Anti-sprawl rules to steer Sacramento development

Anti-sprawl rules to steer Sacramento development
By Jim Wasserman jwasserman@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Apr. 1, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 8B

When Sacramento gets past the housing crash, its next wave of growth will play out under stricter rules that limit greenhouse gases and clamp down on cars, area real estate officials were told Tuesday.
Panelists at a real estate forum peering beyond the region's current downturn said state legislation to curb emissions from cars and far-flung-residential living will push more growth into existing area neighborhoods.
It's an idea that runs counter to a capital-area housing boom that spread 80,000 new houses, mostly single-family detached residences, onto empty suburban-area land between 2002 and 2007.
The region's next housing boom will – and must – rely more on trains, buses and alternatives to cars, said William Hudnut, an advocate for cities and former Indianapolis mayor credited with reviving his Midwest state capital.
"The less driving there is the less carbon dioxide that is being emitted into the air," he told a gathering of nearly 100 public- and private-sector architects, city planners, land-use attorneys, real estate consultants and elected officials. "The challenge is to reduce dependence on the car."
The notion is central to implementing the state's Assembly Bill 32, which aims to lower greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and SB 375, which ties that goal to new housing and commercial development.
Hudnut spoke at a forum organized by Sacramento's affiliate of the Urban Land Institute, a research arm of the U.S. real estate development industry. He praised the two bills and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments' regional Blueprint for higher-density growth through 2050 as models for the nation.
"You seem to get it," said Hudnut. "A lot of the country doesn't."
Longtime Sacramento redevelopment attorney Joseph Coomes Jr., said that while the Blueprint is voluntary, "we're now getting mandatory imperatives in AB 32 and SB 375. And more imperatives will be coming down the line."
Sacramento County Supervisor Roger Dickinson told the gathering the county aims to put most of the 53,000 new homes it will need by 2030 into existing neighborhoods.
"We are very dedicated to revitalizing a lot of those older first-tier suburbs," he said. But he said the idea worries home builders and developers who find it easier to build on empty land. Also raising concerns are existing residents who don't want up to 20 percent more people living in their areas.
Nonetheless, Hudnut said the new century will be a "gargantuan business opportunity," with half of all U.S. and European growth income to come from "restorative development" in built-up areas.
"Reinvesting, rebuilding, revitalizing, redeveloping and re-engineering. We live in the 're-century,' " he said.