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Sprawl Threatens Area with Alarming Land Gobble

PATA asks: Is High Density the Real Answer?

AREA'S GROWTH PATTERN CALLED 'ALARMING'
Panel calls for cooperation to fight sprawl
Published: Saturday, October 2, 2004
NEWS 04B
By Debbie Gebolys
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
If central Ohio keeps growing the way it way it has for the past two decades, the region will face an increasingly expensive and unpleasant quality of life.

Such is the finding of a two-year study of regional growth by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission. The latest attempt to foster cooperation between governing bodies in the region forecasts 573,800 more people, 385,000 more jobs and 283,000 new households by 2030.


If current land-use plans remain in place in 2030, "We'll consume another county of land,'' said Kimberly Gibson, commission program manager. "The low-density nature of it is alarming.''

Based on the forecast model, "We'll be consuming more than two times as much land as we need and it's very, very expensive -- for roads, parks, police, schools and not just houses,'' Gibson said. "It's serious.''

It's also a call to action, some observers say.

For the Columbus Partnership, a group of businesses concerned with civic issues, managing regional growth is among the top priorities.

"I don't want to be an alarmist,'' said Bob Milbourne, partnership president and chief executive. "Without some better regional thinking and planning, Columbus will grow in a way that will create a lot of problems for us in transportation, land use and environmental areas.''

Those problems could hurt the area's ability to attract new employers, said David Powell, vice president of economic development at the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce.

Among the most-important factors to businesses seeking to relocate is a location with good access to qualified workers, he said. Much less important is the mailing address.

"Companies that are looking to locate in the Columbus region view this as one area. They don't make distinctions between the political boundaries we have drawn,'' Powell said. "It's vitally important that collectively, we view central Ohio as one region, one economy, one environmental area.''

Yet there's little precedent for that. The region's seven counties, 21 cities, 59 villages and 116 townships generally operate independently when planning development strategies. They sometimes compete with one another to attract employers or approve projects on their borders that conflict with their neighbors.

Jeff Sharp, a professor in Ohio State University's Exurban Change Project, said the MORPC study might become the catalyst to reverse that trend.

"MORPC is providing an important service in terms of starting the dialogue,'' Sharp said. "Just getting these people at the table and creating awareness that we are some sort of region is a very important.''

The study, a $750,000, two-year undertaking, doesn't recommend ways to integrate the region's governmental groups. But Gibson said the commission is seeking grants to continue its work and hopes to provide recommendations later.

Others say governments need to begin cooperating right away.

"The time is ripe for Columbus and the surrounding suburbs and outlying townships in central Ohio to look at cooperative measures,'' said Marilyn Baker, of 1000 Friends of Central Ohio, a land-use planning advocacy group.

Varying forms of regionalism have been in place elsewhere for two decades or longer, said Elena Irwin of OSU's Exurban Change Project.

"We're certainly not the last state in the nation, but we're a little bit behind the curve,'' she said. "And the issue is, once urban development occurs, 98 percent of the time it's an irreversible decision.''

dgebolys@dispatch.com

Rapid Growth/No Coordinated Plan

The Columbus Dispatch