoning on its head, the burden of proof would be on an applicant for a conventional subdivision to show why it is necessary to plat all of the land into lots rather than conserving natural features."
Larry Collins, North Carolina developer, member of LandChoices’ Advisory Group.
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| "Many townships write a comprehensive plan that says they want to preserve natural resources, said Hutchinson, but when you look at their zoning ordinance, there is no regulatory means to do that. Townships even with open space plans and money set aside, can't afford to purchase all the open space. With the conservation ordinance, land can be preserved any time development occurs."
"Last year, in a survey of the 27 townships statewide, 2,022 acres were preserved or an average of 62 percent of each development."
Taken from the Natural Lands Trust, Media, PA "Daily Local News" by Ann Pickering
"I recently retired as a Professional Land Surveyor operating my own firm for the last 26 years subdividing land in accordance with local (Washtenaw, Livingston, Jackson & Lenawee Counties) subdivision ordinances all being supported by Michigan's subdivision and land division acts. The problem is that most subdivision regulations are not creative, including the people overseeing them, which is a result of the their professional planning firm. They're (the planning firms) not creative and lead the local regulating bodies around by their nose believing that their planner's advice is gospel.
I believe that education is the key:
1. Educate the educators in stimulating creativity - most planners plan by theory and not the real world - planners need to develop ordinances that lend themselves to being creative and flexible, but first they must be taught how to do it.
2. Educate the local overseers (trustees, supervisors, planning commissions, etc.) as to the possibilities of creativity.
3. Educate the local health departments - Michigan has 83 counties with 83 different health ordinances - creativity requires flexibilty with infrastructure
4. Educate the local road commissions - they set the design standards for all road systems even when a system may not fall under their jurisdiction as most local municipalities follow their standards."
Tim Tietsema
"Sometimes it takes just one gadfly advocate to change things. It’s instructive to note that the professional planners and engineers proposed to (a) remove many of Savannah’s famous squares in order to ‘improve’ traffic flow, and (b) turn the San Antonio River into a giant storm sewer with parking above.
It took Savannah’s ‘little old ladies in tennis shoes’ and San Antonio’s business and civic leaders to stop the madness. We can thank them for Forrest Gump and the Riverwalk.
The truth is that everything we know about subdivision design is wrong. Like Mark Twain said, “No good deed goes unpunished,” which applies daily to the public planning process and its unintended consequences of conventional subdivision developments."
Larry Collins, North Carolina developer, member of LandChoices’ Advisory Group.
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