The Simple Answer

I've been asked to elaborate on the answer I alluded to at the end of yesterday's post regarding development in Rogers, Minnesota. In that post, we pointed out that the development code in Rogers was typical of low-density "sprawl" (their word) and was not going to bring about a walkable, transit-ready concentration of jobs and housing as they are telling federal funders they intend.

I offered that they could simply change their city code to allow all of their single-family homes to be turned into duplexes. That would allow them, at no cost, to more than double their population and close the financial gap between their tax base and their enormous long-term infrastructure maintenance liabilities.

Here is how we ended the post:

In a city with one of the highest foreclosure rates in the state, this seems a better (albeit less flashy) way to grow and help your residents. Certainly better than begging Washington for money or leveraging your future for shiny new stuff today.

This is so obvious, so why has it not been done already? The answer to that question is another reason why the federal government should not be wasting our money on places like Rogers.

So what is that answer? Why have they not already done this?

It's simple. They don't want to.

They like their single-family homes. They like their garages and cars. They like their cul-de-sacs and wide streets. They like their big boxes and their drive thru food.

They like their front yards. Their back yards. Their side yards. Both of them.

They like living in Rogers, and that means they like single-family homes on moderately-sized lots on the fringe of the metro area. They do not want duplexes. Not multi-family housing either. If they wanted that, they would live somewhere else. If you ask, they will say, "That's not why we moved here."

Our Strong Towns reply is: more power to them! In America the people of Rogers have the right to live in essentially whatever fashion they choose. If they want single-family lots, that is their choice. To each their own.

Our objection is paying for it. Why should the American taxpayer sink $34 million into supporting the Rogers lifestyle - or the lifestyle of any of the thousands of similar communities in the country? What is our return on this investment? Of all the places we could spend our limited resources, is subsidizing a development-pattern that is not financially viable, or even productive, really a priority?

As we argued with Randal O'Toole: Let Them Eat Lobster!

If we stopped subsidizing inefficient development, we would stop seeing inefficient development. This fact alone should unite fiscal conservatives (who abhor government waste) with environmentalists and urban advocates (who abhor a wasted landscape).

It is time for a Strong Towns approach.

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A Simple Solution for Rogers

At Strong Towns, our mission is to support a model for growth that allows America's towns to become financially strong and self-sufficient. Our current growth model relies on four mechanisms, none of which are viable over the long term. The City of Rogers, MN, and their request for $34 million to build a new interchange on an interstate highway, presents a convenient prism to examine the specifics of how our model needs to change.

As we wrote on Monday, Lobbyist and former Mn/DOT Commissioner Elwyn Tinklenberg indicated that a new proposed interchange in Rogers would not be sprawl-as-usual but would be built on a different pattern. He's a good lobbyist because he understands the language being spoken in Washington, where "livability" is the new buzzword. A recent announcement highlighted a policy shift in how federal transportation dollars are spent.

In a dramatic change from existing policy, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today proposed that new funding guidelines for major transit projects be based on livability issues such as economic development opportunities and environmental benefits, in addition to cost and time saved, which are currently the primary criteria.

Here is how Tinklenberg represents the Rogers vision:

"Without the intersection...it'll just develop in large lots," he [Tinklenberg] said. "Kind of sprawled development without the kinds of concentrations and densities that connect jobs and housing, that provide the alternative and variety of housing...and that creates opportunities to support transit."

So is Rogers really prepared to do this?

As we pointed out on Monday, the plan Rogers has recently adopted calls for 470 acres of new "sprawl" (their word) and just 12-acres of high-density development (the kind that connects jobs and housing). Looking deeper at their city code further undermines their contention. For comparison, we'll look at the provisions Rogers has adopted and contrast that with a model that would create the neighborhoods they claim to seek: the Smartcode.

Rogers has three residential zones: the R2 Single-family, the R3 Mid-density and the R-4 Multi-family. The first thing to note in all of these zones is that they generally do not allow commercial uses. Those that are allowed are not neighborhood commercial-type of businesses (you can't build a corner grocery store, for example, but you can build a nursing home). If you really want to connect jobs and housing, as with the Smartcode, the first step is to stop separating them. Rogers has no mixing of uses.

Another feature of the Smartcode is the promotion of multi-family housing units by-right (no extra regulation or permitting needed). In Rogers, even duplex units are frowned upon.

Duplex

• R2 - Excluded
• R3 - Special permitting needed
• R4 - Excluded

Multi-family (3 units or more)

• R2 - Excluded
• R3 - Special permitting needed
• R4 - Permitted

It is density, however, where there is the greatest difference between the Rogers code and the Smartcode. The zone with ostensibly the highest density, the R4 Multi-family zone, does not have density or lot size criteria. Just the setbacks, however, require 2,420 square feet of wasted vacant space for each building constructed. Thirty-foot front and rear setbacks create an environment that is just not walkable.

In the R3 zone, the setbacks are equally ridiculous. So is the density.

• Single family: 3.3 units per acre
• Duplex: 5.7 units per acre
• Multi-family: 8 units per acre

These are only theoretical since the required setbacks as applied would prohibit construction at these densities. In comparison, Smartcode provides for between 12 and 24 units per acre using Traditional Neighborhood Design.

It is clear that we have limited ability to afford new transportation infrastructure, particularly interchanges. As we transition to a new economic reality, when we make these types of massive public investments in the future we need to have the land use approach in place to maximize the return on investment. The Rogers growth model does not come close.

Here is a Strong Towns idea for Rogers to accommodate its growth projections in a cost-efficient way: The Rogers Comprehensive Plan indicates that they currently have 5,900 households - almost all are single-family - and they intend to add 4,700 more households over the next 20 years. Instead of building millions and millions of dollars of new infrastructure to support/induce that new development, what if they simply changed their code to allow their massive supply of single family homes to be converted to duplexes?

Not only would this simple approach cost nothing, it would allow the city to accommodate all of its growth projections, provide it with additional tax base that is desperately needed to maintain its existing infrastructure, would add no additional infrastructure maintenance liabilities and, most importantly, would give many property owners revenue options for making their mortgage payments (they could build an apartment over the garage and rent it out, for example). In a city with one of the highest foreclosure rates in the state, this seems a better (albeit less flashy) way to grow and help your residents. Certainly better than begging Washington for money or leveraging your future for shiny new stuff today.

This is so obvious, so why has it not been done already? The answer to that question is another reason why the federal government should not be wasting our money on places like Rogers.

Doing More of the Same, Update

Last month we wrote about the City of Rogers, MN - an exurban community northwest of Minneapolis/St. Paul - and their push to have taxpayers pay for a $34 million interchange at Brockton Lane. Our take was that this project was another example of trying to induce so-called "growth" through massive government spending and that the result - essentially subsidizing the continuation of a failed, inefficient development pattern - would not only have an extremely low rate of return, but would be digging our collective financial hole yet deeper.

Now Minnesota Public Radio has looked at this project and provided some important insights that support our Strong Towns interpretation.

In a macro sense, Friend of ST.org, Professor David Levinson of the University of Minnesota, explains reality.

David Levinson, a University of Minnesota transportation engineering professor, questions the wisdom of building new interchanges when we can't take care of what we have.

"We clearly haven't been spending enough to maintain our existing facilities," he said. "That suggests we shouldn't be spending very much on new infrastructure when we have a lot of infrastructure that will deteriorate and be very costly to replace when it fails."

We would actually add to that comment that perhaps one of the reasons why we have not been spending enough on maintenance is that we have built too much infrastructure to actually be able to keep up with the maintenance. It is a little like saying the Titanic sank because the pumps weren't big enough to pump out all the water. While true, it misses the underlying cause.

The most revealing part of this report is how the lobbyist for the project, former Mn/DOT Commissioner Elwyn Tinklenberg, essentially argues that we need to save Rogers from itself. 

Tinklenberg argues creating the new Brockton Lane interchange in combination with local zoning restrictions will actually avert the kind of haphazard development that plagues some suburbs.

"Without the intersection...it'll just develop in large lots," he said. "Kind of sprawled development without the kinds of concentrations and densities that connect jobs and housing, that provide the alternative and variety of housing...and that creates opportunities to support transit."

Basically, by this argument, the people of Rogers are so irresponsible and short-sighted that, unless we provide them with $34 million worth of public investment, they are going to develop their land in a self-destructive way. But, if we do give them this huge amount of money, they will not repeat the development pattern they have but will instead do something at "densities that connect jobs and housing."

Maybe Rogers should read the land use section of their own April 2009 Comprehensive Plan. Here is what that document says Rogers has planned for density.

Single Family Homes

• Existing (2008): 1,030 acres (23%)
• Projected (2030): 1,500 acres (33%) 

High Density Residential

• Existing (2008):45 acres (1%)
• Projected (2030): 57 acres (1%)

So, 470 new acres of low-density "sprawl" (to use Tinklenberg's description) and only 12 acres of high-density development. In the context of their argument, that is a joke.

The project financially makes no sense, is a bad investment for Minnesota and will actually make our collective financial problem worse by having a negative rate of return. It should not be done, and we are not the only ones saying this.

Arlene McCarthy, Metropolitan Council's director of transportation services, said most of the projected federal and state money over the next 20 years - 80 percent - will be needed for maintenance - repaving, patching and fixing roads and bridges.

"We estimated there would be only $900 million between now and 2030 for expansion and that's not very much," McCarthy said. "So we want to use that money in a wiser way."

That's about $45 million a year.

Despite the ridiculousness of the project, the Brockton Lane interchange will be built. Here is how: The federal government, through an earmark championed by Representative Erik Paulsen (R) and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D), will pay between $15 and $25 million of the cost. This will force the State of Minnesota to reallocate transportation money that would otherwise go to a more worthy project to the Brockton Lane interchange so that we "don't lose out" on the federal money. Press release. Ribbon cutting. Fake statistics on jobs to be created and/or saved.

In their Comprehensive Plan, Rogers is projecting 4,700 new households over the next 20 years (page 4-13). That means the interchange costs $7,200 per new new household. How about we make Rogers this offer:

You bond for and build the interchange. The state and federal government will then reimburse you $7,200 (plus interest) per new household established in Rogers over the next 20 years. You get more households - a higher return than you project - than you will do real well. Fall short, and.....well, that is the risk you take.

Even though this would still be a bad investment for the taxpayer, I would support this approach over just giving them the interchange. Something tells me the people of Rogers, like their plan indicates, are not serious about making this project work and are only willing to play the game with someone else's money.