In past exchanges I have found Mr. O'Toole to be extremely biased in his analysis of land use issues. He completely ignores the health costs to urban dwellers and motor commuters that Dr. Frumkin appears to be knowledgeable about.
His "estimate" that land use planning imposes a $20,000 per home cost add-on sounds very fictitious. Even if it were true, for a home inhabited for 100 years, that's $200 per year for ready access to open space, bikeways, and other beneficial amentias that every citizen can enjoy every day. That is one of society's greatest bargains, compared to market prices for the use of similar private sector amenities. The O'Toole summary below also ignores the direct costs of living in a sprawl home. Using my (and many Bikies') own example, it takes me 40 minutes round trip to bike to work and home again. I get most of my daily need for physical activity in the process. It costs me about $250 per year for commuter transportation. On the other hand, people commuting from Sauk City and the outer reaches of Supv. Bruskewitz's sprawl haven district spend a minimum of 90 minutes stuck in their cars, spending $3,000 to $5,000 each year, while losing muscle tone and bone mass, and contributing to the ill health of everyone else via their polluting exhaust. In 4 to 7 years, the person paying a little more for a rationally-located home is money ahead of the objects of Mr. O'Toole's affections, even ignoring all the implications of health costs.. Jeff Schimpff Bureau of Science Services Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources "Bus, Bike, Walk or Carpool to Work for Clean Air for Kids" (*) phone: (608) 267- 7853 (*) fax: (608) 267-5231 (*) e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chuck Strawser Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 5:27 PM To: Comprehensive Plan Discussion Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [email protected]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Bikies] Urban Sprawl & Public Health, Mon 3/3, Noon, Health Sci Learning Center Anyone who hears Randal O'Toole's presentation this Monday (and many who don't) might be interested in a very different presentation the following Monday. It will cover some of the societal (i.e., ultimately taxpayer) costs of the land use patterns and transportation infrastructure that Mr. O'Toole advocates. Oh, and apparently Dr. Howard Frumkin has actually earned the degrees that give him the titles he uses, unlike other speakers. Publishing one's work in peer-reviewed journals is just one of the things that makes some researchers more credible than others, regardless of one's political views. I can forward the presentation flyer as a Word doc if anyone is interested. Chuck Strawser >>The Department of Population Health Sciences and the UW Population >>Health Institute are pleased to announce our seminar on Monday, April >>3, will be presented by Dr. Howard Frumkin, Director of the National >>Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and >>Disease Registry at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. >>He will be speaking on "Urban Sprawl and Public Health." The seminar >>will be held in Room 1335 Health Sciences Learning Center from 12:00 >>noon to 1:00 pm. >> >> To view the live webcast or access the archive after the event, >>please go to: http://www.cme.wisc.edu/pgm/pophealth. >> >> >>Patty Grubb >> Assistant to Javier Nieto, MD, PhD, Chair >> Department of Population Health Sciences >> 707 WARF >> UW School of Medicine and Public Health >> Madison, WI 53726-2397 >> 608-265-0516 >> 608-263-2820 (fax) >>[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Eileen Bruskewitz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Comprehensive Plan Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Randal O'Toole presentation Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 08:40:49 -0600 Interesting presentation coming up: Randal O'Toole, economist with the Thoreau Institute, will be speaking about Inclusionary Zoning in Madison on Monday, March 27, 2006 at noon in Room 260 of the Madison Municipal Building for a taping for Madison City Cable, Channel 12. A reception for Mr. O'Toole will be held at 5:30 PM at Sweet Sophie's 1008 Quinn Drive in Waunakee where he will discuss Transfer of Development Rights. Restrictive Land-Use Rules Add Billions to Housing Costs Housing shortages caused by restrictive land-use laws have added tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of buying homes in Wisconsin, says a new report from the American Dream Coalition. The report estimates that planning added $18,000 to $22,000 to the cost of median homes in Madison, Milwaukee, and Kenosha. The report notes that these estimates are conservative and the real numbers could be 25 percent more. Housing was affordable throughout Wisconsin in 1999, observes the report. But so-called "smart-growth" programs introduced by cities and counties created a land and housing shortage that has driven up housing prices in the last six years. This forces homebuyers to pay a penalty for living in or near these cities. The penalties of planning are far greater than the so-called costs of sprawl, says the report. The most widely cited study of the costs of sprawl estimates that urban-service costs to low-density homes are about $11,000 more per home than to compact neighborhoods. "How smart is 'smart growth' if it makes every home in the city cost $20,000 more so the city can save $11,000 on a few new homes?" asks the report's author, Randal O'Toole. O'Toole recommends that cities set user fees and taxes to make sure new development covers its costs and let people make their own choices about where they want to live. High housing costs can hurt local economies by causing employers to locate elsewhere and forcing workers to make long commutes to other areas with more affordable housing. Land-use restrictions are also regressive because they impose especially large burdens on low-income families while providing windfall profits for wealthy homeowners. "It is sadly ironic that the communities that consider themselves most progressive, such as Madison, have the most regressive land-use rules," says O'Toole. The 2000 census found that homeownership rates for white families in Madison are three times as high as for black families, while white rates are more than double rates for blacks in Milwaukee. Nor is restrictive land-use planning needed to protect farms and open space. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that less than 5 percent of Wisconsin has been urbanized, adding that urbanization is "not considered a threat to the nation's food production." When housing is scarce and open space is abundant, government efforts to preserve the latter at the expense of the former is a tragic misplacement of priorities. The report recommends that cities and counties leave open space protection to private conservation organizations and repeal smart-growth plans so that homebuilders can meet the demand for new housing. The 48-page report is available for download from americandreamcoalition.org/housing.html. Also available is a spreadsheet with all of the data and calculations for more than 300 metropolitan areas. --- This is the Dane County Comprehensive Plan List Serv You are currently subscribed to comprehensive_plan. To unsubscribe please visit http://list.co.dane.wi.us/read/login/ _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
