Building Sensible Communities

We lose our souls if we lose the experience of the forest, the butterflies, the song of the birds, if we can’t see the stars at night.
- Thomas Berry

We must move from a malign human presence on the earth to a benign one. How to do this?  Answering this question is the great work for this and future generations of U.S. citizens.  There are no sound bite solutions or simple formulas; rather, strategies for creating a new kind of human presence on the earth require many moving parts, policy and life changes in many aspects of our private and common life.

Sierra Club and our partner organizations support Building Sensible Communities because they will protect our great outdoors and ensure a high quality of life by giving us more options about where we live and how we get around.  Current limited transportation choices and development patterns separate work and home creating congestion, pollution, and high travel costs.  Sensible communities reduce the need to drive by giving people more transportation choices and giving residents better access to jobs, schools, shops, and parks. This will help reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions while also helping to protect water quality.

Sensible communities also strive to position jobs and housing closer together to reduce vehicle miles traveled. They also strategically focus development at higher densities in locations where it makes sense (like near transit stops), so that we can preserve more farmland and open space on the developing edge of our cities. This will have the effect of reducing air pollutants, increasing water quality, and preserving farmland and open space.  It will also reduce the need for costly new sewer, road and other infrastructure costs expansion.

This Sensible Communities fact sheet expands on these benefits.

The Building Sensible Communities legislation establishes how transportation and land-use planning can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2025, a goal Minnesotans set for themselves.   At the 2007 signing of the Next Generation Energy Act that established this goal, Governor Tim Pawlenty said, “The best time to have taken action on energy issues would’ve been 30 years ago. The second best time is right now.”

This important legislation has already passed six committees in the Senate and 4 committees in the House this session. (SF549 and HF0898 ).   Many legislators agree with Gov. Pawlenty and those of us who want to use all the tools we can to move toward a benign human presence on the earth.

What exactly will it do?

Section 1 of the Senate bill (you can read it yourself by clicking on the link provided above) says the legislature finds changes are necessary in development patterns, land use planning and development practices. Why?  We need them to achieve greenhouse reduction goals already adopted in Minnesota law (80% by 2025 and 80% by 2050).  In particular these changes need to target growth in ways that reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled.

Section 2 adds carbon sequestration to the public values considered when evaluating wetlands.

Section 3 establishes a Sensible Communities Grant Program to assist local units of government as they modify their ordinances to support such things as:  transportation alternatives, increasing the quality of wetlands, wildlands, lakes and rivers and expanding life-cycle housing opportunities.

Sections 4 and 5 change school facility siting so that schools can be located closer to the center of town, rather than be forced to the outskirts of town, which increases the likelihood that children will be able to safely walk and bike to the school.

Sections 6 and 7 tell the commissioner of transportation to create and see that others create policies that will achieve by 2025 a reduction of 15 percent in the number vehicle miles traveled in 2005.

Section 8 adds greenhouse gas reduction to the impacts list of topics that the Metropolitan Council considers as part of its planning.

Section 9 creates a Twin Cities regional goal to reduce the amount that the average resident has to drive by 17% of 2005 by 2025 to the Metropolitan Council’s transportation planning.  The Council will incorporate this goal into their transportation and land-use planning processes. The Council is encouraged to work with University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies.

Section 10 adds reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through a reduction in vehicles miles traveled to the Council’s Livable Communities Criteria and Guidelines.

Sections 11-14 alter the timeline for the every-ten-year comprehensive plan amendments that cities in the Twin Cities region are required to complete. The change would mean that the plans would be done closer to release of important Census data that help direct decisions in those plans.

Section 15 would fund a comprehensive program by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies. The program would focus on providing communities with land-use and transportation planning strategies that they could use to reduce the need to drive.