Following are examples of potential solutions now being debated and implemented in many areas--from Vermont to Arizona to California

• Purchase Land
  • A number of communities are now purchasing environmentally sensitive land or farmland to prevent development. For example:

    Citizens in Peninsula Township in Michigans's rural northwest recently voted to pay farmers to keep farming rather than to subdivide their land.

    Maryland's Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation Program includes $71 million to buy agricultural, forest or natural areas that may be developed.

    Tallahassee plans to pay $1 million to buy land that will increase the city's Rural Legacy Program.

    On the national level, 30 years ago, the federal government established the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which sets aside a percent of royalties from offshore oil drilling to acquire or expand recreation land and open space.

• Establish urban growth boundaries
  • An urban growth boundary (UGB) is an official line that separates an urban area farom its surrounding greenbelt of open lands, including farms, watersheds and parks. These boundaries protect the wide diversity of natural resources that wrap around population centers while funneling growth to areas with existing infrastructure. Increasingly, many rapidly expanding cities and towns are experimenting with UGBs.

    Oregon and Washington require all communities to draw long-term UGBs. Portland, Oregon has had a UGB in place since the 1970's with solid success. Though pressure on the boundary is mounting as buildable land inside the designated growth area shrinks, Portland is still one of the nation's most livable cities.

    Local jurisdictions, such as Boulder, Colorado, have fixed boundaries while others, including Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, have voluntary lines.

    Many areas in California have successfully put UGBs in place, including San Jose, Morgan Hill, Napa and Santa Rosa.

• Revitalize existing towns and cities
  • Momentum is developing to revitalize once-thriving towns and cities -- where mass transit, existing infrastructure and high-density living can support growth -- in order to draw potential residents and limit urban flight.

    Minneapolis has a tradition of investing in and maintaining its parks, which boosts real estate values and generates hundreds of millions in private redevelopment.

    Chattanooga, Tenn., cleaned up its once seriously polluted hometown river, the Tennessee, and created a riverfront park and a promenade that now attract both wildlife and people.

    To draw people (and the potential for revitalization) to inner neighborhoods, the state of Maryland gives at least $3,000 to people who buy a home in areas closer to their place of work. This provision is part of the state's smart growth plan passed this year.

• Approve open-space revenues
  • In the last couple of years, voters in many states across the country have approved local and county efforts to raise revenues in order to protect open space and slow suburban sprawl. For example:

    New Jersey voters recently approved Gov. Christine Todd Whitman's proposal to raise the gasoline tax to help preserve one million acres of undeveloped land over the next ten years.

    Monroe County in Pennsylvania approved a $25 million bond referendum to purchase undeveloped land over the next ten years.

    Voters in Austin, Texas supported an increase in water rates to raise money to protect thousands of acres of environmentally sensitive land around the city.

• Mobilize the grassroots
  • The many approaches now before policymaking bodies on the local, county or state levels are inspired by voter concern. Grassroots efforts are also focused on gaining a greater voice in the decision-making process. For example:

    Mary Handrick, founder of Protect Our Parks in a northwest suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, persuaded the cityn council to preserve the 300-acre Rum River Park and natural area instead of selling the parcel to developers.

    Residents in Spokane, Wash., have banded together to form Spokane Horizons project and are now working on a new comprehensive plan for the city for the 21st century -- a plan that will address issues like parking, new roads and infrastructure capacity while calling for a healthy downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. The plan will be presented to the city council this winter.

    A coalition of neighborhood and environmental groups in Arizona's Pima County developed a desert protection plan to protect the county's endangered species and preserve open spaces. The Board of Supervisors voted in early May to support it. This vote signified the first time the board had adopted a citizens' plan in more than 20 years.

    A neighborhood association near Atlanta succeeded in stopping the construction of a $13 million interchange that would have increased traffic in the area by 60 percent.

    The following are other tools that communities are using to direct development and reduce its negative impacts:

    • Agricultural zoning allows development only on lots of a minimum size and restricts land uses such as large subdivisions that are incompatible with farming.
    • Clustering allows the same number of lots on a given parcel of land, but requires that they be clustered on one portion of the parcel. Sensitive areas, buffers and open space are situated on the remaining land.
    • Conservation easements are created when land owners donate the development rights to their land to organizations such as the Virginia Outdoors Foundation. Land owners receive income-, property- and estate-tax relief. Land trusts may also purchase development rights.
    • Tax-base sharing seeks to reduce the difference in the relative financial health of local governments in a region and thereby reduce the competition for new development. Typically, the communities pool a portion of the growth in the commercial, industrial, and residential property-tax base and then redistribute it based on an agreed-on formula.
    • Transit-oriented development guidelines seek to strengthen redership on public transit by encouraging or requiring more compact mixed-use development around transit stops.