Mission Statement
Our mission is to share as much information as we can with other concerned citizens who are fighting their own battles to save their small towns. We invite you to join our growing network of grassroots organizations dedicated to preserving a way of life that is rapidly disappearing from the American landscape.
Rob Grant
SaveOurSmallTown.com

What’s great about small town living?
The air is clean! There is no pollution. We feel safe! Our doors are locked infrequently. Our neighbors are honest and friendly. Only recently have we learned to remove car keys from unattended vehicles – not because of any great dangers, but to make us more cautious and safe when we are in more heavily populated areas.

There are very few strangers in our small community. Most people know each other, and even if you are not truly acquainted, faces smile with recognition and greetings are exchanged with warmth. Friendly inquiries are made when there has been an experience with pain – or joy. Anytime a neighbor is suffering from ill health or some loss, the community is there to help, to lighten the burden, and to express their loving concern. Shopping for groceries, gas or supplies are social events, as neighbors share their recent adventures, concerns, and talk about the weather.

When a need for variety presents itself, we can visit the city and appreciate its offerings for entertainment and major shopping.

It is difficult to describe the many influences that create our exceptional quality of life here in a small town. There is a spirit of community here that is lacking in urban areas. As an individual, you matter! There is trust. There is an appreciation for the beauty of the land that surrounds this community. There is respect for that land because it is our source of livelihood. There is respect for each other, for we depend on each other, and yet, we are fiercely individual. We are truly blessed.

Land Development Issues
The design of a community can reduce land, pavement, water and driving consumption. Poorly planned development threatens our environment, our health, and our quality of life in numerous ways.
All development projects should preserve quality of life for both existing and future residents. Whenever possible, a project should also be designed to enhance quality of life.
A good Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) will achieve both goals by meeting the following three criteria:

All reasonable alternatives for achieving the project goals should be evaluated, including no-build.
All quality of life impacts, both positive and negative, resulting from each alternative must be identified.
Each alternative must be ranked objectively with respect to cumulative and individual quality of life impacts.
The research needed to fulfill these three criteria should be carried out in an open process where the public is provided with ample, independent background information and extensive opportunities to fully participate. Of course, the alternative should be that which has the most positive quality of life impact while coming closest to achieving the purposes of the project.

From the Save LakePlacid.com message board
Hi I am writing from California to commend you folks for fighting to preserve your property rights. We in Bloomington California are backed up against a wall. We are working to save our little town and are in the middle of a Incorporation effort. The powers against us are many with a large segment on boards and commissions we must go in front of. We are a non profit group that need to raise 109 thousand dollars by Feb 28th or our work will be for not, the county will set in redevelopment and our town soon will be a thing of the past. I was in hopes that in your battles you may of found some links to donors who believe in small towns and open spaces. If anyone there knows of such a person please give me a call 909 446 2679 thank you so much for your time and keep up the great work....

Visit
Save Saranac Lake.org
Concerned citizens working to preserve the unique Adirondack character of Saranac Lake, NY.

Quality of Life Growth Management Land Use Planning
from the CEDS Community Environmental Defense Services website

Development should preserve quality of life for both existing and future residents. Wherever possible, a development project should also be designed to make existing quality of life better. Both goals can be achieved through Quality of Life Growth Management Land Use Planning (QLGM)
The best way to keep your community a great place to live is to incorporate Quality of Life Growth Management Land Use Planning into every aspect of the local growth management process. A QLGM plan serves as the cornerstone in preserving and enhancing quality of life through growth management.

The QLGM plan is developed through a process that maximizes participation by all community members and consists of the following steps:

Through mechanisms such as public opinion surveys, neighborhood meetings, focus groups, and so forth, identify the quality of life factors the community views as important.
Through these same mechanisms, develop a set of objective criteria for evaluating how a specific growth scenario will affect each quality of life factor the community finds important.
Again using mechanisms which maximize public involvement, identify realistic growth scenarios for the community.
Through an open process, rate how each growth scenario will affect each quality of life factor using the community's quality of life impact criteria.
After circulating the results of the ratings, employ a variety of mechanisms for maximizing community participation in selecting the most desirable growth scenario, a combination of scenarios, or drafting new scenarios if all those previously identified fail to provide the benefits desired by the community.
Once the community reaches consensus on the most desirable growth scenario, a QLGM plan is drafted. The plan sets forth:
the process used to select the community's desired growth scenario;
the benefits this scenario will provide; and
the changes to laws, government programs, and other mechanisms required to achieve the community's desired pattern of growth.
The draft QLGM plan is then circulated throughout the community for review.
The final draft of the QLGM is formally adopted by the local elected body.
As stated above, to ensure that future growth patterns match the desired scenario set forth in the QLGM plan, local laws which regulate how development occurs must be amended accordingly. These laws would include zoning and subdivision ordinances, development regulations, etc. It may also be necessary to change how tax dollars are spent which would involve amendments to the local budget, the capital improvement program, etc.
This QLGM planning process should be repeated every six- to ten-years or whenever conditions warrant reconsideration of the community's desired growth scenario, such as when a major rezoning proposal is made or an annexation request is received.
The above is from the CEDS Community Environmental Defense Services website. A very informative booklette
can be read or downloaded for free from this great website! click here

PERC
-Property and Environment Research Center is the nation's oldest and largest institute dedicated to original research that brings market principles to resolving environmental problems. Located in Bozeman, Montana, PERC pioneered the approach known as free market environmentalism.

By Carl Pope from the PERC website

On Election Day 1998, Americans from California to New Jersey voted to slow growth, save forests and farmlands, and rein in development. In an unmistakable signal of rising saliency and political power, growth and land-use measures appeared on more than 200 state and county ballots nationwide.

In New Jersey, voters approved a 10-year plan to raise $1 billion to preserve 1 million acres of open space.
In Ventura County, California, voters overwhelmingly supported an initiative to prevent local planners from rezoning farmland and open space without voter approval.
In Florida, voters decided to extend the Florida bond authority to protect public land from sprawl.

What do millions of Americans know that Randall Holcombe's defense of sprawl ignores? To begin with, Americans are reacting to the actual impact of sprawl on their lives, not to Holcombe's abstract economic argument that it could be good.

In fact, it turns out not to be good. Sprawl is a ubiquitous problem, and Americans-whether they live in urban Atlanta or rural Washtenaw County, Michigan -are deciding that current planning and development practices come with more costs than benefits. Development plans that may have worked fifty years ago are no longer the answer for today's growth.

There are the obvious environmental costs of sprawl-lost open space and natural habitats, increased air pollution from more traffic, depleted water quality caused by urban runoff. Holcombe's argument that "low densities" help the environment shows an abysmal shallowness. He seems to assume that if yards were not filled with trees and grass, there would be less vegetation in the metropolitan area. In reality, of course, sprawl neighborhoods typically replace farmland or open space that was 100 percent vegetation and permeable soils and replace them with neighborhoods that are 30 percent or more concrete, asphalt, or structure with unvegetated, impermeable surfaces.

The worst environmental impact of sprawl is the least avoidable. Sprawl, by definition, fragments landscapes-and fragmented landscapes are the biggest threat to America's wildlife heritage. Sprawl is very good for the most adaptable and common creatures-raccoons, deer, sparrows, starlings, sea gulls-all do well-and devastating for wildlife that is more dependent upon privacy, seclusion, and protection from such predators as dogs and cats.

There are obvious qualityof- life problems caused by sprawl-more time caught in traffic caused by auto-dependent lives, abandoned urban communities, remote and isolated suburban neighborhoods.

But sprawl has an economic cost, too. Tax policies contribute to the public's growing dissatisfaction with sprawl. American taxpayers are actually subsidizing the extent and pace of sprawl through local, state, and federal spending, which increases to fund new development. That means a choice between more taxes or less spending in other deserving areas.

Some advocates of sprawl argue, "Well, then just get rid of the subsidies." Holcombe blithely opines that "it is the responsibility of local governments to see that the costs of water, sewer, roads, and so forth are charged to development."

I wonder what planet he lives on. When localities try to charge developers even a fraction of the true costs, those developers and other sprawl advocates fight back fiercely. In California efforts to charge new developments the full costs of new water supplies, which are far greater than those of the more efficient reservoirs built first, have run into tremendous resistance. In Alabama and New York developers are trying to hold on to federally subsidized flood insurance on the ground that it is a "right." The reality is that if we really got rid of the subsidies to sprawl, we would also get rid of sprawl.

The sums involved in the subsidies are huge. In Fairfax County, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C., the 1997 budget of $1.8 billion ran a deficit of $146 million. In nearby Prince William County, taxpayers spend $3,838 to provide services to a single household, but only receive $2,150. A report released last month by Rutgers University looked at the costs of sprawl to South Florida. Adding up the price tags on new land development, new roads, and new infrastructure, the report found that sprawl in South Florida alone is costing an astounding $6.15 billion.

Holcombe does not cite a single case in which the kind of low-density sprawl he defends occurred in the absence of massive public subsidies. He doesn't because he can't. There are no such examples.

It is not accidental that in the last era of metropolitan growth prior to the massive federal and state subsidies for highways, sewers, etc., the development pattern that emerged was of compact suburban developments with mixed use, light and heavy rail transit, and an almost total absence of leapfrog and strip development-America's streetcar suburbs from the 1900-1925 era.

Taken together, these factors are fueling local action and a national debate. Americans are demanding common-sense solutions and smarter growth.

Fortunately, there are at least three options that provide guidance for urban growth planners charged with preparing plans for future growth:

The first option is purchasing open space and farmland for preservation. Citizens in Peninsula Township in Northwest Michigan recently voted to pay farmers to keep farming rather than sell their land to developers for subdivision. 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. Such purchase programs, ideally, could be financed from the windfall profits made by landowners who benefit from new publicly financed infrastructure -those around a new
The second option growth planners should utilize is marking and promoting urban growth boundaries (UGBs). Oregon and Washington states have blazed trails in this area by requiring all communities to design long-term UGBs. Portland, Oregon, has had an urban growth boundary in place since the 1970s. While Portland is one of the most popular cities in America and has witnessed significant population growth, its urban growth boundary has preserved open space around Portland and helped make Portland one of the world's most livable cities.
The third option planners should pursue is reinvestment in urban areas and revitalization of existing towns and cities. In 1997 Maryland enhanced its existing planning requirements with Smart Growth legislation, which promotes state funding to priority growth areas such as existing municipalities and enterprise zones.

Taken together, these three options for controlling growth will help alleviate the costs and consequences of new development.

Holcombe argues that "left to its own devices, development will occur in a decentralized manner, which will usually lead different types of activity to be conveniently located in relation to one another." This fascinating argument overlooks hundreds of years of urban history in which development, left to its own devices, prior to the era of either zoning or governmental subsidies, followed anything but a decentralized pattern.

Indeed, the classic original argument for both regulation and subsidy in urban landscapes was that, left to its own devices, development was too centralized and intense for human welfare. Freeways, zoning laws, and urban renewal were all developed to overcome the "natural" tendency of development to concentrate and cluster.

If there is any one constant in our history, it is our nation's ability to learn from our mistakes, to change with the times, to try something "new and improved." We have come to a new day in national growth policy. The economic and social benefits of urban renewal far outweigh the national drain accompanying sprawl. Americans everywhere are promoting a new approach to community planning, and the time has come for the planners to catch up with the public.

SAVE 'TOWN LAKE'
Issue:
Buildings are required to be set back 200 feet from Town Lake in
the South Shore Central area of Austin, Texas. CWS Capital Partners is requesting a variance in order to build 80 feet from the water. The case goes before the Parks Board in December 2006and the Planning Commission will make a final
decision early next year.

OUR CONCERNS
Town Lake is literally, by geography, and figuratively, by ambience, the heart of Austin. This corridor is flanked by downtown, the Long Center for the Performing Arts, the Palmer Events Center and by some of the city’s oldest neighborhoods – Bouldin, Barton Hills, Old West Austin, Travis Heights, Rainey Street. The new Austin City Hall overlooks the lake. Office buildings, hotels, restaurants, apartments and condominiums join open space in cradling the lake.

The Town Lake Hike and Bike Trail is the thread that sews the lake to its surrounding neighborhoods. The trail is recognized by national runner magazines as one of the finest recreational running facilities in the nation. What makes it special? There is room to breathe and lots of nature to experience right in the heart of the city. Runners, walkers, strollers, bicyclists, meditators, picnickers, dogs and their owners all have a sense of freedom from urban chaos because of the openness of the lake area. This openness is created because the current buildings are set appropriately back from the shore.

Contrast two comparable-use structures along the lake – the Hyatt and the Four Seasons. One crowds the shoreline, the other keeps a respectful distance. To any lake or trail user, the difference is stark. The space in front of the Four Seasons allows room to stop, to watch, to sit, or as one visitor put it, ‘to saunter, like y’all do down here.’ The dark alleyway in front of the Hyatt forces users to hurry through the corridor and to feel like intruders. Intruders on a PUBLIC lake???

This web site is here because of a redevelopment proposal for the property at 222-300 E. Riverside, the third in the last year along Town Lake. The project is the next in a line of 20+ properties to be redeveloped in the Town Lake area. The developer wants approvals from the city’s Parks Board and Planning Commission to create another Hyatt-type alleyway… to go against the decades-old consensus for the lake. The developer, CWS Capital Partners, wants to hurry people along, rather than allowing them room to saunter or sit a spell. The combined primary and secondary setback requirements for this area of the Waterfront Overlay District are 200 feet. Limited and very specific development is allowed in each of the setbacks, but the primary development must be setback the full 200 feet from the lake edge. This measurement was established with the l985 Waterfront Overlay Ordinance as a result of the Hyatt’s choice to crowd the shore. CWS Capital Partners are requesting a variance from this 200 feet. They would like to erect their 20 story condos only 80 feet from the shoreline.

We are concerned that by giving this developer such a concession, it not only creates another private-atmosphere tunnel along the lake, but sets a MAJOR precedent for the dozens of projects that are being planned on the shores of our beautiful, public lake.

Please contact the Parks Board, Parks Staff, City Planning Commission and the Austin City Council. Let them know that you are concerned. You want Town Lake to remain a special, accessible, public place.
click here to read more

CASE STUDY: Lake Placid NY
www.Save Lake Placid.com

The Proposed Lake Placid Hilton Redevelopment Plan
The Lake Placid Hilton has proposed a five story condominium project on the site of the Hilton-owned Lake View Motel on Saranac Avenue and Mirror Lake Drive in downtown Lake Placid. This project calls for a 46-unit condominium complex on the site of their existing Lake View Motel on Mirror Lake Drive.

Request for four substantial variances
The project must receive four different variances from the Adirondack Park Agency and local Lake Placid Zoning Board of Appeals.
1)The first variance request is to allow for more parking spaces than are currently allowed in the C-1 zoning district.
2)The second variance is for a conditional use variance because the building would be closer than 100 feet to a residential district.
3)The third variance is a request to construct the building 19 feet and 10 inches higher than the 30 feet maximum height currently allowed.
4)The fourth variance is for a significant setback in the front yard of the building.