In a recent guest viewpoint in The Register-Guard, four neighborhood leaders, Paul Conte, Marilyn Milne, Kate Perle And Deborah Healy, responded to the guest viewpoint by Laura Langdon of the Home Builders Association of Lane County:

Representatives of the local Home Builders Association shed a few crocodile tears recently in a Register-Guard guest viewpoint headlined “City’s proposed code changes undermine ‘smart growth.’ ” In that opinion piece and subsequent public testimony, HBA representatives seek to prevent fixes to flawed zoning regulations that allow unbridled infill development to degrade Eugene’s neighborhoods.

HBA representatives have twisted the meaning of “smart growth” to serve their own interests, essentially arguing against any standards that might reduce the potential density of some developments. By this faulty reasoning, standards that keep building heights in scale with surrounding residences, require adequate parking or protect natural storm water drainages all undermine “smart growth.”

The Lane County Moving Forward Togetherâ„¢ conference on June 11, 2008 will feature a panel on housing and “Smart Growth” with Bob McNamara of the National Association of REALTORS® and Robert “Skip” Rotticci of Costa Pacific Communities. The panel will be moderated by local affordable housing advocate John VanLandingham, who also chairs the Oregon Land Conservation & Development Commission.

The National Association of REALTORS® identifies five principles for successful growth:

Successful Growth Begins with Five Principles

There’s no stopping growth. By 2020, this country will need to house 53.7 million more Americans than in the year 2000.

How will we live? Differently. The average household will be smaller. More people will remain active into their 80s; they will want shopping, entertainment, and medical services within walking distance. Empty nesters may gravitate toward revitalized city neighborhoods.

Struggling with traffic congestion and watching precious open space disappear, many homeowners will say “enough” to sprawl.

What to do? Grow smart! Smart growth focuses on the existing assets of the community, the long-term implications of various development patterns, and the fiscal impacts of these patterns. The bottom line: some ways of growing are more likely to succeed in the long run.

Each community defines smart growth for itself, but the National Association of REALTORS® hopes to see all such efforts guided by five principles:

  1. Make a commitment to housing opportunity and choice, a wide range of urban, suburban, and rural homes at all price levels for a diverse population.
  2. Build better communities with good schools, low crime, quality public services, efficient transportation systems, ample recreation areas, open space, a strong employment base, and a viable commercial sector.
  3. Protect the environment by controlling pollution and encouraging preservation of natural resources and properties of historic significance.
  4. At the same time, respect our Constitutional rights to freely own, use, and transfer real property.
  5. Implement fair and reasonable public sector fiscal measures to ensure that the cost of new infrastructure is shared proportionally among those served.

You can learn more about how to grow better from the National Association of REALTORS®.