A. Create jobs in MetroFuture-consistent locations
MetroFuture calls for significant changes in the region’s development patterns, with a greater focus on growth in city, town, and village centers and other locations where infrastructure is available to support growth. MetroFuture calls for a larger share of new job growth in the Inner Core and Regional Urban Centers, with a relatively smaller share in the lowest density Developing Suburbs. MetroFuture also seeks to curb commercial and industrial sprawl by focusing economic development in town centers, near transit, and existing major employment centers. This approach will conserve open space, and the concentration of jobs will make them easier to serve with new transit. Infrastructure upgrades may be needed to support additional growth, but there will be less need to extend infrastructure to new locations.
A variety of tools can be used to focus economic growth in locations consistent with the MetroFuture plan. State and local economic incentive programs should be adjusted to prioritize assistance to proposals consistent with MetroFuture and the Commonwealth’s Sustainable Development Principles. Municipalities need assistance with new zoning and planning tools to redevelop existing commercial and industrial land for higher density uses. The public sector can encourage market response to these plans through prompt and predictable permitting processes and by marketing smart-growth locations to the development community. More resources are needed to address environmental contamination that is a barrier to development of otherwise ideal sites in appropriate locations.
1) Target economic incentive programs and technical assistance to locations consistent with the MetroFuture land use plan
Economic growth is critical to the region’s well-being, and it must be planned well to preserve the region’s scarce fiscal and economic resources. Policies that seek to focus commercial and industrial growth need not obstruct economic development. MAPC analysis indicates that there is enough land in smart growth locations to support robust economic growth, as long as the zoning in those locations supports compact growth. With appropriate planning, permit streamlining, and infrastructure improvements, development in smart growth locations can be as attractive to developers as outlying locations. This will be reinforced when the public sector chooses to curtail programs that subsidize or expedite economic development in areas less suitable for growth.
There are now a variety of state and local efforts to facilitate economic growth through planning, streamlined permitting, infrastructure development, and marketing in designated growth areas. The two most prominent such initiatives are the Chapter 43D Expedited Permitting program and the Patrick Administration’s Growth Districts Initiative. MetroFuture strongly supports application of these strategies in locations that are consistent with the MetroFuture land use plan.
The Administration should make greater efforts to coordinate with MAPC on the designation of Growth Districts, and it should require appropriate land use controls to ensure sustainable design and multimodal access within those Districts. The state can also use the Chapter 43D program to help focus economic growth in Smart Growth locations. As a first step, limited resources for 43D Technical Assistance grants should be directed to proposals in locations consistent with the Commonwealth’s Sustainable Development Principles and the MetroFuture land use plan. Ultimately, the Interagency Permitting Board should approve Priority Development Sites only in locations consistent with the Principles and the MetroFuture land use plan.
State and local government can also influence the location of new economic development through capital improvement funding programs, such as the Public Works Economic Development Program (PWED) and the Massachusetts Opportunity Relocation and Expansion (MORE) Jobs Capital Program. Beginning in Fiscal Year 2009, the PWED Program will be administered to explicitly support the Commonwealth’s Sustainable Development Principles. Criteria for awarding the PWED grants will include multimodal transportation opportunities, energy conservation, and brownfields redevelopment. The MORE program also supports capital project related to job creation but does not require any demonstration of consistency with the Sustainable Development Principles, or even local land use plans; the program should be modified to require this consistency.
The Economic Development Incentive Program (EDIP) is a tax incentive program designed to stimulate business growth and foster job creation. Through this incentive program, a three way partnership is developed between the state, a growing company, and a municipality. Participating companies may receive a 5% investment tax credit (known as the Economic Opportunity Area Credit), and local tax incentives (either a Special Tax Assessment or a Tax Increment Financing) in exchange for job creation and private investment commitments. The EDIP program is only available to job growth in Economic Opportunity Areas, which are designated based on very broad criteria (“blighted,” “decadent,” or “substandard.”) The designation of EOAs or Certified Projects should include a determination of consistency with the Commonwealth Sustainable Development Principles and the MetroFuture land use plan.
MAPC can also use its relationships with local government to facilitate job growth in appropriate locations. MAPC provides technical assistance to municipalities directly (often funded by programs such as the District Local Technical Assistance program). The Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development also offers 57 grant and technical assistance programs to municipalities. MAPC should target its technical assistance efforts to location and proposals consistent with MetroFuture and should make extra efforts to connect municipalities with grant programs that can support MetroFuture-consistent economic development.
1.a EOHED should modify the process for designation of Growth Districts to include formal coordination with regional planning agencies
1.b The Interagency Permitting Board should prioritize Ch. 43D Technical Assistance grant funding to locations consistent with MetroFuture
1.c The Massachusetts Office of Business Development should adopt the Sustainable Development Principles as a criteria for MORE grant evaluation
1.d The Legislature should revise criteria for Economic Opportunity Areas to reflect the Sustainable Development Principles and MetroFuture
1.e MAPC should use subregional networks to promote Department of Housing and Community Development technical assistance programs
2) Increase employment density in appropriate suburban job centers
MetroFuture sees tremendous opportunities for increased density of use in many suburban employment centers. Many suburban office parks and industrial parks are built with individual buildings separated by large areas of parking and landscaping. Like suburban residential neighborhoods, these low density developments are difficult to serve with transit because large numbers of employees are dispersed across many buildings and many acres. Floor area ratios of 0.25 or even 0.1 prevent the creation of additional density.
If managed correctly, more intensive development within existing office and industrial parks could yield positive benefits: municipalities can support more economic growth with less loss of open space; a higher density of employment will make new transit service more feasible; new investments can be leveraged to upgrade existing infrastructure; and landowners will be able to realize higher returns on their property.
Such increases in density may also bring challenges which can be addressed through innovative zoning tools. Traffic impacts can be addressed by requiring transportation management programs that mitigate increases in trip generation. Landowners who add new development should be expected to invest considerable resources in first-class transportation management programs, especially if they are granted relief from parking requirements. For example, Stanford University has added millions of square feet of new buildings over recent decades without increasing the amount of parking—the University provides transit passes and comprehensive shuttle services, and is assessed significant fines when auto traffic onto the campus exceeds permitted levels. New development can also be leveraged to make improvements to transportation and stormwater infrastructure, using financing tools such as District Improvement Financing or Impact Fees (described in Strategies 9 and 2, respectively).
In order to make a strategy of economic “densification” effective, municipalities must also take steps to reduce the supply of buildable land outside of existing developed areas. A commercial/industrial Transfer of Development Rights program can be established to help mitigate the concerns of landowners in areas outside of designated districts. Because the design of economic development areas is important to community character, the use of visualization tools and design best practices will be critical to ensuring that new development is well received and complementary to the surrounding community.
2.a MAPC should partner with interested municipalities to pilot innovative tools in industrial/office park redevelopment
3) Streamline approvals through community involvement, expedited permitting, and pre-permitting
Productive relationships between municipalities and the development community attract economic investment and the opportunity for meaningful growth to Metro Boston. These relationships should be encouraged. Long-term prosperity depends on it. Where the permitting process brings satisfactory results, the applicants, the public, and the economy stand to benefit. MetroFuture recommends that municipalities adopt a set of best practices that can make permitting more predictable, equitable, cost effective, and efficient.
Inefficient permitting and approval processes can discourage economic development. Developers who face a long, costly, and uncertain permitting process are likely to shift their resources and efforts to other locations, regions, or states. This is especially concerning if inefficient permitting in smart growth locations causes developers to choose alternate locations that are inconsistent with the MetroFuture land use plan.
Application of streamlined permitting processes does not require municipalities to lower their standards or feel pressured to approve bad proposals. Applied appropriately, Permit Streamlining Best Practices should reinforce local jurisdiction; encourage community supported projects; preserve local resources; and maintain the standard of review.
With the Massachusetts Association of Regional Planning Agencies, MAPC developed “A Best Practices Guide for Streamlined Local Permitting.” This guide establishes four broad categories of best practices:
- Fostering better communication
- Standardizing forms and procedures
- Providing sufficient resources
- Encouraging proactive planning
The Commonwealth has also sought to encourage more efficient permitting through the Chapter 43D Priority Development Site process. In order to qualify for this program, municipalities must adopt certain permitting best practices and must commit to rendering decisions within 180 days. The implementation of this program should be monitored over time in order to ensure that it is administered efficiently and provides an appropriate balance between local oversight and expedited permitting.
3.a Municipalities should adopt permitting best practices
3.b MAPC and allied organizations should monitor implementation of the 43D program and make recommendations for its improvement after five years
3.c MAPC should support industry-municipal collaboration for permit streamlining in appropriate locations
4) Bring a Smart Growth perspective to economic development marketing
Marketing and information are critical to ensuring that the development community invests in areas consistent with MetroFuture. Various public agencies, quasi-public organizations, and public/private partnerships provide statewide and national marketing to priority development sites and other designated locations. Examples include the Massachusetts Office of Business Development, the Massachusetts Alliance for Economic Development, MassDevelopment, and municipal economic development departments.
These various organizations and practitioners influence the decisions made by developers and firms about where to build or locate. While marketing professionals must be responsive to the preferences of their target market, they can also act as tastemakers by presenting information that will re-frame location decisions within a smart growth context. For example, issues of transit access and proximity of workforce will become more important as transportation costs continue to rise. Marketing materials that simply list the number of on-site parking spaces will increasingly be seen as out-of-touch by companies that recognize that residential and commuting patterns will change rapidly as energy costs rise.
Effective marketing of MetroFuture-consistent economic development locations requires two things: providing more accessible information about the costs and benefits of individual sites from a sustainability perspective; and fostering attention to sustainability in the profession of regional economic development planning.
Through the Smart Workplace project, MAPC has already begun to establish a framework for evaluating economic development sites within the context of infrastructure, zoning, sensitive natural resources, parcel data, and other information. This tool is primarily designed to support the economic development planning efforts of municipal staff and officials, by providing additional, readily available information about constraints or advantages of alternative locations. This tool should be expanded to include additional criteria relevant to regional sustainability: potential employees within a given commute time via car or transit; transportation-related greenhouse gas emission estimates; wind energy potential; and other factors. Some of these criteria will need to be developed through modeling, but it is important that the tool should remain based on statistical criteria in order to ensure its credibility. Objective measures will be more compelling that a subjective “MetroFuture Score.”
Economic development professionals have the capacity to be strong allies in the implementation of MetroFuture. The Massachusetts Economic Development Council’s Strategic Plan identifies “social responsibility and a dedication to equitably building healthy, just and competitive communities” as one of the organization’s four Core Values. Similarly, state agencies operate under the Commonwealth’s Sustainable Development Principles which equally consistent with the MetroFuture plan. Stronger relationships between MAPC and these agencies and professionals are necessary to identify ways that principles of sustainability can be applied to support their economic development mission.
4.a MAPC should continue to update the Smart Workplace Project to include more Smart Growth and transportation criteria
4.b Formalize coordination between MAPC and the Massachusetts Alliance for Economic Development
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