Elisa Campbell
During the first week of September, it became clear that the Romney administration does not want to spend money on purchasing land to protect it. Instead, they are promoting the virtues of "smart growth." Smart growth is supposed to push development "where it's needed" and where the existing infrastructure can support it. If you read my Bulletin column in August, you know my response to that idea is "whooey" because Massachusetts land-use laws do not create a legal framework in which to plan for and implement "smart growth." My column was about the effort currently underway to amend and modernize our laws, and I encourage everyone to study up on those issues and talk to their legislator about them.
But even if Massachusetts' land use laws are modernized, we will still need to be able to purchase land to preserve it. We need every tool we can get.
Need evidence? As part of the Community Preservation Act, the state did "build-out analyses" for every city and town in the Commonwealth. Planners looked at the undeveloped land in each community and made projections about the number of housing units and commercial or industrial square feet that could be built on it, under existing zoning. If you have good Web access, you can look for yourself at http://commpres.env.state.ma.us/
Amherst's Planning Department, Planning Board and Comprehensive Planning Committee have been working with the projections for years, including hosting public forums about them. Amherst's projections, in fact, don't seem all that scary (although they do include more development than most of us, I suspect, think is desirable). The population in 2000 was officially 34,874 people (actually slightly below the population 10 years before). The "buildout" projection is 38,862. In the public schools, the K-12 census was 3,143 in the year 2000; it's projected to increase to 3,670 at buildout. There would be about 1,500 additional residences.
But we don't live on an island. Our neighbors drive on our roads and (in many cases) use our library, police, fire and ambulance services; we share our regional schools with three of our neighboring towns. We in turn drive on their roads, count on their public safety personnel if we have an accident in their jurisdiction, and rejoice in the views and clean water and clean air supplied by their "open space."
Very little of that open land is protected by anything more than the relative difficulty of building on it. As the price of land and housing in this area shoots towards Mars, land that used to be too expensive to get to becomes desirable lots with fantastic views. The buildout projects for our neighboring towns are truly alarming.
I'll start with the towns in the regional school districts: Leverett, Pelham and Shutesbury.
The population of Leverett is projected to increase from 1,663 to 18,427. The number of residences could increase from 648 to 6,722. The number of school children from 289 to 3,220. For Pelham, the projected changes are: population in 2000: 1,403; at buildout: 7,386. Residences: increase from 556 to 2,806. The number of school children could increase from 237 to 822. In Shutesbury, the populaton could increase from 1,810 to 11,763; residential units from 807 to 4,374; and the number of school children from 362 to 2,266.
In the meantime, the projected population increases for Hadley (4,793 to 13,144), Sunderland (3,777 to 14,265) and Belchertown (12,968 to 66,332) would not improve things. I asked the computer to add the projections for Amherst and its immediate neighbors (Belchertown, Granby, Hadley, Leverett, Pelham, Shutesbury and Sunderland) and the results showed almost a tripling of the population: from 67,420 to 198,409.
These "projections" are not predictions; lots of factors can change the location, type and speed of land development. But we can't afford to just let things happen, whether because of inattention, complacency, apathy or discouragement. This is particularly true of the smaller towns, which have almost no government or infrastructure with which to deal with development pressures. Housing prices throughout the region have risen far beyond what regional salaries can support, yet real estate taxes don't come close to covering the cost of services for new residents. Taxes on a median-priced home in the smaller towns already exceed those in Amherst, even though there is in most cases almost no "government" except schools and road paving. In 2003, the median price for a house in Pelham was $212,000; at a tax rate of $20.31 per thousand, the house pays $4,267.56 in taxes. In Shutesbury, the median value was $225,250, and the tax rate of $20.75 creates a tax bill of $4,673.94. In Leverett, the median value of $286,000, taxed at $18.49, adds up to $5,288.14. Amherst's median value was $230,000, and the tax rate was $17.11, so the tax bill was $3,935.30.
Where in the world are towns going to find the revenues to cope?