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Expert Suggests New Rules in an Age of Sprawl

Urban consultant David Rusk has released a new study of urban and suburban sprawl in upstate NY that calls on NY State to change the rules of the game, to stop the steady erosion of the economy and quality of life. “In an age of sprawl, NYS has created the worst possible combination of rules...,” says David Rusk. “NY’s 18th century system of government stands in the way of achieving its 21st century vision.”

For each new area designated for development, another area of trees or open spaces is lost forever. (Photo by Ray Feliciano)

Rusk points out that the state is divided into 1,545 cities, villages, and towns with inflexible boundaries that cannot adapt to changing demographic and economic conditions. There are no state standards for regional growth management, and local governments are in anintense and wasteful competition with one another for taxable properties, called "rateables."

In recent years, these state “rules of the game” have contributed significantly to minimal net growth in the wealth and real income of whole metropolitan regions. He calls on the state legislature to institute wide-ranging reforms to end inter-municipal conflict, eliminate wasteful duplication of infrastructure expenditures, accelerate regional economic growth, and share benefits of such growth more equitably among municipalities.

The report calls on the Legislature to empower county governments to develop comprehensive, county-wide land use and transportation plans to curb urban sprawl and redirect investment back towards core cities, villages, and inner-ring towns. Rusk says “The state should require municipal governments to conform municipal plans and zoning maps to the county-wide plan.”

Other recommendations in the report include a “fair share” plan for balanced housing development that serves all levels of the workforce throughout all municipalities and empowering county governments to take the following steps necessary to stop the bleeding of resources:

• Empower county government to issue bonds against the county-wide tax base for all growth-supporting infrastructure investments of regional significance;
• Empower county government to issue bonds against the county-wide tax base for purchase-of-development rights to preserve valuable farmland and to secure open space;
• Authorize county government as the only local government that can approve tax abatement and other financial incentives for economic development; and
• Institute a county-administered system of tax-base sharing so that all municipalities will share in the revenues generated by regional economic growth.

“If the legislature is unwilling to mandate such a system,” says Rusk, “it should at the very least provide clear statutory authority and state financial incentives by which a county’s citizens can elect to institute such a system by county-wide referendum.” Such an arrangement, typically called a “regional compact,” has been successfully implemented on Long Island and in the Catskills, and is currently being discussed in Erie County.

The report and the events surrounding its release was funded in large part by an $11,500 grant from the Central New York Community Foundation to ACTS (Alliance of Communities Transforming Syracuse), the Gamaliel Foundation affiliate in Syracuse, along with a $1,000 grant from Verizon Foundation to ARISE, and additional support from Charter One/Citizens Bank.

‘Gamaliel New York’ is a coalition of regional community organizing projects (ARISE - Capital Region, VOICE Buffalo, Lockport Area VOICE, ACTS Syracuse and LION - Long Island) which formed a new alliance to combat the continuing decline of urban areas across the state. The alliance was formed following a bipartisan hearing on April 5, 2005, focusing on the economic future of core cities and population centers in New York State.

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