INTENTIONAL COMMUNITIES: Informing the Next Generation of Land Use Law? by Robert Boyer and Rhonda Lambert French
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INTENTIONAL COMMUNITIES: Informing the Next Generation of Land Use Law? By Robert Boyer and Rhonda Lambert French he United States is a majority “urban” nation. About 80 percent of the US population lives in or near cities. The US population transitioned, officially, from mostly rural to mosdy urban about a century ago (some time in the year 1917) and it is around this time that American citizens and Telected officials began to see housing as an off-the-shelf consumer product rather than as a craft product built by-and-for its future inhabitants. Throughout the last century, multiple public and private institutions have distanced citizens from the design and construction of their future homes and discouraged community-oriented design. These overlapping financial, regulatory, moral, and industrial structures— detailed below—are amongst the greatest challenges to forming an intentional community today. In addition, their reinforcement of low- density, automobile-dependent, sprawling development patterns has contributed indirecdy to global environmental problems and the erosion of social capital in the US since the end of World War Two.1 According to the US Census Bureau, in the year 2014, about 71 percent of new homes built in the United States were “built for sale”—that is, they were built by a developer and sold as a finished product to future inhabitants who had minimal-to-zero involvement in the homes design or construction. “Self-built” homes and “contractor-built” homes—which afford future inhabitants much more discretion—consti tuted the remaining 29 percent. The proportion of homes “built for sale” has increased in the last century, growing from a mere one-third in 1920, to one-half in 1950, to its current level of 71 percent.2 This trend corresponds with the ascent of a small number of large, national-scale home builders that construct neigh borhoods at economies of scale, much like the fabrication of automobiles on an assembly line. Since the conclusion of World War Two, large homebuilders (e.g., Levitt & Sons) have taken advan tage of low-interest construction loans, highly specialized employees, and the publicly-funded interstate highway system to build tracts of inexpensive single-family homes on inexpensive land.3 While this process is arguably responsible for relatively affordable single-family housing in the US, it overlooks the diversity of household types and income levels that could benefit from more diverse forms of housing. Zoning as a Fragmenting Force One critical tool that local governments have used to perpetuate the production of low-density, single-family homes is zoning. While zoning was developed in the early 20th century to ameliorate the health and safety impacts of industrial cities (e.g., smog, noise, disease, and general congestion), it has evolved over many decades as a tool to exclude certain forms of housing, and therefore, certain groups of people. Historian Kenneth Baar documents how urban planners and other housing reformers have worked for over a century to project multi-family housing as mor ally repugnant, a literal evil to society.4 This project culminated in the 1920s, with zoning or dinances that created separate categories for single-family dwellings and multi-family dwellings, providing local planners a legal tool to include certain forms of housing (i.e., single-family homes), but not others. Zoning and subdivision regulations—which I discuss in greater detail in another article in this issue— also encourage very frag mented development; that is, they require elements like parking, sewage, and open space on a unit-by-unit basis rather than at the community scale. Writing in 1965, legal scholar Jan Krasnowiecki commented, “Current subdivi sion controls.. .assume that the entire site (excepting streets and drainage rights of way) will be distributed in lots for 20 Communities Num ber 168 the individual enjoyment of each home. In fact, however, the lots are frequently used in com ample which opened up an opportunity, not mon by the children and sometimes even by the adults.”5 only for OUR, but for all other projects in Fast forward to present day, and the communities movement offers a head-on grassroots Canada to build from.” challenge to the ubiquity of zoning in urban areas. While rural communities— in certain states While PUDS, SLUDS, and Compre but not others— can take advantage of lax or zero zoning requirements, urban and suburban hensive Development Zones appear to have intentional communities looking to build new structures often confront challenging regulatory worked for these communities and many barriers. Contemporary zoning regulations are poorly suited for designs typical in the cohous others, the fact that innovative, high-quality ing and ecovillage movements—designs that share open space, share infrastructure, and tend to design is the exception rather than the rule cluster residences on the site rather than spread them evenly across the landscape. is troublesome. Zoning codes served an im portant function at their inception during How do intentional communities circumvent these requirements? the industrial revolution, but the fact that The principle tool used by US and Canadian intentional communities to circumvent zon high-quality, perhaps more sustainable de ing requirements appears to be PUDs or planned unit developments, also known as planned sign requires a sort of “boutique” zoning cat developments (PDs), planned residential developments (PRDs), or special land use districts egory reflects the outdated nature of today’s (SLUDs). PUDs have existed since the creation of the first zoning ordinance, but have grown land use regulations. in popularity in recent decades, especially amongst more innovative developers looking to A growing number of municipalities have incorporate a mix of residential and commercial uses on a single site. A PUD is effectively adopted “form-based codes” that encourage a customized zoning category, crafted in negotiations between the property owner and the more pedestrian-friendly, human-scale de municipality—typically a city or county. sign by focusing upon the physical outcome A PUD allows a property owner to pursue an out-of-the-box design that standard zoning of urban development. But even form-based categories forbid, while offering municipal planners an opportunity to influence details of codes may not offer the creative latitude private property development over which they typically have little discretion. The outcome is necessary for context-sensitive, community- generally higher-quality urban development. The challenge, of course, is that negotiating the centered design common in ecovillages and parameters of a brand new zoning category requires extra time, and perhaps the assistance of cohousing projects. professional consultants and lawyers. Rather than approach outdated land use Ecovillage at Ithaca (EVI), for example, worked with local Town of Ithaca (New York) regulations as an obstacle, the intentional planners for 11 months to co-create a special land use district (SLUD) that reconciled the communities movement may have a chance nascent ecovillages vision and the building and safety standards of the jurisdiction. These to leverage larger changes in the mainstream negotiations took place in the early 1990s, when cohousing and ecovillages were both rela by offering working examples of inclusive, tively new phenomena, so community members had to work to counter some unfavorable affordable, and environmentally low-impact assumptions. Explains one resident, “Some people feared that [we] were just a group of hip communities. Ecovillages and cohousing pies...trying to create a cult on the hill or something.” projects are willingly experimenting with The SLUD— 16 pages long—cites favorably the community’s variety of housing styles new ways of working and living together. while detailing requirements for infrastructure like sewer, water, road connectivity, occu Perhaps in partnership with enlightened pancy limits, and emergency vehicle access. The SLUD has been amended multiple times local lawmakers, intentional communities to accommodate changes in the ecovillage’s second and third neighborhoods. These amend have an opportunity to inform a new gen ments became easier, as municipal officials observed how well the first clustered neighbor eration of land use law. hood worked. In 2010, EVI teamed up with county planners ro win a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency to “showcase” their innovative model to the rest of the Robert Boyer is an Assistant Professor o f Ge world. This funding has inspired the creation of a new potential zoning category that would ography and Earth Sciences at the University of allow cohousing-style development in the mainstream housing market. North Carolina at Charlotte. He received both Similarly, OUR Ecovillage founder Brandy Gallagher explains that early members of the a Masters and Ph.D. in urban planning from community (on Vancouver Island, Canada) entered the project with high expectations, but the University of Illinois at Urbana-Cham- with little understanding of the arduous legal process required to achieve their idealistic vi paign, and has researched ecovillages and co- sion. The community’s 25 acres was situated in land with agricultural zoning that restricted housing initiatives around the world. the level of housing density the founders imagined. Explains Gallagher: “Everyone and anyone came to tell OUR development team 1) what an ecovillage ‘should Rhonda Lambert French is a graduate stu be,’ 2) what sustainability means, and 3) what should happen on our particular 25 acre farm dent in the Department o f Geography and that was designated to be a ‘Regenerative Living Demonstration Site and Education Centre.’ Earth Sciences a t the University o f North Caro Call us crazy but still we stated we would work to make it legal! From ‘handsculpted build lina at Charlotte. ings,’ to ‘closed loop systems,’ we seriously had no idea what we were getting our team into. Any one of us would tell you now that we would have run the other direction if we knew 1.