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Show Growing in Utah: The Quality Growth Act of 1999 JillM. Burton saw victory. With the passage of the Quality Growth Act of 1999, we can now revisit the question raised earlier in this essay-can we manage growth effectively? HB119: the Quality Growth Act of 1999 The Quality Growth Act (U.C.A. 11-38401) is a means of finding a way to manage Utah's incredibly fast-paced population expansion. The Act creates a Quality Growth Commission, composed of members from the public and the private sector who will look at ways to manage growth and then bring those ideas back, as recommendations, to the Legislature. The Act also creates a funding source to provide local governments with incentives to address their own growth problems in an innovative and economical way. The main ideas of the Growth Act are summarized below. Five Basic Goals The Quality Growth Act is based on five basic goals: (1) encouraging conservation of critical lands and discouraging urban sprawl, (2) eliminating barriers to affordable housing, (3) promoting the effective workings of the free-market sector, (4) encouraging efficient development of infrastructure and efficient use of land, and (5) addressing issues through economic incentives to local government, not through state mandates. Three Core Issues The Quality Growth Act addresses three core issues. (1) Urban Sprawl: Sprawl consumes thousands of acres of farmland, woodlands and wetlands. It requires government to spend millions of dollars to build new schools, streets, and water and sewer lines. This Act will give incentives and offer support to local governments to put into place a long-term policy for promoting the orderly expansion of land use. (2) Housing and Home Ownership: Local government often has erected barriers to housing, such as low-density zoning requirements. The efforts made through the Act will be toward eliminating these barriers through economic incentives. (3) Green Space and Agricultural Preservation: The Act includes a state funding mechanism to preserve green-space and agricultural lands. The Act Creates a Quality Growth Commission The Commission consists of 13 members: 2 state officials, 6 elected local government officials, and 5 members from the private sector. Though the Commission will not exercise any regulatory authority, it has several roles: (a) Advise the State Legislature on growth management issues; (b) administer the LeRay McAllister Critical Lands Conservation Fund; and (c) assist as many local entities as possible at their request, in identifying principles of growth management that the local entity may consider implementing, to help achieve the highest possible quality of growth for that entity. Issues the Quality Growth Commission Will Study The Quality Growth Commission will study all issues related to growth. Specifically it will address several questions, (a) How shall protection of the rights of private property owners be ensured? (b) How should the policy be implemented, of no net decrease in the quantity or value of private real property available to generate property tax revenues, while recognizing that at some time additional public land will be needed and at other times public land that is not critical can be sold, exchanged, or converted to private ownership to accommodate growth and development? (c) How should the concept of local control over land-use and development decisions be implemented with state leadership and coordination? (d) How can we best maintain a balance of free-market and public-sector-planning solutions to growth management problems? And (e) how can we best help local entities define, identify, and establish quality growth areas? Local Planning and Cooperation The Act will foster and encourage local planning and cooperation among local governments, and with the private sector, (a) The Legislature, through recommendations made by the Commission, will grant money to local entities to help them obtain the technical assistance they need. (b) The Commission will help cities conduct workshops or public hearings or use other similar methods to obtain public input and participation, in the process of each entity's identifying for itself the principles of quality growth and their implementation in its particular circumstances. Funding for Critical Lands Conservation The Act creates a funding mechanism for critical lands conservation, (a) It provides for the use of the LeRay McAllister Critical Land Conservation Fund to support critical land conservation, (b) The money for the fund may be appropriated by the Legislature, contributed by state and federal agencies, persons, corporations, and/or proceeds from the sale of surplus land that departments choose to place into the fund. Critical lands will also be financed through better energy management, which-it is intended-will not cost the taxpayers any additional money, (c) The fund will aid in the preservation or restoration of open land and agriculture land, and may also be used to establish land conservation easement, (d) Local governments will have funding incentives to address their own growth needs. In summary, the Act will provide statewide direction on quality growth and emphasize that the state no longer intends to subsidize urban sprawl. The Act discourages urban sprawl and supports critical land conservation, housing availability, efficient development of infrastructure, and efficient use of land. 12 |