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Substandard Sul~~~~isions
County Council
Substandard subdivisons are tracts of land which have been subdivided, but which are
not provided with the infrastructure, balancing land uses, and public facilities needed to
meet current development standards for functioning communities. Substandard
subdivisions were designed for investment, not habitation.
Substandard subdivisons are a problem in New Jersey, Florida, Colorado, Arizona,
Montana, California, and on the island of Hawaii. Hawaii has over 80,000 lots in
substandard subdivsions, 2/3 of the lots on the island. More than 50,000 are in Puna.
Substandard subdivisions become a problem when owners move onto their land and
start needing water, sewers, better roads, schools, parks, police and fire stations, flood
protection, workplaces, and shopping places. Often, owners also discover that their
expectations for development and land use are at odds with their neighbors'.
Substandard subdivisions are sometimes located in places where natural hazards make
development a too high risk, or where the cumulative impacts of full development
would create unacceptable environmental degradation and/or overload regional
infrastructure.
Comm. No. ~ OD
What are the solutions ? mile No. _
T~IRP
T-
Re f. To: P~~~et1 C o v,~ c, ~
Kef. Da~~ ~lH 8 1999
A Substandard Subdivision Tool Kit
Some planning and infrastructure financing tools for repairing the planning breakdown.
Emergency and Prevention Land Use Pattern Repair
Usually can be initiated at county level.
• Prohibition of further "water-waiver" subdivisions is now
being debated by Hawaii County, after the Planning Director Minimum lot size is used two ways in Florida Where dre
recommended against, and the Planning Commission tamed environment cannot handle the permitted density, minimum lo[
down, a number of applicazions for new substandard sizes force owners to consolidate a number of lots to get a
subdivisions. The decision was reversed by the Board of building permit. Ia other subdivisioos, in areas designated for
Appeals and is now the subject of litigation within the County. commercial centers, owners can obtain commercial permits
ody with alive-acre master planned site.
• Halting ohana permitting on substandard lots, because they
infrastmcture is inadequate, is under consideration by the Mmdazory lo[ merger, closely related to minimum lo[ sin, is
County of Hawaii, m m overall review of the ohana permitting. used is many California counties. In a statewide version,
• Concurrent , mandated b Florida state law in the mid-1980x, counties aro mandated to merge Iota to meet certain standards.
y y This measure has created problems, maidy because it was
prohibits upzoning, subdivision, or in some cases, development changed by succeeding legislatures after some counties had
permits, until a development plan shows that the development al,.~y begun the massive processing of the early program,
or land use will be needed wrthm five years and that the leading to conflict, confusion, and lawsuits. In mother version,
infrastmcture, or the mechanism that will provide it, is in place. SeV~ counties have required lot size to conform to zoning for
building permits. For instance, if the zoning is Ag-5, but the
• Moratoriums on building permits have been used in both existing lots are 1/4 acre, the owners cannot get a building
Florida and California to temporarily halt development in Permit except for a parcel of five acres or more.
substandard subdivisions until acute problems, such as
groundwater pollution or lmdalide hazards, are addressed. Transfer of Development Rights (1'DR) is used in both
Florida and California to redirect development from
• SOS zoning is a special zoning category for substmdard irtappropriate locations (called sending areas) to mote
subdivisions in some California counties. It requires building appropriaze locations (called receiving areas). It requires
permit applicmts to show how they will meet standards, such as developer in receiving areas to buy increased denarty from
safe sewage disposal or Imdslide protcedon, Permits are not sending area ptyppg• Owners in sending areas still retain their
given for building on lots which cannot meet requirements. land, but with less property value and taxes. In California,
TDRs have bcen used mainly by cities and counties to preserve
historic districts from highs densities and to lower densides in
Infrastructure Financing Repair areas of high hazard or where the cumulative impacts of
State enabling legislation required. development would create uoaccepmble environmental or
infiastrtrcturo overloading. In some Florida subdivisions, this
• Property taxes, state legislative appropriations, and federal tool is the primary means of transforming suburbm sprawl
cost sharing, are the tradi[ioml means of paying for new subdivisions into clustered and differentiated uses.
infrastmcture. Federal cost sharing, especeally for high cost
sewage treatment facilities, is drying up just when federally
mmdazed water gtrarity protection rs requiring moro expensive Multi-purpose Tools for Land Use and
waste treatment and disposal. while this is a problem for mmy Infrastructnre
rural communities and municipalities, it is especially a problem
for substandard subdivisions, where the "sprawl" lend use May require state enabling legislation; usually
pattern raises the linear distances of inftastmcturo beyond the implemented by owner associations.
meets of the (generally) low-income residents.
• land Readjustment allows small hmdowners to act like large
• Improvement districts are used by subdivision lot owners to developers by binding together to redevelop their holdings, to
pay for infrastmcture. Hawaii County has m improvement provide themselves with iitfrostrtrcttue without additional
district ordinance thaz has bcen widely used by developer for capital investment from individual owners. Owners give up a
new subdivisions. Improvement districts may be initiated by portion of their Imd in order to create a pool of land to reserve
owner or [he County Council. Owner enter into m for public facilfies md/or to sell to pay for iitfrastmcaue.
agreement, with each other and the County, to borrow motty m Typically, the local govemmeat provides a portion of fimdiag
pay for the infiastmcmre, and each owner makes payments ova plus a rovolving loin fund so that the cost-equivalent Imd can
time to pay off the loin. Improvement districts in already be sold after the infiastructure and facilities ere in place. The
settled areas may impose costs on some existing residents lot consolidation and resubdivision process provides m
which effectively force them to sell. oppordrnity to cluster functioml land uses and to provide sites
for public facilities, open spacer reserves, and other community
• Community Benefit Districts-also called Mello Roos-are one needs. Land readjustment enabling legislation has bcen
kind of special assessment districts whereby residents can rise introduced to the Hawaii legislanue a number of times. It has
money for their own facilities by assessing themselves, using recently been enabled in Califama
they payment commitment to qualify for goverment bonds.
Commumty Benefit Districts were enabled by the Hawaii Land Braking is used in Florida subdivisions to stockpile
legislazitre in 1992. lots for public user. A revolving fund is used to acquire lots on
the open market. They can then be used in number of ways:
• Tax Increment Finmcing (T» dedicates the increased tax directly for public facilities or open space; as a trado for
revenues from m area to pay for the infratmcturo md/or public mother lot needed for public use; as m investment that will ba
facilities in that area It recognizes that the improvements, and rceold after infrastructure is imuafled; ar rorinod for
the development thaz comes with them, will increase the tax commercial lease-partnerhip.
base to pay for the improvements. TIF has bcen onabled by the
state legislator and is under coisidertion by the County of Lease partnership is used to help fund redevelopment is
Hawaii some Califotnra communities. The local government pays for
the iitfiastructure needed for commercial development of a
• Impact fees are fees paid az the time of upzoning, subdivision govemmemowned parcel. The government then enters inm a
or permitting. They contribute [o specific funds used to pay the lease agreement with the commercial developer of the parcel to
actual costs of infrastructure and facilities needed for that participate in the financial ronrrn from developmemt of the hind.
development. The ra[iooale for using impact fees rather thin
taxes to pay for infrastnicture is that existing residents have These tools cm be used in combination, such as Land
paid for their own facilities through taxes and should not be Readjustment, improvement districts, TDR. md/or lend
required to share the costs for facilities needed by new banking, to tailor participation to unique needs and resources of
residents. The impact fee ordimnce now being considered by different owner. For instance, some owner may wish to
the County of Hawaii exempts curtain owner of residential participaze is the clustering and creation of surplus Imd for sale
lots, in recognition of the fact that Iota which have been in of the Land Readjustment process while other may wish to
existence for up to forty year have helped to pay for the pay their share of the iriftastrucmre costa, while others may
facilities of existing residents. This is unlikely to be a wish to enlarge their parcels using TDR and land exchange to
significant source of iiifrstructure funding for subatmdard move beyond the infiasnucture cluster to m agricultural
subdivisions. reserve area