Feds join the fight against sprawl.

Taking the lead from state and local governments, the Clinton administration fired dual salvos in January aimed at managing sprawl and preserving open space.

Vice President Gore announced a new program - "Better America Bonds" - that would provide $700 million in federal tax credits over five years to help state and local governments preserve open space, enhance urban parks, protect water quality and clean up brownfields.

Although the details are sketchy, communities would have access to zero-interest financing because investors purchasing the bonds would receive a tax credit instead of interest. The administration projects that this method would leverage $9.5 billion in bond authority. The Environmental Protection Agency would run the program, which requires congressional approval.

President Clinton followed with a "Lands Legacy" proposal in the FY 2000 budget that would appropriate $1 billion to preserve open space. In addition to earmarking $442 million for federal land acquisition, the proposal would allocate $558 million to state and local governments and private land trusts as matching grants - $150 million of that amount would go to purchase the title or development rights to land for urban parks, greenways, recreation, wetlands and wildlife habitat, with $50 million to be spent on "Smart Growth" planning.

How come the federal government suddenly got religion? Last November's elections - state and local, not congressional - may be the clue. Phyllis Myers, a conservation policy consultant, identified 240 initiatives and referenda in 31 states - 72 percent of which passed - ranging from "conventional park and recreation funding to purchase of farms and coastal areas to adding green infrastructure in growing communities on the edge of expanding metropolitan areas."

Her analysis of the election results, published in a Brookings Institution report entitled Livability at the Ballot Box, suggested that "contrary to past election years, an increasing number of measures this year moved beyond traditional land acquisition and involved purchase of easements to restrict future development of privately owned, productive farmland."

States and communities have been far ahead of the federal government on open space and public finance issues. Maryland's 1997 Smart Growth legislation includes a "Rural Legacy" component that provides state funds to local governments and private land trusts to purchase agricultural, forest and other natural resource lands and development rights from willing sellers.

A 1998 Connecticut statute establishes the "Protected Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition Grant Program" to provide grants to municipalities, nonprofit land conservation organizations and water companies to acquire land and easements for open space and watershed protection.

Successful state ballot measures included a New Jersey constitutional amendment referred by the Legislature that dedicates $98 million annually from the state sales tax over 10 years to purchase lands for recreation and conservation purposes, farmland preservation and historic preservation - it also sets aside $98 million annually for 20 years to repay up to $1 billion in bonds issued to finance open space.

Arizona voters also approved a referendum from the Legislature last fall to appropriate $220 million from the state general fund over 11 years to be used to purchase state trust lands - or the development rights to such lands - for open space.

With so much momentum at the state and community levels, what is the appropriate role of the federal initiatives? The money is welcome, but the key to making it work is for the administration and Congress to recognize the experience that state and local governments - in partnership with private land trusts - have in running these programs, and to ensure that the grant award process is not so cumbersome that creativity in designing programs is inhibited.

Editor's Note: Check NCSL's new database on growth management laws at www.ncsl.org. Call Larry Morandi for additional information at [phone] ext. 181.