STALLING THE SPRAWL: Rural communities put more demands on home developers to control growth
July 19, 2004
BY JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
The Bromley Park subdivision of new houses a few miles east of Ann Arbor neatly captures a dilemma growing more and more common in the home-building industry.
On one hand, the houses, including three- and four-bedroom models with names like the Carlisle and the St. James with base prices up to about $250,000, have sold about as fast as builder Pulte Homes Inc. could put them up. Their location in tiny (population about 12,000) and still partly agricultural Superior Township offers an easy drive to Ann Arbor or even Detroit yet retains enough of its rural flavor to appeal to those trying to flee urban ills.
On the other hand, Pulte, the Bloomfield Hills-based company that ranks among the nation's biggest house builders, had to overcome initial doubts and skepticism of township officials. Pulte needed to work out a host of planning, zoning and environmental concerns before getting the go-ahead to build.
Where once builders like Pulte spent six months on planning a subdivision, today the process can consume two or three years before the first shovel of dirt can be turned. A lengthy preapproval is now part of a way of life for home builders in Michigan and around the nation. Jim Bagley, president of Pulte Homes of Michigan, says delays occur because community officials who fear the onslaught of sprawl demand more and more data and revisions to plans before granting their blessing.
"Many communities have no-growth sentiments that cause long delays," Bagley says. "Many communities through additional permitting requirements add time to the process. Many communities simply refuse to approve your development."
William McFarlane, the supervisor of Superior Township, says the slow, deliberate approach taken by his community and many others reflects a desire to retain what makes places like Superior Township desirable in the first place.
"We're not an assembly plant out here," McFarlane says. "We want to have slow, managed growth. It takes time to review the plans, to look at the infrastructure requirements." Builders, he says, are "in it to make money, but we're here after they're gone."
No one expects the process to get easier anytime soon. In addition to basic environmental protections for air and water, in recent years many communities in the path of sprawl have enacted ordinances offering additional protection to wetlands, woodlands and other prime features of the landscape. A builder who used to bulldoze through a hundred-acre site to build roads and home lots now might have to pick his way around trees, ponds, historic farmhouses and other protected elements.
Bernie Glieberman, president of Novi-based Crosswinds Communities, a major developer of townhouse-style condominiums and houses, said complying with each individual woodlands or wetlands ordinance could tack another 90 days on to the preapproval process.
"The more people a community gets, the more the people who are there don't want anybody else there," Glieberman says. "In California you've got what's known as the BANANAs -- build absolutely nothing nowhere at all. Thank God we're not quite there."
Bagley and Glieberman estimate that the delays built into preapproval add perhaps 10 percent to the price of a new house, or about $30,000 for a typical $300,000 new house in suburbia. The extra costs include higher legal, engineering and planning fees, as well as the cost of options on land purchases.
"What it really impacts is the affordable market, under $200,000," Bagley says. "Twenty thousand for that market means you're not buying a home."
New environmental reviews and zoning requirements are not the only things slowing down the birth of new subdivisions. "Remember, we're working our way out" from the mostly flat landscape nearer Detroit, Glieberman says. To the north and west of the city, where most of southeastern Michigan's new growth is occurring, the landscape is dotted with lakes and dappled with stands of trees. "You've got more wetlands," he says. "You've got more topography you're working with."
Sewers or the lack of them can be another problem, as many outlying communities still rely on wells and septic systems. Worries over burdening sensitive ecosystems can slow approvals.
But builders insist the overwhelming reason for delays is no-growth sentiment. Lee Schwartz, assistant vice president for policy at the Michigan Association of Home Builders, says the delays go beyond headaches for builders to burden the home-buying public.
"It's a very serious problem," he says. "For a contractor, time is money, and every delay raises the cost of housing, which is something we simply don't need to be doing in this state."
But don't expect environmental activists to apologize for imposing tougher requirements.
"I know that time is money, and you don't want to have people wait for no good end," says Lana Pollack, president of the Michigan Environmental Council, "but, if the result is better development, cleaner water, cleaner air, less traffic congestion, then that's the price of doing business."
Builders might not like it, she adds, but the vast majority of state residents are pleased with a tougher process to halt what some see as a mindless expansion. "People are sick and tired of the sort of slap-happy sprawl that has drained our wetlands, damaged our water, created traffic congestion and resulted in higher local taxes."
If a major company like Pulte or Crosswinds can absorb the extra costs, a lot of smaller operators cannot. "It's not that little guys are stupid," Schwartz says.
"It's that they don't have the resources to put five or six people in on how do you deal with wetlands and the other environmental regulations."
Bagley agrees.
"The competitive advantage for national builders is that we can afford to hang in there and tough it out through the delayed entitlement process. We've got the holding power," he says.
In Superior Township, McFarlane agrees that subdivisions like Bromley Park offer what homebuyers want.
"People love their product, and they love the location, and I just can't believe how fast they sold the homes."
But, when there's only once chance for a community to get it right when it comes to all the new roads and traffic and people, McFarlane says, it's worth a little extra time.
"You just can't do it overnight," he says. "I don't think it's a big delay."
Contact JOHN GALLAGHER at 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com
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