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EPA TO HOST NEW ENGLAND "SMART GROWTH" CONFERENCE FEBRUARY 2 IN BOSTON

Release Date: 01/26/1999
Contact Information: Peyton Fleming, EPA Press Office (617-918-1008)

BOSTON - Consider the following sprawl-related facts:

• From 1982 to 1992, Massachusetts lost 233,000 acres of land to development - the equivalent of one-third of Rhode Island.
• Rhode Island's population has been stable the past 10 years, yet 26,000 acres of land was developed - an area the size of two Providences.
• From 1970 to 1995, Maine's public school population fell by 27,000 students, yet it spent $727 million on new school construction, nearly half of it on new buildings in fast-growing towns.
• For every $1 dollar of revenue a new low-density housing development brings a New England town, it costs the community as much as $1.45 in increased expenses to pay for schools, roads and other costs.

On Tuesday, Feb. 2, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's New England Office and a half-dozen co-sponsors will be assembling a diverse and powerful coalition of 400-plus developers, planners and civic leaders to tackle the "sprawl" issue in New England. The one-day conference, "Smart Growth Strategies for New England," will be held at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.

The conference, which will run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., is being sponsored and organized by the EPA's New England Office. Co-sponsors include the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the New England Chapters of the American Planning Association, the New England Governors' Conference, the Nature Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land and the Urban Land Institute.

Speakers will include Vermont Governor Howard Dean, EPA New England Administrator John P. DeVillars, and several national experts on smart growth issues such as Philip Langdon, author of "A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the American Suburb" and Bruce Katz, director of the Brookings Institution's Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.

DeVillars will kick off the conference by announcing a $1.5 million action plan for implementing "smart growth" strategies in the region.

"Suburban sprawl is the largest challenge New England will be facing over the next 25 years. It's degrading our environment, it's fiscally inefficient and it's undermining our social fabric," DeVillars said. "In short, sprawl is a bona-fide threat to New England's future and we need to act now to curb it."

The conference will highlight "smart growth" success stories in New England such as the State of Vermont's tax incentives to spur downtown development, an awards program for Rhode Island developers who are preserving forestland and EPA's Brownfields redevelopment program that has restored and revitalized dozens of contaminated urban properties across New England.

The conference will also identify strategies and actions for fostering successful economic development in ways that protect the environment and preserve the local community. Specific topics that will be covered include:

• Incentives for Smart Growth: Where and How Should Development Occur
• Encouraging Planned Business Growth: Siting Commercial Development and Promoting Urban Redvelopment
• Tools for Encouraging Smart Growth and Saving Open Space
• Reshaping Federal and State Policies to Encourage Smart Growth
• Keeping Rural Economies Viable
• Infrastructure Investments for Smart Growth