AN URBAN VIEW : Sprawl is Here to Stay

- Alice Graesser,MCIP

Whether "suburban" or "rural", sprawl is usually an appendage of an urban centre. What impacts does sprawl have on the urban area? The situation of the city of St. John's illustrates several impacts.

The "rural" sprawl development pattern in the St. John's area mirrors that around Fredericton described in the recent issue of Plan Canada. Areas of low density, scattered subdivisions and ribbons of housing along rural roads are now part of the City of St. John's and of the municipalities centred on traditional fishing or farming communities in the surrounding area. It seems likely that most sprawl close to the urban centre of the region will eventually become part of the urban fabric, but more distant "rural sprawl" may retain its rural state. Meanwhile, virtually all municipal plans in the St. John's area, and the provincial Urban Region Plan, accommodate rural infill or ribbon development and rural residential subdivisions.

In the medium term, the City of St. John's faces infrastructure deficits in its recently amalgamated "rural" areas. Infrastructure levels which are acceptable in low density rural settings are now matched with rural level property taxes. Along with quite rural lands, the City has inherited some isolated subdivisions with substandard water and sewer lines and pumping facilities. Most of the newly amalgamated parts of the City are largely residential and expect the City to retrofit inadequate infrastructure where it exists and install urban-level infrastructure. After all, these new residents pay virtually the same level of property tax as do residents of fully serviced areas in the City. What will the fiscal impact of this new infrastructure and related property tax base? Will higher overall property tax levels result? Or will resources be reallocated from other infrastructure improvements or services? These servicing, upgrading and funding issues will be a feature of ongoing debate in the City Council, between the province and City, and among the City's taxpayers.

Over the years, rural sprawl and the low density suburbanization of rural communities around the city have probably contributed to a lower overall density of development within the City, discouraging infill while encouraging demands for the extension of City infrastructure at the periphery. With premature development at the edge of the urban core has come inefficient use of land in the form of small-scale subdivisions designed and developed in isolation of one another, often without attention to future street networks. Once developed, these areas become part of the urban fabric, permanently pushing up per capita servicing costs, while in effect depriving some land of development potential for the foreseeable future because of inefficient road patterns.

In the longer run, there are questions about the impact of sprawl on environmental functions: Does sprawl contribute to the incidence and level of flooding in urban rivers?-Recent flooding episodes on the Waterford River raise this question. Is sprawl helping to slow down the flow of sanitary sewage into the St. John's harbour as development is diverted out of its drainage basins? Is widespread on-site, ground-based sewage disposal a better solution than untreated or treated marine outfalls? What will be the effect of increasing rural development pressures on the City's surface water supplies located at its fringe?

Sprawl is here to stay, in the form of rural residential and other forms of "suburban" development in formerly rural area. Its urban impacts may evolve, but will be with us for the long term.

Alice Graesser is Planning Operations Manager with the Urban and Rural Planing Division of the Department of Municipal & Provincial Affairs, Newfoundland. She can be reached at (709) 729-5408,

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