Governor's new panel to look for ways to curb unchecked growth
 
By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer

ALBANY -- In an era in which empty fields often turn into housing subdivisions and commuters seem willing to make ever-longer treks, the state is looking at how to slow the spread of unchecked suburban expansion.

"Step one is to focus on state spending, to make sure it does not contribute to sprawl problems. We want to help drive development where we have existing infrastructure. Then we look at how we can assist local governments," said Judith Enck, deputy secretary for the environment to Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Enck and Timothy Gilchrist, the governor's deputy secretary for economic development and infrastructure, are heading Spitzer's "Smart Growth Cabinet" created this month. first meeting will be in January.

In his first state budget, Spitzer created a $2 million Smart Growth Fund in the state Environmental Protection Fund.

Sprawl is a problem nationwide, according to a 2001 report by the Brookings Institution, a national academic research group. Between 1982 and 1997, the amount of land consumed by development grew at nearly three times the rate of population growth.

Sprawl was even worse in the Northeast, where developed land increased by nearly 40 percent, while the population grew just 7 percent, according to the report.

"The loss of open space and the shifting of investment away from developed areas has had serious consequences for the state's environment and economy," said Marcia Bystryn, executive director of the New York League of Conservation Voters.

During that same period in the Capital Region, developed land increased by almost 35 percent -- nearly six times the population growth, which was less than 6 percent, according to the Brookings report.

"The Capital Region now looks like a crazy quilt of haphazard residential, commercial, office and retail development flung across a vast physical landscape," said Brookings researcher Bruce Katz during a 2005 presentation to the Business-Higher Education Roundtable of the Capital Region. "You are sprawling out in a slow-growth environment, squandering your urban assets and wasting scarce fiscal resources."

Elsewhere in upstate, Buffalo, Binghamton, and Utica-Rome lost population while adding developed land, according to the 2001 report.

"Our goal is to come up with programs to avoid sprawl without growth, which is what we have now throughout upstate," said Enck.

She said the task force will look at anti-sprawl programs created in Massachusetts and Maryland. One of the cabinet members is Transportation Department Commissioner Astrid Glynn, who spearheaded the Massachusetts smart growth program.

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Smart growth group

Here are the members of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's newly formed Smart Growth Cabinet: Astrid Glynn, Transportation Department commissioner, spearheaded the Massachusetts smart growth program

Dan Gundersen, Upstate Economic Development chairman, involved with similar initiatives in Pennsylvania and Maryland

Robert Elliott, deputy secretary of state for local governments, former mayor of Croton-on-Hudson and president of the New York Planning Federation

Pete Grannis, state Environmental Conservation commissioner