The following is excerpted from the EcoCity Cleveland study, The State Role in Guiding Land Use Change in the Ohio Lake Erie Basin: Key Policies, Programs, and Incentives for the Ohio Lake Erie Balanced Growth Program (PDF, 793 KB).

The recommendations below include changes to state agency programs. Several recommendations are legislative, and while the author recognizes change to law cannot be accomplished by Ohio Lake Erie Commission (OLEC) or other agencies, the changes recommended are an integral part, if not necessary part, of change that will further support the Balanced Growth Program.

Administration of OLEC agencies

Building on the inter-agency task force that has come together to identify incentives to support the pilot watershed plans, the state has proposed to create a State Assistance Work Group which will assist local communities in their efforts to plan for and implement Balanced Growth-related policies and practices through the Balanced Growth Watershed Plans. This group can have an immediate affect on the processes that approve land development and conservation in the basin.

A second type of interagency-coordination is also needed to improve the knowledge set used by the OLEC agencies and their partners in terms of the agencies’ own programs and investment (their direct actions) in the basin. The key to successful implementation of the Balanced Growth Program is to design a package of complementary policy instruments that reinforce each other.

In addition to supporting the Watershed Plans developed through the pilot projects, the OLEC agencies, along with other agencies such as the Ohio Water Development Authority, should institutionalize the interagency working group that has assisted in the Balanced Growth Project as a basin-wide planning function. This working group should complete the original recommendations of the Balanced Growth Taskforce, which was to develop a collaborative basin wide approach to economic development, transportation and land conservation investments. To that end, this work group would:

• Review all policies, programs and funding allocations for land change effects. This working group, mindful that local governments hold land use authority, should nonetheless take changes in land urbanization patterns that into account in its decision making. These agencies should include a “sprawl” impact calculation/narrative on their ma-jor projects. While rural areas legitimately need and should obtain economic development and infrastructure improvements, the OLEC agencies should do everything to ensure that their decisions do not exacerbate unplanned urbanization. One technique for such a review would be to adopt a process of impact assessments for major projects that require more than one state agency’s approval (e.g. water development authority projects that require EPA permits for installation of new infrastructure) as to the affect on land use. This is to get agencies to review the impacts of their combined activities

Transportation infrastructure

• Shift funding for infrastructure to maintenance and replacement rather than expansion or additional interchanges.
• Agencies adopt use of impact assessments for all major projects with extra-local impact or cross-jurisdictional economic and environmental impact, including residential, commercial and industrial development.
• Transportation Review Advisory Committee (TRAC): Require analysis of regional impacts of development projects that apply for highway funding. TRAC projects brought forward by three or more jurisdictions, based on coordinated planning of needs for land use change (housing, economic development, safety, etc) for their jurisdictions and that demonstrate a regional benefit (not just transferring businesses) based on projections, and in Priority Development Areas (PDAs), receive higher ranking in ODOT and MPO ranking scoring system
• State routes: The state should assume maintenance of all state routes, whether in incorporated or unincorporated jurisdictions, to level the playing field between urban and township areas.
• Gas tax funds: Change law to officially allow gas tax funds to be used for public transit projects.
• Alternative commercial systems: The state should invest to enhance the freight rail system to reduce truck traffic on state highways and encourage nodal development patterns by focusing rail transfer facilities in existing settlements and PDAs.

Water and sewer infrastructure

• An effective strategy to manage the timing of growth in many states has been to require adequate public facilities ordinances or establishment of urban service areas. In effect, PDAs are urban service areas for water and sewer. If PDAs are based on sound projections for settlement population needs, infrastructure projects in PDAs should be given significant priority over other projects
• State health department should prohibit or discourage development of subdivisions with septic systems. This would help prevent “leap frog” development and place developments adjacent to existing settlements. This will reduce infrastructure costs over time and support a nodal landscape pattern that will help conserve key resource areas needed to protect water quality in the Lake Erie basin.
• Applications by local governments for funding for water and sewer infrastructure should include or/receive additional priority if an infrastructure needs assessment and plan is included and if the local community ties land use and zoning regulations to the availability of water and sewer lines.

Economic development

• The Ohio Department of Development (ODOD) should adopt a policy that no economic development money will be granted or loaned that will simply shift jobs from one county to another within Ohio, or from core urban area to rural areas. If analysis suggests that such a move will have regional benefits, state funding should depend upon the locality losing the business receiving compensation (for example, through shared tax benefits).
• Multiple-jurisdictional economic development projects with shared benefits receive priority in funding.
• Brownfield redevelopment programs should be coordinated with the Job Ready Sites Program to prioritize investment in PDAs. The ODOD should change the acre minimum for the Job Ready Sites Program to accommodate relevant site sizes in urban areas.
• Coordination of “one-stop” environmental permitting and economic development funding application process as an incentive for businesses to locate in PDAs.
• Two studies by scholars at the Brookings Institution found that communities engaged in managing their growth spatially realized marginal improvements in economic performance relative to other communities (Nelson and Peterman 2000), saved money on infrastructure, and brought economic benefit to both suburbs and cities (Muro and Puentes 2004). To that end OLEC should publish and disseminate information on the rationale for participation in the Balanced Growth Program and restraint regarding land urbanization for its positive association with economic performance.

Land conservation

• Enable transfer of development rights within a single jurisdiction and between local jurisdictions to direct development toward PDAs and away from Priority Conservation Areas (PCAs).
• Strategic collaboration and support of urban containment/green infrastructure protection by working with local governments, Metroparks, land trusts and conservancies. Identify key lands critical to riparian systems and provide incentives in funding when included in PCAs through Balanced Growth Watershed Plans.
• Enable and set up administrative mechanisms for use of land conservation equity insurance program.

Tax policies

• Gas tax distribution should be changed to a per capita basis to reflect a realistic level of wear and tear on roads.
• Enable cities to tax land that has remained undeveloped in urban cores for a significant time period at higher rate than developed land to encourage development (conceptually the opposite of strategies to have lower tax rates in rural areas to allow farmers not to develop). The land owner would get a tax break if the land is developed, or if the land is designated (owner authorizes) for use in a city redevelopment plan.
• Alternatively, tax policies could enable a developer who is in process of land assembly, who has clear intent to develop and is working with a local jurisdiction, to put off taxes on property until development project has been realized.
• Increase tax incentives for land owners who sign easement agreements for conservation in PCAs.

State facilities

• OLEC agencies should adopt a policy to locate government facilities within existing settlements or within designated PDAs in the basin. Facilities under this policy would include location of state service yards, offices, and new schools. New state facilities should be used as an important economic development tool to catalyze and influence private sector to invest in existing settlements and PDAs.

Land use planning and site design

• Enable (through legislation) township planning and zoning to include a standard of public welfare. Townships do not have the authority to regulate land use broadly, yet much of the growth at the urban fringe is occurring in townships.
• Provide incentives through funding awards to townships or require townships to coordinate with villages around which they are growing in terms of land use and tax benefits. Tie all funding programs to locations in PDAs. This approach is likely to be supported in Northeast Ohio, where the Voices and Choices process identified “shared land use planning” as an important step for regional economic development.
• Enable (through legislation) cross-jurisdictional transfer of development rights, joint economic development districts, and joint conservation districts to encourage sharing of tax revenues from development/conservation activities.
• Priority in funding should be given to jurisdictions that complete impact assessments of land development and demonstrate a plan to share benefits and mitigate adverse impacts to other jurisdictions.
• Provide planning and technical assistance grants for local jurisdictions to complete comprehensive plans that designate housing and infrastructure needs for 20 years, include natural resource protection elements, and to change zoning to concur with PDAs and PCAs identified through the Balanced Growth Watershed Plans.
• Provide incentives to cross-jurisdictional coordination of land use and zoning decision making concerning PDAs. Many states require local plans, require regional collaboration, or at minimum regional impact studies for large projects. Ohio currently requires a zoning map for townships and does not require that incorporated municipalities complete comprehensive or master plans. Many states require environmental impact assessment for projects over a set level of significance. Ohio does not. Yet, according to the literature reviewed for this project, coordination and horizontal concurrency have provided effective mechanisms to mitigate negative externalities of larger development projects. The state, through the Balanced Growth Program, can encourage municipalities and townships to coordinate their growth in an orderly fashion with benefits shared across jurisdictional boundaries.
• Enable (through legislation) agricultural and conservation zoning in all jurisdictions.
• Provide incentives to multiple-jurisdiction natural resource/open space protection planning (e.g., extra points on scoring rubrics for funding; special call for proposals, etc.).
• Review decision making assumptions and rubrics for awards and permits to identify bias toward rural, undeveloped areas outside existing small settlements.
• Housing: Standard regional land use planning practice includes a calculus of the expected population growth and how this translates into housing needs. As part of the pilot programs, the state may want to retrieve data of baseline housing needs assessment in the watersheds. The literature suggests that if there is sufficient demand and incentives for increased density are in place, the market will shift to multiple family or smaller houses. If these two conditions are not in place, higher densities are not likely to result. That is a planning/design issue, and the state can have an influence there, particularly on counties and through subdivision control. Enabled transfer of development rights would greatly augment the power of incentives for increasing the intensity of development of housing in existing settlements and PDAs.

State-level planning function

• The State of Ohio should create a state planning agency at the cabinet level that will have the following functions: 1) identify key investments, development and conservation areas and work with state agencies to coordinate programs and policies;  2) provide technical assistance in local and regional planning to jurisdictions; and  3) develop and provide data to local and regional jurisdictions, organizations and the public to support sound land planning practices.

Note: The conclusions offered here are the responsibility of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the policies or opinions of the Ohio Lake Erie Commission, EcoCity Cleveland, or the Joyce Foundation.