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Sidebar:
‘Sprawl’ Is #1 Problem in Massachusetts, Says Environmental Protection Agency

By Ed Oliver
February 2001

An overlooked side-effect of the liberals' anti-snob law is that it worsens “sprawl,” a problem that the EPA says is “the number one environmental issue facing New England.”

Also concerned about sprawl, the Sierra club says, “Poorly planned development is threatening our environment, our health, and our quality of life. In communities across America “sprawl” (scattered development that increases traffic, saps local resources and destroys open space) is taking a serious toll.”

In reality, the Sierra club was describing the effect of enforced affordable housing development on communities in the Bay State.

According to statistics compiled by the EPA and the Massachusetts Audubon Society, unplanned and unchecked development is eating up more than 1,200 acres of open space, farmland and wetlands each week in New England - including nearly two acres an hour in Massachusetts alone.

• We lost 233,000 acres of land to development - the equivalent of one-third of Rhode Island - from 1982 to 1992.

• It costs the towns as much as $1.45 in increased expenses to pay for schools, roads and other costs for every $1 of revenue a low-density housing development brings in.

One scholar says, “The towns that are the most rural, if they’ve got a planner at all, it’s part time. They’re the most vulnerable to sprawl and the least equipped to fight it just because their town government is so small. There is a danger there.” That quote is from John K. Bullard, head of the Family Business Center at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and former mayor of New Bedford, in an article about sprawl in the Boston Business Journal,

Bullard might just as well have added that small towns are the most vulnerable to developers who apply for a waiver of local zoning laws by applying for a comprehensive affordable housing permit.

The EPA says it is on a crusade to encourage smart growth and will oppose projects that contribute to sprawl. The agency might be a helpful ally to citizens who are trying to change our state laws to fight off carpetbaggers who come to town waving a free pass to erect affordable housing condos wherever they please.