State and Local Issues

States Locking Up Land

Environmental activists are pressing states to declare farmland and other open spaces out of bounds for development. Americans appear ambivalent about such efforts. As voters, they appear willing to go along with the programs; as home-buyers, they prefer larger houses on larger parcels.

  • New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman is putting her tax-cutting record at risk with a proposal to raise gasoline taxes and spend the proceeds to cordon off half the state's two million acres of undeveloped land.

  • Georgia lawmakers recently approved a bill that would put a real estate transfer tax increase on the ballot this November to establish a $36 million conservation fund.

  • Connecticut legislators have approved the first step of a $160 million bond sale to preserve more than 20,000 acres over five years.

  • In Minnesota, lawmakers voted for a bond measure that would allocate $140 million over two years for parks, hiking trails, recreation and open space.

Observers say the commitment to new state spending comes on top of efforts by more than 100 local and county governments across the nation in the last two years to win voter approval of tax increases and bond referendums to buy undeveloped land and curb urban sprawl.

But a survey by the National Association of Homebuilders revealed that 82 percent of consumers would rather live in a single-family house in an outlying area than in a townhouse near an urban center and close to their jobs.

Source: Jennifer Preston, "Battling Sprawl, States Buy Land for Open Spaces," New York Times, June 9, 1998

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