UMass Extension Public Issues

A Five-year Plan (2009-2013) for Addressing:

Land Use Management

Summary/Description

Massachusetts is the third most densely populated state in the nation. In the 2000 U.S. Census, MA had about 810 persons per square mile, while New Jersey had nearly 1135, with Rhode Island in between. The Brookings Institution forecasts that the U.S. population will hit 400 million by 2043, if current immigration increases, and birth rates and birth/death ratios continue roughly in the same proportions. The rate of land consumption for residential development is steadily increasing, far out of proportion to its population growth; the MA Audubon Losing Ground studies showed that in the early 2000s, MA was losing about 40 acres a day of active agricultural, horticultural and forestry land to development. The recent Pioneer/Rappaport Institute studies on regulatory barriers to affordable housing in MA demonstrate that more than half of the land in the study area is zoned for 1 and 2 acre single family house lots. Not surprisingly, MA has been among the top four states in median housing costs for at least 25 years.

There is a high environmental price to be paid for this heavy consumption of land. Negatively impacted are water resources, air quality, natural resource-based enterprises, open space, wildlife habitat, and community character. These effects in turn impede long term sustainability and often compel inefficient, reactive capital investment by government.

Planning for growth in ways that are not haphazard, and that can provide for both good environmental and good social outcomes, is challenging, and requires a level of policy vision that has not always been applied to our use of land. Key questions abound: at what point do ecosystems become less viable? How much open space is needed, at the cost of the density of development that can support public transit? How do our existing land use control practices and tools need to be improved to achieve more environmentally and socially sound outcomes? Is development along the radial pattern of the highways the best approach, or should we seek a more solid in-fill pattern? How can we best include the smaller homes and multi-family structures that are needed to house the region’s workforce, given regulatory barriers to doing so? Should all state investment in roads, sewer and water systems, stormwater management facilities and other infrastructure be confined to sharply defined growth areas that are already the most disturbed in the region or state, or should they be reconfigured in circumferential patterns?

All of this should be a key part of the Commonwealth’s strategic attempts to rein in poorly conceived growth. The overriding concept for addressing these issues is to employ a comprehensive research, educational and outreach strategy that will bring about improvements at the local, regional and state level, as well as participation by the full network of stakeholders. The Land Use Management initiatives of the Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation Department of Extension will engage in research, outreach, facilitation and education activities that improve existing planning, regulatory and design practices.

These efforts will involve the exploration of innovations in land use, resource conservation and sustainable development. Private protective approaches involving landowners and organizations will also be analyzed for their impact and added to the tool kit, with outreach to landowners interested in fully or partially protecting their land. Because UMASS Extension/NREC has the ability to be a facilitator, educator and outreach coordinator not only to individuals, but to communities and organizations who have the ability to affect change, it can effectively work with constituents and audiences to bring about impacts that will have lasting effects. This will involve the development of new tools, the training of relevant audiences, and the evolution of new methods of delivery and the assessment of the effectiveness of these activities.

Situation and Priorities

Currently in Massachusetts:

• The state is fragmented into 351 local units (towns and cities) with full governance responsibility, but whose borders were rational ones only prior to the advent of the 20th century. Today, those municipal bounds are obsolete in many ways, in the age of the automobile, digital communications, regional & statewide (and greater) economies and the vast geographic burden of environmental problems. Almost half of the municipalities do not have professional planning staff; their volunteer boards struggle with increasing levels of responsibility, liability and public pressure.
• The state's planning, zoning & subdivision statutes are among the most dysfunctional in the nation in terms of their ability to enable effective regional and local planning, protect natural resources and to appropriately direct development to areas already built and served by infrastructure. A uniquely broad set of exemptions within those statutes often makes it difficult for real planning control to be exerted.
• Highly land consumptive development patterns and widespread exclusionary zoning have contributed (along with other factors) to a housing affordability dilemma in the state, a practice that is perceived in some quarters as being in competition with land and water resource protection.

The policy challenge confronting Massachusetts is how to move communities, the state government, regional agencies, land protection organizations and private landowners, toward initiatives & commitments that are likely to bring about substantial changes in the manner in which Massachusetts develops. Respondents to Extension surveys on Land Use Management, including state and municipal board members and employees and non-profit practitioners indicate that, among public regulatory strategies, there should be significant improvements to: statewide land use statutes, subdivision control regulations, master plans, zoning laws and related regulations.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst possesses a strong academic and research base for addressing many elements of land use planning. Expertise and research capacity exist in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning in the areas of regional land use, watershed and open space planning. Programs such as the Center for Rural Massachusetts and the Citizen Planner Training Collaborative combine research and land use education in the field. In addition, UMass Extension can draw on the research expertise of other departments and campus centers such as the Department of Natural Resources Conservation, the Center for Public Policy and the Department of Resource Economics. UMass Extension has also built strong collaborative relationships off campus with the professional and municipal planning community, with state planners and legislators, and foundations.

Based on information from our stakeholder input process and an assessment of the University’s current research and extension capacity, UMass Extension will be addressing the following priorities in Land Use Management over the next five years:

1. Promote land use tools that foster sustainable development. Contributing to the development of more advanced Massachusetts planning philosophies and resultant programs, as well as to improved land use statutes, will be a priority statewide. At the local level, contributing to the improvement of subdivision control regulations, zoning bylaws master plans, and other pertinent regulations, should be important in strategic attempts to rein in haphazard growth. Sometimes this can be achieved by means of clustering towns in a sub-regional approach, possibly in partnership with regional planning agencies and/or private regional organizations. The University and Extension have the expertise and capabilities to bring much needed education, outreach, technical assistance and other forms of direction and help to state government, municipalities, non-profits and educational groups to help address these issues.
2. Promote integration of natural resource protection into land use planning and economic development. While natural resource protection is an intrinsic aspect of sustainability, the land use planning and environmental communities often see themselves as being separate from one another. Open space, habitat and watershed protection and planning, greenways, and agricultural and forestry protection need to be integrated within all planning approaches. This requires working on the state, regional and local level with regulatory and non-regulatory tools. It also assumes collaboration across different program areas within UMass Extension. Through applied research, special projects and outreach, Extension/NREC is in a strong position to fill this void in the education of stakeholders at every level.
3. Promote public participation in land conservation and management. Land conservation is paramount in Massachusetts, as the problems associated with land loss are approaching a point where they may become irreversible. Land conservation can be achieved in many ways within compact development patterns or by removing land from development. UMass Extension programs have developed tools for targeted land conservation that effectively preserve biodiversity and maintain ecosystem integrity. This can be partnered with expertise in legal conservation and management tools available to landowners and municipalities. Educational efforts must focus on the public perception that land conservation deprives landowners and communities of value and income.

The following Projects will address Land Use Management. Click on each project to see additional details.

• Fish, Wildlife & Biodiversity Conservation
• Land Protection and Community Preservation
• UMass - Envirothon Collaboration