Controlled growth has its pros and cons

Bill Erin

Friday, Aug. 22, 2008 | midnight

Is controlled growth good or bad for a small town? There is no question but what we like it and will fight anyone who tries to take it away. But economically and in terms of service, what does it mean to Boulder City?

From time to time we have heard merchants here express views indicating that controlled growth is a serious detriment to business and development in Boulder City.

Certainly it has had an effect on city services. People expect big city services on a restricted, small-town budget.

This is exacerbated by the fact that residents in the past few years have almost completely shut down any residential growth whatsoever. Their votes against developing the residential area around the Boulder Creek Golf Course and, more recently, against developing what is called “the Bristlecone area” in order to help pay for our share of an additional water line from Lake Mead, are examples of this.

According to City Planner Susan Danielewicz, controlled growth as planned would have allowed 3,480 new homes in Boulder City since it was enacted in 1979. Instead, only 1,804, or 52 percent, of the homes envisioned under controlled growth have been built; 1,676, or 48 percent of what the authors felt was healthy growth, have not been built. Much of this negativity has taken place in the last few years.

The latest to express distress from controlled growth is the Boulder City Hospital. According to hospital CEO Tom Maher in his public presentation on why the hospital needs a tax district, it’s a common misconception to think that the hospital can improve its financial position by treating more patients. Limited growth is a major reason why additional patients just aren’t there.

The hospital’s director of business development, Craig Bailey, has made an attempt to put a dollar figure on what an individual patient means in terms of income, but cautions that it’s difficult to come up with anything but rough estimates. He and his associates have come up with a rough estimate of an average $212 profit to the hospital from each admission.

This is not actual cost to the patient or by the hospital, but a net profit. Using that figure, rough as it may be, you can see that 1,676 more homes in Boulder City, still within controlled growth parameters, with four to five residents per home, could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars additional income for the hospital.

While you can’t say those additional homes would have forestalled the necessity of a tax district, you can certainly assume a much better financial picture for the hospital and less taxes as a result.

These additional homes would have helped more than the hospital. Their economic impact would have been felt throughout the business community, and city finances would be in much better shape were that ugly, vacant land around the Boulder Creek Golf Course now a thriving, bustling residential area.

We are not the only community struggling with the idea of controlled growth.

A quick trip to your Internet search engine, whether Google, Yahoo or whatever, will yield pages of articles on controlled growth, various methods of attaining it and pros and cons of using it.

Methods range from Oregon’s Urban Growth Boundaries that restrict areas for residential development to Florida’s Department of Communities Affairs tasked with making sure cities and counties stick to long-term growth plans.

The scariest is Mexico City, which is considering the use of land subsidies for factories to encourage people to move out of the city. Definitely a different approach to growth.

The bottom line is this: We like our controlled growth in Boulder City. Now we must pay the piper. In today’s world, controlled growth is a luxury.

If we loosen up a little bit on the control, the luxury won’t be quite as expensive.

Bill Erin is a Boulder City News columnist.