Urban Growth Boundaries

An urban growth boundary is a line which marks the limits of the area where a local or regional government chooses to encourage development. While there will usually be land for sale available on both sides of this line, the land inside the boundary will be in the area for public services. There are several benefits and problems with urban growth boundaries.

Benefits

1. Urban growth boundaries help to control urban sprawl. It discourages people from buying the land for sale outside the boundary and immediately building houses on it.

2. When a boundary is established, a more concentrated population tends to spring up within the boundary. Because of this, it is more economical and more efficient to provide public transportation to the area.

3. When less people are building on land for sale outside the urban growth boundaries, more farmland is safe from development, at least for the time being.

4. Natural resources are saved for two reasons. First, there are lower costs of transportation of goods within a smaller, denser area. Second, the area outside the boundary is more protected from pollution.

5. Public services such as water, sewer, and road maintenance are easier to manage within a smaller physical area than if the population was more spread out over a larger area.

6. Urban growth boundaries are usually set for 20 to 25 years, but they may be reevaluated every 5 years to account for changes in the population.

7. You can often buy land for sale just outside the urban growth boundary at a low cost because services are not available to it. Yet, in a few years it will likely be prime building land.

Problems

1. If the boundary is set too near the existing dense population, it will cause it to be very expensive to buy land for sale within the boundary. People will have trouble developing that land. Some might even move their projects to other areas that do not have such tight urban growth boundaries.

2. If the boundary is set too far from the existing dense population, it will have little effect at all. It might also be difficult to get public utilities to extend their service areas to the far reaches within the boundary.

Urban growth boundaries have their positive and negative points, but it is of interest to someone who wants to buy land for sale on either side of the line.