Four the Future - September 3

Today: Conservation Futures, public safety with a sunny disposition, and energy efficiency projections.

• Proposed park could preserve LL-area hillside
  Source: Liberty Lake Splash; August 18, 2010
  Summary: The failure of the Marshall Chesrown's Legacy Ridge development has left the property in the hands of AmericanWest Bank. The bank has proposed that it be sold to the county through the Conservation Futures program for $2.6 million. It could include a trail system over the hillside between Liberty Lake and Saltese Flats.
  
  
  
  Opinion: Full disclosure: as a city councilmember for Liberty Lake, I lobbied to deny this area’s entry into the urban growth area (which would have allowed it to be developed), and that effort was successful. So, I’m naturally drawn to making it a protected area and preventing it from being developed. County Commissioner Mark Richard even came to Liberty Lake to threaten the city with legal action if we didn’t support bringing it in. So, to have Commissioner Richard making the decision? I seriously doubt it will be protected. On the other hand, this next story indicates it’s unlikely to happen anyway....
• Open space designation fields many nominees in county
  Source: Spokesman-Review; September 2, 2010
  Summary: Thirty-six parcels have been nominated to be acquired by Spokane County under the Conservation Futures program. Conservation Futures is funded through a special property tax dedicated to the purchase and preservation of threatened open spaces. The Spokesman-Review web site is making a map and specific parcel list available.
  Opinion: According to purpose of the Conservation Futures program is to "maintain, preserve, conserve and otherwise continue in existence adequate open space lands for the production of food, fiber and forest crops, and to assure the use and enjoyment of natural resources and scenic beauty." The county maintains a statement and park locator. The fact that there are some worthwhile properties available which exceed the available annual funding is more proof that the purchase of the YMCA building in Riverfront Park was unwise. And this unfortunate funding restriction will persist for 20 years unless the park property is repurchased using unrestricted funds and Conservation Futures is refunded.
• Solar panels provide backup power for Liberty Lake police
  Source: Spokesman-Review; September 2, 2010
  Summary: The City of Liberty Lake has installed 60 solar panels on the roof of the police station/library building. The police department has a bank of batteries which can power its servers and communications equipment. The solar panels will keep the batteries available for up to 72 hours during a power outage. During normal operation, the solar panels will reduce the amount of energy purchased from Avista. Excess power will be sold back to Avista.
  Opinion: Proof that sustainability and resilience are two sides of the same coin. People who are opposed to sustainability: please explain how losing data access and communications is good for public safety.
• Doing More While Using Less Power
  Source: New York Times; September 1, 2010
  Summary: Energy efficiency is not the same as energy conservation. With conservation, you make do with less. Efficiency means that you can do more with what you already have. Appliances have become more efficient—like refrigerators have, on average become 4% more efficient each year since the 70’s, yet are larger. Light duty vehicles could double their efficiency by 2035. Buildings could use 60% less energy by installing present technologies. One researcher says that the United States could reduce its projected energy needs by 88 percent by 2050.
  Opinion: Reduce by 88 percent. No, I checked. That’s not a typo. As is observed in the article, this is easy stuff but industry seems to be "utterly uninterested." Yes, it can take upfront investment, but what doesn’t? And with up to 40 percent return on investment, there is a serious disconnect here. Perhaps Mayor Newsom’s building efficiency audits would help. It might even help more if the stockholders were informed of ways to make those kinds of margins. Or, better yet, disinvest in poorly performing companies and invest in businesses (and regions) which are more efficient and better prepared to succeed in tight markets.

Four the Future - September 1

To kick off your Sustainable September: Measuring energy efficiency, city awards, auto accident costs, and living without automobiles.

• Mayor introduces ecofriendly bill
  Source: San Francisco Chronicle; August 11, 2010
  Summary: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom wants commercial buildings in the city to conduct an energy audit for their buildings every 5 years and updated annually. The reports would include the cost of energy-saving upgrades, and their expected annual savings. The reports would be made available to the public, and distributed to tenants. The local Building Owners and Managers Association is in favor.
  Opinion: Excellent move, if executed properly. People fix what they measure, and when they see the large return on investment on energy efficiency measures, they will begin to embrace them. Additionally, it will serve as a great way for foundations to direct energy efficiency grants, giving San Francisco an advantage over other communities.
• City of Spokane Receives Award
  Source: Councilman Jon Snyder; August 20, 2010
  Summary: The City of Spokane received an award from the American Planning Association and Planning Association of Washington "for its greenhouse gas inventory reports and Sustainability Action Plan." The blog entry lists a number of different activities that the City has performed to become more resilient.
  Opinion: The efforts the city is putting forward to make itself and the community more sustainable are commendable. Only crazed conspiracy theorists (John Ahern, Nancy McLaughlin, Mike Fagan, etc.) and their credulous followers can get in the way.
• Safety: Assessing the National Bill for Crashes
  Source: New York Times; August 30, 2010
  Summary: Automobile accidents account for nearly $100 billion annually, but only about 17% is direct medical costs. The vast majority is due to lost wages, productivity and costs associated with disability. Men account for about three-quarters of the cost. Teenagers, 14% of the population, account for a third of the cost. And motorcycle drivers and bicyclists cost twice as much when injured, due to the extent of injury. Seatbelts, increased speed enforcement, child safety seats and alcohol ignition lock-outs reduce the costs. Restrictions on teenage driving also helps.
  Opinion: What isn’t mentioned in the article is that one of the best ways to reduce those costs is greater transit ridership. People on rail and buses are almost immune, as the aggregate fatality risk for autos is 1,300 times greater than for buses.
• In German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars
  Source: New York Times; May 11, 2009
  Summary:
  
  
  Seventy percent of families in Vauban, a subdivision in suburban Freiburg, Germany, do not have cars. What roads they have do not permit cars to park. Driveways and home garages are generally forbidden. There are parking garages on the edge of the neighborhood which cost $40,000. Bikes are common, as is use of the tram which goes through the one square mile community. Originally a military base, it was not designed with auto traffic in mind. When cars are needed, people can rent from the auto club. Americans are often suspicious of anything that reduces car usage, but there is a similar concept being developed in California named Quarry Village.
  Opinion: If the concept interests you (as it does me, if merely as a living laboratory so we can optimize such places), feel free to dig deeper. The Wikipedia page links to some other newspapers. There’s a series of photos (including the one above) available here. Some of the architecture is, shall we say, uninspired. But, that’s something we fix in the next version, right?

Four the Future - August 31

Today: signage blight, Intel-ligent vegetables, food carts, and parking lot tax proposal.

• Britain being "overrun" by street signs
  Source: Reuters; Aug 26, 2010
  Summary: There are so many signs, including traffic signs and advertising boards, that English cities are looking like "scrapyards." Money quote: "When busy Kensington High Street in central London was stripped of excess [signage], for example, it helped reduce accidents by 47 percent."
  
  
  
  Opinion: This is a public safety issue, complicated by the fact that signage is nothing more than an arms race. Each sign is competing for your attention. If it becomes hidden behind another sign, it is expanded to take up more of your view. Eventually the community looks like a college dorm room. The only solution is to limit the size and number of signs to something that prevents anyone from attempting to gain an advantage over everyone else.
• When geeks garden, radish technology advances
  Source: News Tribune; July 12, 2010
  Summary: Intel’s offices in DuPont, Washington, are sprouting gardens. They’re learning about the various vegetables they can grow, and are experimenting with soils amendments. They designed a hexagonal planting method. Their café produces compost from the four buckets of prep waste each day. “In late June they harvested 70 pounds of radishes from a 5-by-6-foot section of a raised bed.” Peas were coplanted with the radishes, so, even more produce will be coming from that same small amount of space. Intel encourages the activity because it saves time for the employees.
  Opinion: Getting the cubical denizens some time outside in the garden is also going to increase the employees’ productivity and morale. And food banks in Pierce and Thurston Counties are benefiting from the oversupply of fresh vegetables.
• Street renaissance under way in Vancouver
  Source: Globe and Mail; July 9, 2010
  
  
  
  Summary: Vancouver, British Columbia, is experimenting with creating an on-street food cart culture. When they offered 17 locations, about 800 vendors signed up. The city was looking to be more like Portland, Oregon, which has over 450 street food vendors. The locations will be subject to the health department. The CEO of the food services association was pleased with the enthusiasm. He expects that the carts would appeal to the “brown bag” crowd who don't visit the restaurants anyway.
  Opinion: I was thinking about this topic in mid-June due the Spovangelist mentioning it and doing a lovely job of encouraging an expansion. I agree with her: Spokane could stand to have more of this kind of activity as well. (And now I'm thinking—wow! We were ahead of Vancouver, BC?! Not anymore.) At the time, I humbly suggested that we could kill two birds with one stone: license fees for surface parking lots, with a rebate for food carts on the lot. Well, imagine what I felt when I read the next story....
• Parking tax debate turns to growth
  Source: Spokesman-Review; August 21, 2010
  Summary: The City of Spokane is now considering an annual parking lot tax of $10 to more than $100 per space per year. The tax would go to street maintenance. This tax, however, would not generate much revenue. Mayor Verner is interested, but is more interested if it exempts structured parking. The owner of Diamond Parking agrees that parking is not the best use of land downtown, but the owners of the parking lots are merely holding the land, and making a few dollars, until such time as the economy supports building.
  Opinion: There is an immense amount of parking available in downtown Spokane. And, hey, if they don’t want to pay the tax, they can make a food cart stall, perhaps! Or they can do any of these other things, ideas kindly supplied by the Spovangelist and friends.

Four the Future - August 30

Today: moratorium abuse, downsizing housing, Sustainable September's Mariah McKay, and new automobile window stickers.

• Lake Whatcom building ban extended another 6 months
  Source: The Bellingham Herald; August 11, 2010
  Summary: The Whatcom County Council passed a resolution extending a 5-year old building moratorium in a portion of Lake Whatcom's watershed. Lake Whatcom is the water supply for half of the county. The moratorium is preventing the construction of up to 200 homes. The council is attempting to put a workable transfer of development rights proposal in place.
  Opinion: Moratoria are complex. If you announce you're going to have a moratorium or that rules are going to change in any way, people can subvert the process by filing for a development permit which is protected from rule changes under the state's vesting laws. So, state law recognizes that they are put in place with very limited or no public notice, but limits them to six months to permit time to have the public conversation necessary to put suitable rules in place. However, they can be extended without limit. Five years is ridiculous; it's easy to argue it's an abuse of power. More likely, however, is that they don't know what their plan is, so they can't make progress. I believe that the law regarding moratoria should be amended so that any extension past six months from the initial moratorium require that there have been a public hearing on a proposed work plan to end the moratorium. This shows accountability to the public, and makes the legislative authority demonstrate that it understands that the power to place nonstatutory moratoria is not unlimited. Even without a current obligation to do so, their planning department should present one for adoption by the county council anyway.
• Tiny houses simpler, easier on the environment
  Source: Missoulian; August 28, 2010
  See Also: Four the Future - August 29
  Summary: For 55 years, American houses grew larger and larger, peaking in 2007 at 2,521 square feet. This compares to the average of 800 sq. ft. in the original modern subdivision, Levittown, just after World War II. This was despite a steady decrease in the family size. In the same way it's becoming more fashionable to own a Mini Cooper than a Ford Expedition, there's a new trend to make homes smaller. However, governments make it difficult to build smaller houses.
  Opinion: Looking back, this now seems inevitable. The growth of house size followed the growth of the boomers and their parents. When their parents downsized, the sheer number of boomers hid the trend. Now that the boomers are looking to downsize, so, too, is the average house size. Governments which were at first enrolled to "protect the investment" of the boomers by forbidding smaller units now have the duty to start allowing the boomers to downsize by allowing smaller, more efficient,less costly living spaces for everyone.
• Face Time: Nonprofit employee talks about sustainability
  Source: The Spokesman-Review; August 30, 2010
  
  
  
  Summary: The Spokesman-Review interviews Mariah Rose McKay about the upcoming Sustainable September events next month. Over 100 events are planned, and more are being added. Many events are free.
  Opinion: There is a full calendar at the web site. Sustainability allows us to live a life which won't be taken away from us due to lack of resources or foresight. Its alternative, embracing the inability to be resilient in the face of challenges, is simply defeatist. So, how do we live an intentionally wise life? Education. And this is a great way to do it. Thank you, Community-Minded Enterprises, and especially the dynamically resilient Mariah.
• E.P.A. Develops Grading System for New Car Stickers
  Source: New York Times; August 30, 2010
  Summary: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) has designed new auto window stickers to help consumers compare vehicles. Rather than comparing vehicles against others in their class, now all vehicles will be compared against all over vehicles, and assigned a composite letter grade. Vehicles will get a grade between D and A+. No failing grades will be issued. Vehicles will also be compared based on mileage, annual cost of fueling, greenhouse emissions and other air pollutants.
  Opinion: There is a whole range of colored labels for vehicles. Samples are available at the EPA web site (PDF, 16MB). The labels include several measures by which a consumer may judge a vehicle. This is important because hybrids treat fuel differently. If you're driving short distances, you may not use any fuel at all, so how do you compare that to a gasoline-only vehicle? Having multiple measures helps with that. I also support that there are no failing grades. "Failure" means that it shouldn't be allowed on the road at all. That's what emissions testing is for. But, let's not fool ourselves. Most SUV's get a C, and the highest grade any minivan gets is a C+, because of their inefficiency for single occupancy travel. If Americans were better at trip planning and sharing rides, that would make them more palatable. Carpool, anyone?

Four the Future - August 29

• Risk-Taking Rises as Oil Rigs in Gulf Drill Deeper
  Source: New York Times; August 29, 2010
  Summary: Oil rigs have been built farther and farther out into the Gulf of Mexico. However, risks do not increase with increasing depth of drilling, but, instead with greater complexity. While the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon was only a drilling rig, Shell's Perdido rig "can drill and pump oil from wells across 30 miles of ocean floor. Below it is a subsea cityscape of pumps, pipes, valves, manifolds, wellheads and blowout preventers...." Undersea drilling had been deemed safe due to a limited number of reported accidents. But, according to a former industry executive, "Our ability to manage risks hasn't caught up with our ability to explore and produce in deep water."
  Opinion: The issue here is not that they're drilling deeper, but that our energy consumption isn't linked to the risks being experienced. If the nation's petroleum users are willing to take those risks, that's fine, but it should be a conscious decision. Additionally, the full costs associated with those risks should be borne by their consumers. The BP oil spill proves that this nation is not fully allocating those costs, not doing enough to mitigate those risks, nor prepared to deal with the consequences when those risks are realized. Ultimately, when someone argues that it's too expensive to deal with those issues, they're admitting that this nation is not willing to pay the price of our current petroleum addiction.
• Free parking isn't free
  Source: The Spokesman-Review; August 29, 2010
  Summary: Editor Gary Crooks discovers Donald Shoup's "The High Cost of Free Parking." He makes an estimable stab at the topic, laying out the problem with the hidden costs of "free" parking built into everything we buy, and into every time we travel.
  Opinion: the problem is not that it costs money to park, but that local government, through its land use code, has forced such a massive oversupply of parking that it's literally worthless in most places. In addition to being a massive waste of space, it moves every place you want to get to farther apart, necessitating the ownership of a car to get around. You can check it out from the Spokane City Library. Predictably, it's not available at Spokane County or Liberty Lake libraries.
• Homebuilders hope boomers beat a new path to their doors
  Source: The Spokesman-Review; February 7, 2010
  Summary: Homebuilders are pleased that the baby boomers are aging and wanting to downsize their homes. A quarter of the US population will be 55 or older in 2014. While 60 percent want to stay in their homes, the remainder want alternatives. More than 75 percent of these potential homebuyers want to live in the suburbs. They're only wanting to pay $190,000, though--a far cry from the $287,000 the builders want.
  Opinion: They can't live in the suburbs. For the past 50 years, governments have been making rules (which the baby boomers wanted) to prevent this kind of development. They want 1,900 square foot houses, which means that they're only paying $100/square foot which means either: 1) lower quality finishings, which they won't like because they compare unfavorably from what they came from, or 2) less land between the houses, which is not suburbia. They're also likely to be looking for homes with just one floor to make getting around easier. But, that also takes more land for the same space. Plus, they don't have as much equity as they think. If so many baby boomers want to move, the massive number of houses on the market will push prices down. Elected officials have been told this was going to happen for at least a decade, and it takes that long to get substantial change in the land use patterns. But, I guess, at least I'm happy that while the solution has been staring Spokane and the region in the face for a long time, at least there's an article in the newspaper which shows that someone has gotten up to noticing that there might be a problem. (By the way, Liberty Lake has a development on Appleway which may help with this problem despite significant opposition on the council and a self-defeating limit on density.)
• Seattle may create transportation taxing district
  Source: The Seattle Times; August 10, 2010
  Summary: Seattle is considering the creation of a transportation benefit district (TBD) to fund transportation projects within the city. TBD's are permitted to charge a $20 car tab fee without a vote of the people, and up to $100 with a public vote. Additionally, the TBD may also charge 0.2 cent sales tax and property taxes with a public vote.
  Opinion: This is the same type of district that the City of Spokane is considering for its well documented transportation woes (not congestion because the concept of congestion in Spokane is laughable, but asset preservation). There is another TBD in Spokane County already--the Liberty Lake Trails TBD which built a number of trails connecting throughout the community, and, with the help of the city, the pedestrian bridge over the freeway. However, that was an older version of the TBD statute which only authorized a property tax. The $20 car tab fee is new.

Comments on Covenants

Division Three of the Washington Court of Appeals recently circulated an unpublished decision in the case of Mitschke v Nielsen in which several legal concepts regarding land use covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CCR's) were addressed. Many people think of CCR's as the tool of homeowner associations to enforce neighborhood rules such as house color, architectural standards, use restrictions, and such that some people like to have, but are considered to be outside the power of government to enforce (or trivial from the public point of view).

CCR's are basically contracts which run with the land. When a property is sold, the new owner is obligated to accept the terms of the contract as a condition of the sale.

While the specifics of the case aren't important (except, clearly, to the individuals involved), the ruling of the court was that the purported covenant was unenforceable. That, for those who live in neighborhoods with CCR's, might be important to you. So, what happened?

The court concluded that the specific covenant was not acknowledged by each property owner when it was sold to them. That is, in order to be subject to a covenant, the new property owner must be aware of it and agree to it. Of course, agreeing to it must also be a condition of the sale of the property.

Also, there were irregularities in the documentation itself, some glaringly bizarre: the name of the subdivision was that of a different neighborhood and the name of the neighborhood the litigants lived in was handwritten at the top of the page, also, there was no reference to the location of the properties.

The covenant had several articles to which property owners were purportedly required to adhere. Number 4 limits garages to two cars. Number 6 forbade loud animals. Number 9 required that all alterations be approved by the architectural control committee (ACC). The covenant also forbade commercial enterprises without the permission of the ACC.

The trial court found as a matter of fact that each of these articles had been violated multiple times by multiple residents. Indeed, even the Mitschke family had violated the commercial enterprise requirement. It concluded that because of the frequency of violations, the neighborhood had abandoned the CCR's, even if they had been enforceable.

(The phrase that's used regarding the Mitschke family's violation of the CCR's is interesting. It's best for you all to remember that if you're going to attempt to enforce questionable CCR's, "a person must come into a court of equity with clean hands." Pierce County v. State, 144 Wn. App. 783, 832, 185 P.3d 594 (2008) (citing Income Investors, Inc. v. Shelton, 3 Wn.2d 599, 602, 101 P.2d 973 (1940)). In other words, don't violate the CCR's, then complain that someone else is, too.)

Outside this particular case, it's also important to remember that government agencies will not enforce CCR's. They are private party contracts, and need to be enforced by the people of the neighborhood. Failure to enforce your CCR's will invalidate them, so 1) make sure you're enthusiastic about doing so, and 2) make sure that when your neighborhood no longer wishes to enforce particular sections that you alter the CCR's or your failure to enforce one portion may invalidate your ability to enforce the rest.

Another thing of which you must be aware: covenants cannot be contrary to the public good. Even if your neighborhood wants to have rules which violate the law, and everyone agrees to violate the law, you still are not wise to come to a court and convince it to force someone who moves in to violate the law. So, for those neighborhoods which have limitations on the number of residential units on a lot (i.e. single family homes), if city or county law says that it's a public good that accessory dwelling units (ADU, i.e. granny flats or apartments over garages) be allowed, then the covenant will not be valid on that point, and people will be able to add the ADU.

Covenants can be useful for homeowner's associations, and homeowners associations can provide useful services to a neighborhood (such as maintaining common property like the roads, trails, and pocket parks). As a source of social control, they do leave a great deal to be desired. However, if this is your preferred method of limiting the freedoms of your neighbors, then make sure you're doing it vigorously.

The City

As part of my Introduction to Urban and Regional Planning, I was shown a movie produced in 1939 entitled, "The City." The punchline? Planners caused sprawl because their work was connected to theory, and not to data. Insist that your planners use data, not ideology, to drive their work.

Part one:



And, Part two: