Rural Subdivision Design

It has been said that if you don't know where you are going you might wind up someplace else. Can you imagine what you want your county to look like in the future? Do you want sprawl, congestion and pollution? Do you want a preserved natural environment with few job opportunities for yourselves and your children? Or should you be pursuing something between these two?

The Importance of "Quality of Life" and "Sense of Place"

Throughout the United States there is a growing awareness among local leaders, realtors, developers and other business people that an area's "quality of life" is one of its chief economic assets. Few new businesses choose to locate or expand in locales that do not offer enjoyable places to live. Communities that have allowed all their natural lands to be cut up into houselots or paved over into parking lots often suffer a competitive disadvantage when trying to attract new employers. And rural areas that rely on outside dollars from retirees and tourists to stimulate their economy may capitalize on waterways or historic character for their continued prosperity. Few people would choose to retire or vacation there if they looked as commonplace as the anonymous suburbs where they have spent most of their lives.

Across the country, when people are asked where they would prefer to live, work, shop and recreate they invariably select communities that have an abundance of trees, open spaces, and uncluttered pedestrian ways. These preferences translate into clear economic term: if a community is to succeed in attracting new residents and businesses for the long term, it must be concerned about its appearance, physical character, livability and "feel."

Residents, business leaders, developers, and local officials should be concerned not only about the number, type and density of new subdivisions and other development, but also about the effects those developments will have on their townscapes, the surrounding rural landscape, and their cultural and natural heritage. All these things combined give each community its uniquely individual "sense of place." Although new subdivisions can be designated to preserve this sense of place by preserving each community's most important natural and cultural features, these advantages are generally not realized. Communities typically receive very conventional strip types of developments along their major roadways and "cookie cutter" layouts of just more house lots and more streets within their subdivisions.

Few growing communities have escaped the effects of strip development and conventional subdivisions. It sometimes seems to occur overnight: where there was a farm field yesterday, today stands a thirty-acre "cookie cutter" subdivision. The pace has been sometimes fast and sometimes slow, but relentless, to the point where it is often accepted as inevitable. But, sprawl development and subsequent loss of a community's "sense of place" and quality of life is not inevitable if residents, developers and land use planners work together.

The Cost of Development

There are many benefits related to growth such as expanded job opportunities, better community facilities, and more community activities. However, growth can create costly problems. Landowners, taxpayers and employers all suffer when growth creates unforeseen consequences.

The economic impacts of development, both positive and negative, extend much farther than is commonly appreciated. Our present land-consumptive system of development increases air and water pollution with both ecological and economic consequences. While it is difficult to quantify the total economic impact of the loss of open lands (because the effects form an interconnected network affecting industries as diverse as farming, fishing and tourism) those losses can be substantial.

The public costs associated with development fall under five categories:

Educating children
Constructing and maintaining public facilities, such as water and sewerage facilities, solid waste disposal and parks
Providing public services, such as fire and police protection, and health and welfare services
Constructing and maintaining roads and parking facilities
Administering local government.

Many studies have been undertaken to determine the effects of various types of development upon municipalities cost outlays. These studies have shown that the new public costs resulting from low-density or "sprawl" development are considerably greater than those resulting from higher density or "clustered" open space subdivisions for the same number of dwelling units. Put simply, it costs more to run school buses and emergency vehicles, to repair roads and collect garbage when homes are spread out over more miles of roads than when houses are located more closely together, as in a typical nineteenth-century town.

For example, in 1991 the Valley Conservation Council conducted a study of the fiscal impacts of major land uses in Augusta County, Virginia. It was found that Augusta spent about $1.22 providing services for every $1.00 it collected from residential land uses.

Overall, residential land use created a $9.6 million deficit in the County budget. Although the deficit from residential land use was balanced by a new contribution of $8.5 million from commercial and industrial land uses, the combined impact of all developed land (residential, commercial, and industrial) on the County's finances was a $1.1 million deficit of expenditures over revenues. By comparison, the County spent approximately $0.80 providing services to farm and forestlands for each $1.00 of revenue generated, resulting in a net surplus for the County of $1.2 million.

The deficits created by residential development can be avoided if developers, planners, and the community all have input into how growth is maintained and managed. When it comes right down to it, planning is a balancing act. Each community must balance the benefits of growth on the one hand with the maintenance of economic health and important central features on the other. One possible way of achieving this balance is through rural open space design.

Conventional layouts vs. "Rural Open Space Designs"

One of the biggest problems facing many communities is that most still operate under conventional zoning ordinances. The term "conventionally designed subdivision" refers to residential developments where all developable land within any given tract is divided into house lots and streets, the only open space typically being undevelopable wetlands, excessively steep slopes, and stormwater management areas. Conventional design methods often result in all the land being paved over, built upon, or converted into backyards. When repeated over and over again, conventional development can lead to a community losing many of the physical and natural attributes that made it so unique.

Within the American economy, open land is commonly seen as an unused and wasted resource, one that will reach its full potential only if it is developed and put to a "productive" use. This attitude is often accompanied by strong opposition to alternative forms of development such as open space preservation and clustering efforts. But, as communities become increasingly developed, as traffic grows heavier, and as open lands steadily dwindle away, the intrinsic values of natural areas become more apparent to large numbers of people.

In its purest form, the term "open space design" refers to residential developments where, as in golf course communities such as the Homestead in Bath County, as much as half of the buildable land area is designated as undivided, permanent open space. This result is typically achieved in a "density neutral" manner by designing residential neighborhoods more compactly, with smaller lots for narrower single family homes as are found in traditional villages and small towns throughout the United States.

Why Design Subdivisions for Both Conservation and Development?

Open space conservation produces multiple economic benefits: those to the community as a whole, those to individual landowners, and those to developers. In terms of community benefits, open space conservation can produce far-reaching effects on the local economy in its effect on the local "quality of life."

You might be wondering why you should bother learning how to design subdivision sites which accommodate both conservation and development. Here are a few reasons:

Simply put, conventional approaches to subdivision development ultimately produce nothing more than houselots and streets. This process eventually "checkerboard" currently rural areas into a seamless blanket of "wall to wall" subdivisions with no remnant of the landscape heritage which previously existed. Whether one is a landowner, developer, realtor, planner, engineer, surveyor, landscape architect or local official, few people can take a great deal of professional pride in helping to create just another conventional subdivision, converting every acre of natural land within a site to lawns, driveways and streets.
Lower costs! An economic advantage offered by open space design is the reduction in infrastructure engineering and construction costs. To the extent that single-family houselots can be narrowed, or that multiple unit dwellings can be incorporated, street and utility runs can be shortened. This reduction becomes greater as the development pattern itself becomes more compact and village-like, but is also measurable even when homes are interspersed with open space to provide good views for the maximum number of homes. To the extent that street pavement is reduced, the size and cost of stormwater management facilities can also be lessened. The shorter street and utility systems that often result from more compact layouts can also reduce the public sector's long term infrastructure maintenance costs.
Sales and marketing advantage! Another economic advantage occurs during the marketing and sales period, when developers and realtors can capitalize on the amenities that have been preserved or provided within the development. These positive features can form the basis for an environmentally-oriented marketing strategy highlighting the benefits of living in a community where upland forest habitat and/or productive farmland have been preserved, along with riparian or wetland buffers, and wildlife meadows. Sales brochures should be prepared to illustrate and describe neighborhood trails through protected greenways paralleling creeks or traversing ridgelines, and formal commons for passive recreation and specific facilities for certain active sports could be mentioned.

Alternative methods of designing for the same overall housing density while preserving a certain percentage of the site are not difficult to master, and create more attractive and pleasing living environments that sell more easily and appreciate faster than conventional "houselot and street" developments.

The significant land conservation achievable through "open space development design" should help smooth the local review and approval process, by responding to many environmental concerns even before they are raised.
Open space subdivisions are simply better places to live. When well designed, the majority of lots abut or face onto a variety of open spaces, from formal "greens" or "commons" to wildflower meadows, farm fields, mature woodlands, freshwater wetlands, and/or active recreational facilities. At present, only golf course developments offer comparable amounts of open space. One measure of the demand for open space among homebuyers is the fact that approximately 40% of people living in golf course developments do not even play the game.
By preserving and/or improving an area's image, open space helps to increase tourism. A poll commissioned by the President's Commission on American Outdoors found that natural beauty was the single most important criterion for tourists in selecting outdoor recreation sites. Tourism in turn infuses a communities economy with outside dollars.

Conclusion

Through proper planning and the development of a unified community vision, citizens of your county can encourage and promote business and economic vitality while protecting the pieces of the county that hold a special plane in your hearts. Preserving recreational places, free flowing streams and creeks, special forests, trails and country lanes, healthy farmlands and fields and the historic and cultural features that make your county so unique.

Planning for your county's future requires community understanding and guidance. It is the citizens of the county who have the most to offer. You know the business and economic needs of the county. You know the county's most special places. You have a sense of what is important and what should be maintained. Most importantly, you can provide the foresight and vision to maintain your county in a way that will serve as a proud legacy for your children and grandchildren.

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