Changing the world, one local government at a time 

If you ask land-use attorney Chris Duerksen, there are some things wrong with the world. We’re using more and more fossil fuels, icebergs are disappearing, species are going extinct, health is deteriorating, and the U.S. is importing more food than it’s exporting.

So things have to change.

Duerksen, principal of Denver-based consulting firm Clarion Associates, said local governments have the tools to make those changes happen.

The goal is to push communities toward sustainability, meaning toward a way of life that keeps the world intact for the next generation.

In his keynote address at the Planning in the West conference sponsored by NewWest.net and Boise State University at the Stueckle Sky Club in Boise today, Duerksen described three approaches local governments can use to achieve sustainability: removing obstructions, creating incentives and regulating.

Removing obstacles can mean dissolving ordinances that ban solar panels in certain zones, or outlawing homeowners association rules that prohibit using clotheslines to dry clothes.

Creating incentives could mean offering builders bonuses for building houses with green roofs, and regulating could mean making a law that prohibits developers from using water-guzzling blue grass in landscapes.

He said the last three decades have made up a “free lunch era,” where planners and developers focused on what they could get out of the land.

He said the new generation is bringing a new focus on sustainability and an energy that will mean action.

“I’m highly optimistic that we can create these sustainable communities, and they’re going to be worthy of this mountain scenery,” he said.

About 175 people from throughout the West attended the two-day conference.

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