Urban growth boundaries

Urban growth boundaries, also known as green belts, are city limits which restrict development from building out. Local jurisdictions often do this to preserve land surrounding the city or to curb suburban sprawl. Some famous cities with urban growth boundaries are London, Boulder Colorado, Virginia Beach, Honolulu, and San Jose. The states of Oregon, Washington, and Tennessee require cities to establish urban growth boundaries (though Tennessee does so to define long term city boundaries rather than to curb sprawl).

UGBs have come under scrutiny as housing prices have risen, particularly in the west coast. Seattle is seeing a growing homeless problem as rents skyrocket but Washington state law keeps the city from building out.

Masterhawk said:

Urban growth boundaries, also known as green belts, are city limits which restrict development from building out. Local jurisdictions often do this to preserve land surrounding the city or to curb suburban sprawl. Some famous cities with urban growth boundaries are London, Boulder Colorado, Virginia Beach, Honolulu, and San Jose. The states of Oregon, Washington, and Tennessee require cities to establish urban growth boundaries (though Tennessee does so to define long term city boundaries rather than to curb sprawl).



UGBs have come under scrutiny as housing prices have risen, particularly in the west coast. Seattle is seeing a growing homeless problem as rents skyrocket but Washington state law keeps the city from building out.

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Well first off the Growth Management Act has to go, but the city of Seattle isn’t restricted by the GMA, it’s bordered by other cities on all sides, so the city can’t expand out. Now the suburbs, Auburn, Kent, Renton, Issaquah, North Bend etc are all restricted by the GMA, but Seattle itself is kneecapping their own housing market by not allowing enough high rises and having a minimum square foot per unit requirements

Masterhawk said:

Urban growth boundaries, also known as green belts, are city limits which restrict development from building out. Local jurisdictions often do this to preserve land surrounding the city or to curb suburban sprawl. Some famous cities with urban growth boundaries are London, Boulder Colorado, Virginia Beach, Honolulu, and San Jose. The states of Oregon, Washington, and Tennessee require cities to establish urban growth boundaries (though Tennessee does so to define long term city boundaries rather than to curb sprawl).

UGBs have come under scrutiny as housing prices have risen, particularly in the west coast. Seattle is seeing a growing homeless problem as rents skyrocket but Washington state law keeps the city from building out.

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If cities keep growing out, then what rural land supports them? The issue with urban expansion is it often involves trickery, like here locally a major city despite state law held a vote to annex rural area without people from the annexxed area even being allowed to vote or knowing there was a vote, then they retroactively applied taxes on a per roof basis and per head of livestock going back decades. So ranches that had been there decades were told you had to pay millions of dollars or the city was taking the land, they could fight it in court but in texas doing such would require a bunch more money, and the city knew that when it did what it did, it knew no one could afford to challenge it's illegal annexation.


Crap like that is why those laws exist, it is to keep major cities from using imminent domain or even worse annexation followed by many other means to aquire rural land into city limits and force the original owners out often robbing the land.

beerftw said:

If cities keep growing out, then what rural land supports them? The issue with urban expansion is it often involves trickery, like here locally a major city despite state law held a vote to annex rural area without people from the annexxed area even being allowed to vote or knowing there was a vote, then they retroactively applied taxes on a per roof basis and per head of livestock going back decades. So ranches that had been there decades were told you had to pay millions of dollars or the city was taking the land, they could fight it in court but in texas doing such would require a bunch more money, and the city knew that when it did what it did, it knew no one could afford to challenge it's illegal annexation.


Crap like that is why those laws exist, it is to keep major cities from using imminent domain or even worse annexation followed by many other means to aquire rural land into city limits and force the original owners out often robbing the land.

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When I posted the OP, I was referring to artificial growth boundaries created by city law which make it illegal to build beyond a certain point. What you're talking about is eminent domain. All you would need to prevent the annexation of farms is strong restrictions on eminent domain.

I voted yes because I think there are some good reasons for controlled growth and preventing sprawl. For example, just because people are clamoring for 3 bedroom houses each on its own half-acre, in places that are really growing, this creates sprawl, which creates traffic congestion that ends up being practically irreversible. Building for density and maintaining bike paths and parks reduces the tendency to sprawl out as far as the eye can see.

Of course, current homeowners often aren't happy with much any new development. Their housing values go up when supply is constrained.

Experiencing this in Boise currently.

beerftw said:

If cities keep growing out, then what rural land supports them? The issue with urban expansion is it often involves trickery, like here locally a major city despite state law held a vote to annex rural area without people from the annexxed area even being allowed to vote or knowing there was a vote, then they retroactively applied taxes on a per roof basis and per head of livestock going back decades. So ranches that had been there decades were told you had to pay millions of dollars or the city was taking the land, they could fight it in court but in texas doing such would require a bunch more money, and the city knew that when it did what it did, it knew no one could afford to challenge it's illegal annexation.


Crap like that is why those laws exist, it is to keep major cities from using imminent domain or even worse annexation followed by many other means to aquire rural land into city limits and force the original owners out often robbing the land.

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No, these are seperate issues. I mean if the annexation were so clearly cut illegal as you describe it then crushing it in court would be a breeze and usually there’s legal advocacy groups dedicated to this kind of thing.

Urban growth boundaries are different then annexation. I mean here in mason county I’m just outside the UGA for a community that’s not even a city!

Neomalthusian said:

I voted yes because I think there are some good reasons for controlled growth and preventing sprawl. For example, just because people are clamoring for 3 bedroom houses each on its own half-acre, in places that are really growing, this creates sprawl, which creates traffic congestion that ends up being practically irreversible. Building for density and maintaining bike paths and parks reduces the tendency to sprawl out as far as the eye can see.

Of course, current homeowners often aren't happy with much any new development. Their housing values go up when supply is constrained.

Experiencing this in Boise currently.

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No, controlling sprawl is code for socialist central planning.

EMNofSeattle said:

No, controlling sprawl is code for socialist central planning.

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Haha. Well, ok then. All the same.

Places that are growing very quickly can make decisions about how to grow, what neighborhoods will be like, how much is traffic is created where, what the mix of residential and commercial space will be, if green spaces are preserved or eliminated, if bikability is preserved or eliminated, what that does to quality of life and access to services for the new neighborhood. Those things can be affected hugely by the decisions made on the planning end of that growth process. If the approach is "anything goes, highest bid wins, first come first served, no conditions," then the likelihood that several of those aspects are going to be just pure crap is much higher than if it's controlled by careful planning.

I'll also reemphasize the dirty little secret that seeks to restrict affordable housing development, and that is that in the minds of affluent property owners, "affordable housing" in their area is seen as class contamination of their affluent neighborhood, i.e. they're seen as social pollution, i.e. welcoming in the undesirables. They seek shut down affordable housing development. The places where the greatest numbers of people are clamoring for affordable housing are by definition the least affordable (supply and demand), and current owners prefer it be the least affordable and that all those people clamoring to live there be, well, simply not able to find a place. You can't live here. This place is for people at least as wealthy as us, not people poorer than us. Please stay out. Sorry. This is the classism baked into the organization of our neighborhoods and school zones all across the country.

The incentives and desires for people wanting houses in an area they can't afford, and the people who already own houses in that area, are polar opposite. Couldn't be farther apart. The former desperately want affordable housing, the latter desperately do not want it. Why should outsiders who have no current ownership in that neighborhood trump the desires and voting will of the people who do already have ownership in that neighborhood? But conversely, why should neighborhoods be able to essentially band together and create pockets of classist privilege locked down to further development regardless of what their broader economy demands?

Quite the conundrum.

EMNofSeattle said:

No, these are seperate issues. I mean if the annexation were so clearly cut illegal as you describe it then crushing it in court would be a breeze and usually there’s legal advocacy groups dedicated to this kind of thing.

Urban growth boundaries are different then annexation. I mean here in mason county I’m just outside the UGA for a community that’s not even a city!

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Annexation is not illegal just the way the city here did it was. Some of the people affected filed grievances with the state, with the state doing very little. The city also decided business there that had been there for decades were not covered under grandfather clauses and needed to be up to code within a week, it was nothing more than a way to annex an area into the city and push them out so they could build more housing units. The tiny town I live in almost got annexed by them but the town fought it, they are currently planning on trying again, and that cities property taxes are high enough it would force most citizens to move, I am talking double and triple property taxes to what they are paying now.



Besides that annexation usually leads to urban expansion, the cities that often swallow up local rural land do so with the intention of forcing much or all the inhabitants off so they can use it for urban expansion. Urban growth boundaries set the limits of expansion of a city into rural lands, while annexation is the act of taking the land, so the two are generally tied together.

To be honest, I really don't understand "urban planning". Around here we have perfectly good, even fairly recently built, abandoned strip malls. But a couple of miles down the road they build a new one. We have lots and lots of vacant buildings, but new ones going up. What's the reasoning ? It seems like such a waste. We have neighborhoods the same way. Good real estate location, but block after block of deteriorating homes. Shouldn't re-habing vacant properties be a priority, instead of issuing new permits?

However, I'm not surprised by sprawl. Most of it is because people want their kids to go to good schools, and most urban center schools are pretty bad. So now cars get great gas mileage, and/or gas is cheap, the speed limit is 75 on the highway; people figure they can live a lot farther from work. Add in the state facilitating this spread by building super highways into and out of city centers from far away and you are going to get sprawl. Many people now live 60-70 miles (or more) in some little town and do the commute. Usually only one person in the car. Seems a waste. And poor urban planning.