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The Costs of Suburban Sprawl and Urban Decay in Rhode Island

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The Costs of Suburban Sprawl and Urban Decay in Rhode Island THE COSTS OF SUBURBAN SPRAWL AND URBAN DECAY IN RHODE ISLAND PREPARED FOR GROW SMART RHODE ISLAND BY H. C. PLANNING CONSULTANTS, INC. AND PLANIMETRICS, LLP GROW SMART RHODE ISLAND, BOARD OF DIRECTORS SISTER THERESE ANTONE, President, Salve Regina University SUSAN ARNOLD, CEO & General Counsel, Rhode Island Association of Realtors WILLIAM BALDWIN, President, Baldwin Corporation JOSEPH CAFFEY, President, Omni Development Corporation ROBERT L. CAROTHERS, President, University of Rhode Island ARNOLD CHACE, President, Cornish Associates TRUDY COXE, CEO, The Preservation Society of Newport County PETER DAMON, Vice Chairman, Financial Services, Bank of Newport ALFRED DEGEN, President, Valley Gas Company JAMES H. DODGE, Chairman, President and CEO, Providence Energy Corporation LOUISE DURFEE, Managing Partner, Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer MARK J. FORMICA, Vice Chairman, Citizens Bank J. JOSEPH GARRAHY, President, J. Joseph Garrahy and Associates E. GORDON GEE, President, Brown University ROBERT GILBANE, President, Gilbane Properties STEPHEN HAMBLETT, Chairman of the Board, Providence Journal Company ROBERT HARDING, President, Slatersville River Properties, Inc. DEAN HOLT, Chairman, CEO and President, Fleet National Bank DOUGLAS H. JOHNSON, President, Heritage Consultant Group DENNIS LANGLEY, Executive Director, Urban League of Rhode Island MARGARET LEINEN, Dean, University of Rhode Island FREDERICK LIPPITT, Chairman, Providence Plan FREDERICK C. LOHRUM, South Region Chairman & CEO, BankBoston ROGER MANDLE, President, Rhode Island School of Design JAMES MILLER, Executive Minister, Rhode Island Council of Churches LAWRENCE REILLY, President, Narragansett Electric Company ANTHONY SANTORO, President, Roger Williams University GARY SASSE, Executive Director, Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council RICHARD SCHARTNER, Owner, Schartner Farms BEVERLY SCOTT, General Manager, Rhode Island Public Transit Authority DEMING SHERMAN, Partner, Edwards and Angell MERRILL SHERMAN, President and CEO, Bank Rhode Island FATHER PHILIP SMITH, President, Providence College CURT SPALDING, Executive Director, Save The Bay JOHN WARREN, President and CEO, The Washington Trust Company SANDRA WHITEHOUSE, Environmental Consultant FREDERICK C. WILLIAMSON, Chair, Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission JAMES WINOKER, President, Belvoir Properties, Inc. W. EDWARD WOOD, Independent Consultant THE COSTS OF SUBURBAN SPRAWL AND URBAN DECAY IN RHODE ISLAND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PREPARED FOR GROW SMART RHODE ISLAND BY H. C. PLANNING CONSULTANTS, INC. AND PLANIMETRICS, LLP DECEMBER, 1999 The information in this document has been funded in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency under a Sustainable Development Challenge Grant (Assistance Agreement SD991937) to Grow Smart Rhode Island. It may not necessarily reflect the views of the Agency and no official endorsement should be inferred. Additional funding provided by the Rhode Island Foundation. Printing courtesy of The Providence Journal. ABOUT THE REPORT This publication contains the Executive Summary of the current sprawl development trend. All five options The Costs of Suburban Sprawl and Urban Decay in Rhode assume that there will be no further population decline Island. The comprehensive, 281-page report was pre- in urban communities over the next twenty years and pared by H.C. Planning Consultants, Inc. of Orange, that a ‘balanced’ growth pattern is desirable rather than Connecticut and Planimetrics, LLP of Avon, lopsided growth that only occurs in the suburban and Connecticut. HCPC’s principal Hyung C. Chung, rural areas. Among the five alternatives, our consult- Ph.D., AICP, holds a Masters Degree in City Planning ants chose a Compact Core option as the optimal from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Planning from model of development because it exhibited the greatest Columbia University. An urban economist and potential to increase the efficient use of resources com- Professor of Economics and Planning at the University pared to sprawl development. of Bridgeport for thirty years until his retirement in In Part II, our consultants measure the costs of sprawl. 1998, he has served as a consultant to the Connecticut Chapter 7 projects and compares the gross costs of con- Department of Education, the United Nations Center tinued sprawl development with those of compact core for Housing and Planning and numerous towns in development over the next twenty years (between 2000 Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. and 2020). Chapter 8 addresses the issues of diminish- Planimetrics Principal Bruce Hoben received his ing farmland, forestland, and other open spaces, and Masters Degree in Community Planning from the the disappearance of the state’s ‘rural character’. In Georgia Institute of Technology. A Past President of the Chapter 9, calculations are made for the net costs of Connecticut Chapter, American Planning Association, sprawl for infrastructure (roads, school, and utilities). he served as chief planner for the Connecticut towns of Chapter 10 focuses on the social and fiscal impacts of Avon and Farmington. Planimetrics Principal Glenn urban decay, particularly empty buildings, vacant lots, Chalder, AICP, received his Masters in Community and low-income households all being concentrated in Planning from Harvard University, and served as our core cities. Chapter 11 deals with the fiscal impact Town Planner in Avon, Connecticut. of sprawl on suburban and rural communities. Finally, The full report is organized in two parts. Part I estab- Chapter 12 discusses the environmental impact of the lishes the conceptual foundation for measuring the rapidly increasing number of motor vehicles and costs of sprawl in Part II. After a brief introduction in mileage driven under sprawl development. Chapter 1, Chapter 2 introduces the Circular Model of Our consultants differentiated two types of costs in Sprawl, emphasizing the inseparable link between the analyzing the costs of sprawl: one-time costs and suburban sprawl and urban decay processes. In the recurring costs. A capital cost is a one-time cost, but an same chapter, Rhode Island’s 39 cities and towns are operating cost such as municipal tax revenues and classified into four community types—urban core, expenditures recurs annually. It is usually not the capi- urban ring, suburban, and rural/emerging suburban. tal costs but the recurring costs that are much more In addition, a number of indicators for growth, subur- expensive in the long run. Accordingly, an innovative banization and sprawl are defined and used to monitor formula called the “Equation of Cumulative Impact” Rhode Island’s growth trends over the last 40 years. was introduced. This equation has proven to be very Chapter 3 analyzes the growth trends for population, convenient in calculating the long-term impact of housing, employment, and motor vehicles, and recurring costs or benefits. Chapter 4 describes land consumption rates between 1960 and 1995 and projects future land consumption The Executive Summary contains table source citations scenarios through 2020. Chapter 5 conducts case stud- which refer the reader to tables in the full report. ies for three communities, each representing a major Copies of the full report have been placed in the main community type—urban ring, suburban, and branches of Rhode Island city and town libraries. To rural/emerging suburban. Finally, in Chapter 6, five order a copy, contact Grow Smart Rhode Island at development patterns are introduced as alternatives to (401) 273-5711. i Grow Smart Rhode Island | About the Report THE HIGH PRICE OF URBAN DECAY AND SUBURBAN SPRAWL IN RHODE ISLAND The following report looks back 40 years to assess I As of 1995, there were nearly 11,000 vacant the costs of suburban sprawl and urban decay in buildings and lots in our five core cities. Rhode Island and projects through 2020 the costs of According to our consultants, this represents an continuing our current development pattern. estimated $1.3 billion in lost property value for these cities. I The report estimates that staying on our sprawl course over the next 20 years will cost Rhode I Between 1980–1997 Rhode Island’s core cities Island taxpayers almost $1.5 billion, a figure had a net loss of nearly 5,000 private sector jobs close to our total annual state budget. while the rest of the state registered a net gain of approximately 48,000 private sector jobs. I Tax revenue losses in decaying urban centers account for more than half the projected sprawl I As of 1990 urban core communities had only costs. Another 15% of the total costs come from 30% of the state’s families but 61% of all RI tax revenue losses in non-urban areas. The cost of families falling below the poverty line. building and maintaining extra infrastructure— local roads, public schools, gas lines, electric util- While sprawl is particularly harmful to cities, it’s not ity lines, sanitary sewer lines, etc.—to accommo- good for the rest of the state either. date sprawl accounts for an additional 30% of the I Rhode Island developed more residential, $1.5 billion figure. commercial, and industrial land in the last 34 I As large as the estimated costs of sprawl are, years than in its first 325 years. Only 65,000 they probably understate the real costs of acres of residential, commercial, and industrial sprawl for several reasons. First, methodologi- land was developed between 1636 and 1961, but cal obstacles precluded quantifying extra envi- 1-1/2 times that amount—96,000 acres—was ronmental and
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