Feeling Negative Smart Growth Side Effects
After New Jersey's Washington Township built a new smart growth-style town center, new residents jumped to move in. But lack of coordination among state agencies may now be contributing to the township's challenges with education and taxes.
The NJDOT nixed a proposed turnpike bypass, and the increase in property values and incomes cost the township over $2 million in state aid for schools. The strain on the school system of the increased population and the lack of business development without the bypass has increased property taxes, and now the township is struggling to address its needs.
"Some Washington Township residents, as well as town officials, have started to blame smart growth for the municipal problems. While the majority of the 13,000 residents live outside Town Center, nearly all of the 2,500 who have arrived since 2000 live there."
"The 400-acre Washington Town Center — designed according to state planning goals as a remedy to suburban sprawl — has become a victim of its own success, town officials and residents said. So many families have flocked to Washington Township, eight miles east of Trenton in Mercer County, in the nine years since construction began that the schools are overflowing, property taxes are skyrocketing and the main streets are clogged."
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How is this the fault of smart growth?
If you had a rapidly growing township with conventional sprawling subdivisions, it would still generate the same amount of traffic congestion and strain on the school system. I'm not seeing how these problems are caused by smart growth. And I'm not even convinced that this town center qualifies as smart growth. Smart growth communities are not just dense, but are also full of commercial destinations that are accessible by foot or transit. Just because a neighborhood is dense doesn't make it smart growth. It isn't walkable if there are no destinations to walk to. But maybe I'm not getting the full picture, since I don't know anything about the town beyond what the article says.
It's the fault of growth.
I agree, CC, and I see this as simply another manifestation of how well we manage growth in general. That is: we don't.
Sure, we have a compact development that will likely have a smaller footprint than a conventional development, but the same old issues that arise from rapid growth are here too.
Smart growth isn't going to solve the issue that the schools are overflowing, property taxes are skyrocketing and the main streets are clogged, and I don't think that's the intent of smart growth.
Our job is to point out what smart growth does and does not do, and this is an excellent article to start that pointing. IMHO.
Best,
D