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Florida
Cluster Housing, Mixed-Use Villages Advised for South Florida's Treasure Coast Region
The eastern South Florida region of Treasure Coast must end
suburban sprawl -- this much was clear to all officials,
conservationists, builders and national experts at the Rural Land
Symposium in Port St. Lucie, but how to make it happen remained an
open question, with St. Lucie County development director Dennis
Murphy stressing, ''We can't just put a sign at the county line that
says, 'No vacancy'.'' In response, reports Vero Beach Press
Journal writer Katie Campbell, urban experts advised a
smart-growth shift in the region's rural development pattern of
large homes on five-acre lots toward higher-density cluster housing
and mixed-use villages.
In contrast to the predominant ''ranchettes'' -- which
increase infrastructure costs, waste natural resources, generate ''a
lot of asphalt and more traffic'' and ''will eventually be subdivided
into disconnected suburbs'' -- said Maryland University's National
Center for Smart Growth professor Reid Ewing, a mix of uses reduces
traffic, allows varied housing, ''breaks up development'' and
preserves agriculture.
University of Pennsylvania city and regional planning
professor Thomas Daniels suggested farmland belts around new towns
to keep housing inside, arguing, ''Sometimes you literally have to
draw a line in the sand to say 'This is where growth ends','' but
cautioning against imposing ''farmland preservation on farmers'' and
instead advising incentives to make them sell development rights
and preserve their land forever.
Sunland Homes senior vice president Ron Hyman had these
words for dense housing opponents: ''If you don't like clustered
density, then you have to like sprawl, because your kids have to
live somewhere. Developers don't feel different about sprawl. It's
not attractive, but it is the market's response to regulations. If
our government officials continue this way, we'll get more of the
same.'' -- Vero Beach Press Journal
12/6/2003
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