New Urbanism key to saving coastal ecology, report says

Wake up call on the potential impact of sprawl on aquatic ecosystems forges an important link between environmentalism and smart growth. Current development patterns, if continued for just two more decades, will cause irreversible damage to the US coastal environment, according to a recent report funded by the Pew Oceans Commission. The report, “Coastal Sprawl: the Effects of Urban Design on Aquatic Ecosystems in the United States,” notes that 25 percent of the acreage along the nation’s coast will be developed by 2025, up from 14 percent five years ago. If this projection holds true, coastal areas nationwide will pass an environmental tipping point, beyond which marine life significantly declines, the report states. More than half the US population currently lives in coastal areas (within 50 miles of a shore). New Urbanism and smart growth are keys to minimizing this ecological damage, according to the report. The report contrasts New Urbanism’s compact, interconnected, mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods with single-use, low-density, suburbia. “Suburban zoning has become an engine of pollution rather than a shield against it,” according to report author Dana Beach, director of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League. Benefits of planning New urban neighborhoods lower land consumption, reduce impervious surface per capita, and cut auto use, the report claims. New urban neighborhoods also have higher density and higher impervious surface on a particular site. But on a per capita basis, they perform better environmentally. Yet New Urbanism works better if individual projects are part of regional planning efforts, Beach says. At a regional level, Beach recommends that planning should be based on watersheds, and that the majority of future coastal development take place in watersheds that have already lost 10 percent to impervious surface. Studies show 10 percent impervious surface is a tipping point in watersheds, beyond which a host of damaging outcomes have been documented — including increases in pollution and water temperature and loss of quality habitat. Strategies such as land banks, transfer of development rights, rural zoning (one unit every 20 to 200 acres), and urban growth boundaries can direct development toward already built-up coastal areas and save pristine watersheds, he says. “Marine-protection strategies cannot stop with site-level practices at the water’s edge,” Beach says. “They must reach inland to incorporate regional and neighborhood land-use reforms. These reforms should be imbedded in the comprehensive plans and zoning ordinances of coastal cities, towns, and counties.” In effect, Beach is advocating a new approach to watershed protection — which is now focused on best practices on each individual development site. This focus tends to result in lower density and impervious surface on each site. “If you minimize the impervious surface on the site, you maximize it in the region,” Beach says, “and you also maximize travel behavior that is damaging to the environment.” Although the best practices need to be maintained, they should be subordinated to compact, urban development, containment of development, and the identification and protection of important watersheds. Although land-use control is local, the federal government “must again use its leverage as regulator and funding allocator to help facilitate change,” Beach states. Necessary federal actions fall into three categories: providing educational and technical assistance for regional planning, linking watershed planning with existing federal regulatory and funding programs, and developing quantifiable standards for protecting ecosystem health. Beach highlights efforts underway to reform development patterns, embodied in such movements as Smart Growth and the New Urbanism. However, he finds that the linkage between land-use changes and coastal ecosystem performance is not well understood. Planning and zoning reform in states like Maryland, Florida, and Oregon offer hope, Beach adds. “The potential for positive change is enormous, and the momentum is building. Now is the time to add the cause of coastal ecology, and the voices of coastal protection advocates, to the call for land-use reform,” he says. To obtain the entire report, go to www.pewoceans.org.