Colorado Sprawl Action
Center's
Growth Management Toolkit
Table of Contents | Introduction | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
Planning
for Public Services - Concurrency:
Problem | Solution | Applications
| Internet Resources
Problem
Colorado is experiencing a high rate of population growth and new developments are being built at a rapid pace. Some developments are approved and built with inadequate planning for or provision of public services. Without sufficient planning for and requirements related to public services new developments are sometimes completed well before public services are available. This leaves new residents with new homes and a lack of adequate services.
New residents in developments that are not properly linked to the provision of public services may suffer in a wide variety of ways. The following are included among the public services that may not be provided in a timely or adequate manner: roads, water, sewer, solid waste removal, schools, parks, police services, fire services, and mass transit facilities. Thus, residents may move into new developments and then have to wait or even fight for the provision of paved roads or other public services and facilities.
| "Sprawl is the result of over five decades of subsidies paid for by the American taxpayer. These range from the obvious to the obscure and include big projects-like the billions we spend on new roads as well as smaller ones-like the tax-breaks that encourage businesses to move to the edge of town. We've subsidized sprawl at such a basic level for so long, that many people believe the status quo is actually fair and neutral." -from "Sprawl Costs Us All" by The Challenge to Sprawl Committee |
Solution
Communities
can establish requirements that ensure that specified public services must
be available at the time of completion of a development prior to approving
a development application. Concurrency requirements can be created so that
any number of specified public services must be guaranteed to be available
when a proposed development is completed—such guarantee must come prior to
approval of the development application.
Concurrency requirements have been enacted by many local governments and state governments to ensure that public services and facilities are not overburdened by the impacts of new developments. They also ensure that new residents have adequate public services and facilities available to them when they move into new developments.
Concurrency requirements can cover any number of required public services or facilities as specified by the state or local government. Some of the services and facilities typically required include roads, police services, fire protection services, schools, parks, mass transit facilities, water services, sewer services, and solid waste removal. Concurrency requirements can include specified public services and facilities of concern to the local or state government enacting the requirements.
By instituting concurrency requirements communities can more effectively link the approval of development applications to both long term planning and the provision of public services and facilities. In this way communities and new residents are protected against the potential that developments reach completion before adequate services and facilities are available.
Applications
Local:
Communities can establish concurrency requirements, requirements that specified
public services or facilities are guaranteed to be available at the time of
completion of a development prior to the approval of the development application.
This ensures that development applications are not approved, and developments
are not completed, where public services and facilities will not be available
at the time of completion.
Concurrency requirements may cover a wide range of public services or facilities. A community typically will specify the services and facilities of concern to the community and establish requirements regarding the specified services and facilities. The services and facilities specified often include roads, police services, fire protection services, schools, parks, mass transit facilities, water services, sewer services, and solid waste removal.
Concurrency requirements may apply to all or a subset of development applications. Such requirements may be established either through the legislative body of the local government or through the initiative process.
| "If there were less abandonment of existing cities, if more new investment went into bypassed parts of already urbanized areas, if new development were in "pedestrian pockets" or other kinds of planned communities compact enough to be served by rapid transit, then even less new land would be needed."- Jonathan Barnett, a professor of architecture and director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at the City College of New York |
State:
At the statewide
level, the legislature could pass legislation that creates concurrency requirements
to be applied by local governments across the state. Such legislation may
list public services and facilities that must or should be included in a community’s
concurrency requirements including roads, police services, fire protection
services, schools, parks, mass transit facilities, water services, sewer services,
and solid waste removal.
New development southwest of Denver. Roads, utilities, and other tax-based
services must be established to serve these new developments.
Internet Resources
www.cfed.org/sustainable_economies/business_incentives/
BI_newsletters/4_00.htm
Business Incentives Reform Clearinghouse: Accountability and Concurrency
www.sprawlwatch.org
Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse section on Concurrency
www.co.leon.fl.us/growth/concur.htm
Leon County Concurrency Fact Sheet-explanation and in-depth examples of Concurrency
www.sustainable.doe.gov/articles/sustdev.shtml
Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development-a project of the US Department
of Energy-section on concurrency
Table of Contents | Introduction | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
