Cities, Inc.

By Matt Wheelwright, Michael Johnson, Megan Townsend, and Casey Walrath

Mastic Beach, New York (pop. 14,841), is a small village on the southern coast of Long Island, about 60 miles from Manhattan. Situated at the shores of a narrow bay, across from a thin coastal island facing the Atlantic Ocean, it lacks the exclusivity and cachet of the nearby Hamptons but offers similar ocean access at a much lower cost.

It had long been an unincorporated hamlet, falling under the jurisdiction of the town of Brookhaven (2010 pop. 486,040) and Suffolk County. Then, in 2010, residents circulated a petition to incorporate as an independent village. The transition wasn't easy.

Proponents argued that local control of zoning enforcement would help the village deal with chronic issues of illegally overcrowded rental units, absentee landlords, and inadequately maintained properties — problems they believed Brookhaven was not prioritizing sufficiently. Others, however, said incorporation was not the solution to the code enforcement issues and would ultimately place new burdens on residents.

The petition was placed on the ballot and quickly passed, and Mastic Beach joined the ranks of thousands of communities that are turning to incorporation as a solution to their increasingly urban challenges.

New cities, new challenges Almost daily, media outlets highlight trends in population growth and urban development. In 2000, there were 25,150 "places," as de-fined by the U.S. Census Bureau (referring to incorporated cities, towns, and other organized civic areas as well as unincorporated places with concentrations of population, known as census-designated places).

That number grew to 29,261 in 2010 — a 16 percent increase. The Census Bureau's government survey in 2012 showed 35,879 subcounty governments, an increase of nearly 23 percent in that two-year span. As this trend continues, planners and decision makers will be presented with many more "new cities."

But why incorporate?

Unincorporated communities might feel hamstrung by their lack of a political voice and authority, with little capacity to improve their own quality of life, promote themselves, or work on economic development strategies. Such places might lack control over future development and have inadequate government services — including safety, recreation, and amenities. They might also be dependent on septic systems, have ill-maintained roads, or suffer from poor water quality.

Further, an inadequate sense of place, or perhaps more appropriately, a desire to protect their civic identity, pushes many unincorporated community residents to seek to control their own destinies. Fear of annexation can be another driver.

Incorporation could be a solution to some of these problems, but it is not free of risk.

That's become clear in Mastic Beach, where recent elections seem to have vindicated incorporation opponents.

Maura Spery spoke out strongly against incorporation in 2010, and four years later got the most votes in village trustee elections. The next year she was elected mayor. She continues to make property violations — a big driver behind proponents' desire to incorporate — a point of emphasis, but the young village faces more fundamental challenges.

The biggest issue is infrastructure. Mastic Beach Village is now responsible for sewerage and water management, and for maintaining its 88 miles of paved surfaces. "In the end, it all comes back to the roads," Spery says, "an issue barely addressed in the incorporation debate."

Still, Spery is determined to move forward. The first step is to make Mastic Beach Village fiscally sustainable. Although the village's budget rose from $4.15 million to $4.3 million from 2014 to 2015, Spery says it is insufficient to cover services like sanitation, public works, and parks as well as road repairs, which have been delayed since incorporation. Accordingly, the proposed 2016–2017 budget, still under review at the time of this writing, could rise to $4.7 million, including a 135 percent property tax increase.

The community also hopes to attract new businesses along the village's two commercial avenues. That would require significant financial outlays to connect the village to county sewage lines, but grants from the state and county could help. Beyond economic development, connecting to county sewage could reduce the environmental risks posed by septic tanks — a major issue in a coastal region where wetlands protection and water conservation are high priorities.

Although Mastic Beach's budget rose from $4.15 million to $4.3 million from 2014 to 2015, it is insufficient to cover services like sanitation, public works, and parks as well as road repairs. The proposed 2016–2017 budget could rise to $4.7 million, including a 135 percent property tax increase.

Additionally, the mayor intends to oversee the creation of a comprehensive plan. With a planning board but no full-time planner, the village has hired an outside firm. A chief concern will be connecting the downtown streets with the village's greatest asset, its waterfront. The goal is to build and improve paths for pedestrians and bikers, as well as recreational amenities. Mayor Spery hopes to not just attract visitors — and their wallets — to the oceanfront community, but also create a place where young people want to stay and raise families.

The community will also have to reconcile some residents' desire to expand development into wetland areas along the coast with the county's approach, which has included the purchase of private land along the beach to serve as a natural storm barrier. (Mastic Beach Village's beach still shows scars from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and could be vulnerable to a rise in sea level due to climate change.)

Though Spery was a skeptic about incorporation and believed it was done too quickly, without suf- ficient planning or accurate budgeting, she says she's hopeful that it can ultimately turn into a successful endeavor, making Mastic Beach Village a stable, middle-class community in a prized location.

Jurupa Valley, California, with Mt. Rubidoux in the background. Courtesy Jurupa Valley Planning Department.

Community identity

On the opposite side of the country, a much larger community has also come up against some stumbling blocks postincorporation. The city of Jurupa Valley (pop. 100,314) in Riverside County in Southern California incorporated in July 2011 through a community-led effort. Residents sought local empowerment for more focused planning and city services to preserve their community's identity.

At the time of incorporation, the 44-square-mile city, which encompassed nine existing rural communities, was uniquely large in terms of new cities. The area also already had a strong identity and sense of community, centered around rural uses, agriculture, and the Santa Ana River.

Since incorporation, Jurupa Valley has maintained and promoted this identity, holding equestrian events, a winter carnival, and other events throughout the year, as well as several river and neighborhood cleanups. And in the summer of 2015 the city received the Advancing Diversity and Social Change in Honor of Paul Davidoff Award of Merit from the California Chapter of APA for its adoption of an Environmental Justice Element.

Still, funding challenges forced the city to begin the process of disincorporating in 2014. Incorporation had been initially approved under the assumption that state funds would help support the new city, as is typical in California. Motor vehicle licensing fees, in particular, were expected to make up 25 percent of the city's anticipated annual fiscal budget. But the day prior to the incorporation vote, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 89, which shifted vehicle licensing funding to other uses, leaving the new city with a major deficit.

"All of the city council's energy went to try to rectify this with the state," says Thomas Merrell, AICP, planning director of the city through Civic Solutions, the consulting firm that provides planning and zoning services for Jurupa Valley. (The city also uses consultant services for engineering, public works, code enforcement, and other municipal needs.) Other planning efforts primarily have focused mostly on economic and tax base development.

Last September, things starting looking up. City staff worked with state legislators to add language to Senate Bill 107 — which concerns ongoing impacts of the dissolution of the California's redevelopment agencies — that benefits Jurupa Valley and three other recently incorporated cities. SB 107 eliminated the city's debt and is helping to clear the path for a stable financial future, meaning that the city no longer has to consider disincorporation. Still, Merrell says that it will likely take several years before the city can generate enough revenues through its tax base to support more holistic basic services.

There are other challenges, including "balancing the need of preserving agricultural land with the need for economic development," says Principal Planner Tamara Campbell. The city inherited a difficult land-use pattern from the county, she says, but adds that a new general plan currently under way addresses the issue.

The plan also aims to accomplish the community's longstanding goal of improving its commercial offerings to keep people from shopping out of town, as many do now. New zones have been added to the code to meet that need, and new housing projects also have been initiated. Officials hope the plan for the infant city will be adopted this fall.

Cottonwood Heights's primary retail corridor, Fort Union Boulevard, as it is now (above) and how such a street could look with the addition of wider sidewalks, landscaped medians, and street trees. Courtesy Cottonwood Heights Planning, Blu Line Designs.

Balancing form and function

Cottonwood Heights, Utah, offers another incorporation experience. Cottonwood Heights, a bedroom community of Salt Lake City (pop. 34,343), officially became a city in January 2005. Nestled in the foothills of the Wasatch mountain range, Cottonwood Heights fell under the jurisdiction of Salt Lake County. Driven by a community desire for independence and unique identity, citizens voted a decade ago to incorporate.

The new city's first step: Establish a formal municipal organization, including electing a city council and mayor, hiring city staff, and establishing an operating budget. Initially for funding reasons, many of the city's services were hired out to private contractors, including police and fire services, building and engineering, and other subsidiary services. Only the human resources, administrative services, finance, and community development departments were originally filled by city employees.

Brian Berndt, the current community and economic development director for Cottonwood Heights, says planners were required to wear many hats because the city staff was so small. With an intense focus on establishing an operational and selfsustaining city, most of Cottonwood Heights's early planning efforts consisted of permit issuance and development review for code compliance.

However, the primary planning goal was to adopt a general plan, which the city did shortly after incorporation in 2005. (In Utah, cities are legally required to adopt a general plan before implementing zoning laws and requirements.) This transition from unincorporated county to incorporated city created a number of planning challenges.

One stumbling block in adopting a new city code was dealing with nonconforming uses and noncomplying buildings in the largely built-out community. Planners in Cottonwood Heights adopted a zoning ordinance that closely resembled that of the unincorporated county's before it. While this approach successfully limited the number of nonconforming uses and buildings, it led to an even greater challenge. One of the primary goals written into the city's general plan — and one of the primary reasons citizens voted to incorporate — is to establish a unique sense of character and identity.

Under county jurisdiction, the Cottonwood Heights area was a noncentralized bedroom community of Salt Lake City, and its ordinance was written as such. There was a strong emphasis on single-family housing and vehicular mobility. Upon incorporation, however, the focus shifted drastically. Officials of the newly christened city recognized that the township's unique geographic location in the foothills of two marquee ski canyons, coupled with its proximity to Salt Lake City and its stunning mountain and city vistas, could serve as the foundation for a memorable city experience. The actual development patterns, when taken out of geographical context, left something to be desired, but modifying development patterns to create a unique character is difficult.

"With an established population and stable land values which tend to be high, there is oftentimes an aversion to [any sort of] change," says Glen Goins, AICP, the city's senior planner. "Making change requires public support, and garnering public support requires continual, extensive outreach efforts. We [as planners] must communicate planning goals and policies with as much specificity as possible in order to provide the greatest level of predictability possible."

The balance between function and form in Cottonwood Heights has been challenging to manage. Long-range planning projects that focus on character and form and fostering future development in line with the city's unique identity were initially delayed as the city first worked on its basic functionality and financial sustainability.

Fortunately, the important long-range work is now being implemented. As the city's growing pains have subsided, its perspective has expanded. Planners have recently completed or are working on projects to achieve the community vision set forth in the general plan. A bicycle and trail master plan was recently adopted that focuses on improving nonmotorized transportation, and area master plans are under development for gateway areas and activity centers. The city is also improving the function and appearance of city streets, and working to attract new types of businesses and residents to Cottonwood Heights.

The city has adopted design guidelines and a form-based code option along the primary corridor in an attempt to establish architectural character for expected redevelopment. Planners are also currently working on a citizen-driven corridor master plan aimed at creating streets with a strong sense of community place and identity. To do this, staff and citizens have recommended enhanced road standards that incorporate wider sidewalks, public art, improved bike lanes, landscaped medians, and other improvements that improve the aesthetic quality of the city's primary corridor.

'With an established population and stable land values which tend to be high, there is oftentimes an aversion to any sort of change. . . . We, as planners, must communicate planning goals and policies with as much specificity as possible in order to provide the greatest level of predictability possible.'

—GLEN GOINS, AICP, SENIOR PLANNER, COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, UTAH

The city's renewed focus on form is already starting to pay off , says Goins. "When development comes knocking, we can respond equally or better than other [cities] without compromising the integrity of residential areas." And the city has succeeded in undoing some of the "haphazard development" of the past, when there was "little thought [given] to the urban form along Fort Union Boulevard [the city's primary retail corridor] or to the pedestrian experience or overall aesthetic of the corridor," Goins says.

What's ahead

Is your community considering incorporation? Be sure to ask yourself the following questions, which could help you identify and reduce some of the typical growing pains that many new cities face:

WHERE will the city's new leaders come from?

WHO will be accountable for the city's administrative responsibilities?

HOW will the vision for the city identity be created and maintained? Do new zoning code and new city policies need to be created, or will the previous county standards still apply?

HOW will the new budget be managed? Where will current and future cash flows come from?

HOW will we engage the local residents beyond the act of incorporation?

That last question is perhaps the most important one for planners today. As Cottonwood Heights's Goins advises: "Dialogue is essential. Communicate the vision. Have a rendering created or some other visual communication of the desired future tense of the city. Let people see what the expectations are. Base this future state on current planning tenets, in cooperation with the planning commission and city council [and other decision makers]."

Whatever potential challenges may come with incorporation, learning from the past and working to anticipate the need for strong leadership, sufficient budget, defined identity, and a clear vision is critical for the success of new cities.

All four coauthors are currently pursuing planning degrees from the University of Utah: Matt Wheelwright is a PhD student in the department of Urban Planning and Design. Mike Johnson is a planner for the city of Cottonwood Heights and is pursuing a graduate degree in Public Administration. Megan Townsend is a transportation planner for the Wasatch Front Regional Council and a Master of City and Metropolitan Planning candidate. Casey Walrath is also a planning graduate student.

Resources

Jurupa Valley almost abandoned its two-year-old cityhood in 2013 when funds ran dry. This KPCC/Southern California Public Radio broadcast explains why state funding decisions almost put the new city in jeopardy. Listen at tinyurl.com/z7mg4sc.