Stafford County, a locality that epitomizes the phrase “dysfunctional human settlement patterns,” is inviting fresh ways of looking at growth as it works on a new comprehensive plan. In a public hearing Monday, a 12-member committee entertained such notions as walkable communities, town centers and mixed-use development.
Jennifer Buske with the Stafford County Sun reported a number of spot-on comments during a public hearing Monday. Said Lee Quill of Cunningham-Quill Architects:
“Stafford’s screaming for a sense of place. … The courthouse area has amazing resources and there is tremendous opportunity there to create a town center. … Stafford is growing, I don’t have to tell you that. … So the question is, will growth shape you or will you shape it?”
“You will be surprised how little land is actually needed to create a great community,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Stafford has all the parts of a community – civic institutions, subdivisions, strip shopping, roadways and offices – yet they are so spread out that people must get into their cars to complete daily tasks. Mixed-use communities can place stores, schools, parks and other facilities within walking distance of homes.
“Three-fourths of trips under one mile are made by car and it’s these trips that clog all the roads,” said Ted Smart of Maryland Development Company. “Small neighborhood centers can keep people off arterial roads.”
Schwartz and Quill also sang the praises of grid street systems: “With a grid, you would be able to shut off a portion of Route 1 in your ‘downtown’ to hold multiple functions – like a parade,” Lee said. “The grid system allows the traffic to disperse.”
Currently, such smart growth concepts are, in a word, illegal. Stafford planner James Stepowany told the committee that county ordinances and zoning definitions — setback and buffer requirements, height restrictions and other rules — might need to be changed to allow a town center to take shape.
Moral of the story: Contemporary suburbia does not give consumers what they are looking for. It delivers what developers are allowed to build within the constraints of county codes. There is no free market in land development. There are regulations and subsidies but no free market.
