Smart Growth concepts embrace a basic goal:

To protect or conserve existing resources for current and future use in ways that allow for continued growth and maximize the potential of those resources without negatively impacting the environment.

Dumb Growth

There are many examples of sprawl or “dumb growth” throughout the County. Just look around and ask: are we choking on traffic? Is the downtown anemic while the congested highway corridors sprout shopping strips or big boxes? Is the simplest need for a loaf of bread beyond reach without a car? We all live with the consequences of “unsmart growth.” The culprits may be auto-oriented infrastructure, rigid zoning laws, federal home lending, a combination of these, or even others.

Large Lot Zoning

On Long Island, suburban sprawl rolled over and obliterated the agricultural landscape. After a while the large influx of people demanded ever larger amounts of land for larger lot housing and commercial development. Initially, the development bolstered the existing downtowns, but eventually auto-oriented shopping centers and malls developed and shifted the focus of shoppers and residents away from downtown with its small shops and limited parking. The decline of the pre-war downtowns was the beginning of the adverse effects of sprawl on Long Island.

In the last twenty years the Nassau-Suffolk Region has continued this piecemeal suburban sprawl eastward even though population growth has slowed and stabilized. Between 1970 and 1980 about 100,000 housing units were constructed to house a population that had grown by almost 160,000 people. Compare this with the following ten years when 60,000 more units accommodated only an additional 40,000 people.

The trend was and is more housing square footage on larger lots. the amount of land that is consumed to build these new homes is higher now than it was when the population was growing by leaps and bounds. New houses in a typical subdivision have one to two acre lots as opposed to the 1/2 acre or less that were built in the past. Here in Suffolk County we are consuming more land to house fewer people as compared with twenty years ago when we were putting more people on far less amounts of land. This is an example of not using one of our resources, land, wisely for the next generation. More land and road frontage per unit has also translated into higher per capita taxes for municipal services over the years.

By allowing sprawl to continue many towns now look like Any Place, USA. It all looks the same. Sprawl has stripped away the very sense of place and replaced it with a commercialized version of every where else. There are many examples outside the Long Island Region of the ill effects of suburbia. One such area is Atlanta, Georgia. The city in recent months has had all of its federal highway funding canceled because of re-occurring poor air quality. the poor air quality is a direct result of Atlanta’s auto-oriented sprawl and unchecked growth. The fact that a majority of the people that work in Atlanta use the car and live a great distance from outside the city has led to an overdependence on the car as a primary means of transportation. The result of this dependence has given Atlanta the longest average commute in the nation and has even made Hewlett Packard reconsider building a new skyscraper facility in downtown Atlanta.

Zoning and Ordinances: The DNA of Sprawl

The characteristic of the current landscape can be traced to zoning and ordinances. Originally designed to ensure adequate light and air of packed tenement dwellers, zoning has robbed much development of its mixed use energy and symbiosis. It may be argued that the Regions’s zoning codes favor cars over people, segregate land uses, do not promote connections between land uses and do not promote flexibility. Think about it. Individuals have to make separate trips for almost everything here on the island causing extreme dependence on the automobile. Shopping centers, offices and industrial parks are all located along main roads. Residences are about as far as you can possibly get from commercial uses, forcing more car trips which add to road congestion.

Principles of Smart Growth

The following principles are compiled from the Smart Growth Network and other national, state and local groups that deal with the issue of Smart Growth.

1. Direct development to strengthen existing communities. Smart Growth actions can be applied to the redevelopment of older areas including commercial, industrial and residential sites.
2. Encourage mixed land uses and mixed use buildings. The concentration of uses in a tight knit area lends itself to leaving the car in one place. It might even allow a resident to walk into town and leave the car at home. The alternative is to drive everywhere because of the separation of land uses that have been zoned, compartmentalized and spread out, each in its own location unrelated to the other.
3. Provide a Variety of Transportation Choices Auto registrations have doubled over the last twenty years while population growth has stabilized. Transportation options might relieve Suffolk County’s roads of some automobile congestion.
4. Create Pleasant Environments and Attractive Communities that are pedestrian oriented and give residents a sense of pride in their communities. This action will give cohesion to a Smart Growth plan by encouraging uniform design conditions for pedestrian access.
5. Preserve Open Space and Natural Resources Conservation easements, clustering, transfer of development rights, conservation subdivisions and the purchase of development rights are all Smart Growth tools for open space preservation and conservation. Simply directing development towards areas that are currently developed will not single handily save these precious natural resources.
6. Make Development Decisions predictable, Fair and Cost Effective. Reducing red tape can make the Smart Growth process work.