How pleasant-sounding names camouflage top-down, centralized planning programs that threaten private property rights.

1. The Wolf at Your Front Door
Agenda 21
aka Smart Growth,
Sustainable Development,
Comprehensive Planning,
and Livable Communities

2. Overview
• Official sustainable development policies are
being implemented at every level of government
(national, state, county, and city)
• Pleasant-sounding names camouflage top-down,
centralized, highly-restrictive planning programs
• Public acceptance is baited by touting the
programs as environmentally friendly

3. What is Agenda 21?
• Unveiled at the 1992 Earth Summit (the United
Nations Conference on Environment and
Development or UNCED)
• Called Sustainable Development Agenda 21
• Tenets
– End to national sovereignty (Obj 28.2 – implement “a local Agenda 21”
– Environmental protection
– Elimination of private property rights (Obj 7.28: “communally and collectively owned and managed land”)
– Population growth control – birth control & restricted migration (Section II – national
population carrying capacity)
– Urbanization (Obj 7.18&19 – stop urban sprawl and protect open space)
– Restrictions to mobility (Obj 7.52: Public transportation, bicycle paths and pedestrian
– Propagandize children and build non-governmental partnerships (Section III)
Source: http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/

4. What is Agenda 21?
• Policies have been described as
– “constitution of the New Green World Order”
– environmentalism as its surrogate religion
• Fundamentally a socialist plan to change the way we
"live, eat, learn and communicate" because we must
"save the earth."
• Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the 1992 Earth Summit
– “Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the
affluent middle class – involving high meat intake,
use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air
conditioning, and suburban housing are not
sustainable.”

5. 10-Year framework reviewed May 2011 at the 19th session of the UN Commission on
Sustainable Development
• Policy actions for sustainable lifestyles
– Setting vision, regulatory, economic and institutional framework
• Urban planning and land-use policies
– Parking lots at city outskirts to encourage carpools to enter cities
– Shifting roadways from cars to bicycles and public transportation
– Construction policies and governmental subsidies for sustainable housing
– Laundromats so people do not have to own washing machines
• Traditional economic instruments
– Taxes and charges
– Government grants for businesses
– “Education, communication and marketing sustainable consumption and lifestyles
is a paramount task”
• “materialism is toxic for happiness”
Source: http://esa.un.org/marrakechprocess/pdf/Issues_Sus_Lifestyles.pdf

6. US Adoption of Agenda 21
• More than 178 nations adopted Agenda 21 as official
policy, including the United States
• U.S. policy adoption is “soft law” because it
represents a commitment to a path rather than
binding obligations of a ratified treaty

7. President Clinton’s Executive Order
• In 1993, created the President’s
Council on Sustainable
Development
• Council’s recommendations
included
– “population stabilization”
– replacement of technologies “from
the light bulb to the power plant.”
Source: http://clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/

8. The Partnership for Sustainable Communities
• Created in 2009, a partnership between three US federal agencies
– Environmental Protection Agency
– Housing and Urban Development
– Transportation
• EPA’s “guiding livability principles”
– public transportation
– energy-efficient buildings
– mixed use development
– local accountability for renewable energy
– walkable neighborhoods
Source: http://www.sustainablecommunities.gov/

9. Soviet Micro Districts
• Smart growth plans eerily similar to USSR Academy of Building Construction and Architecture
plans in the early 1960’s (From The Soviet Review, A Journal of Translations, Volume 2, Number
4, April, 1961)
• Town zoning where simplest services located on premises of residential houses or groups of houses and
stemming out to public centers designed to service the population of entire districts
• Each district is divided into residential compounds—micro districts--with a population of 6,000 to 10,000
– one school, a kindergarten, a nursery, a food shop, a personal service shops, a cafeteria, club, and
building maintenance office.
• Each micro district will have smaller residential compounds with populations of about 2,000 each
– Delivery services and automatic vending machines for food
– Recreation hall and house workshops
• Types of residential housing
– hotel-type houses for bachelors and families of two, integrated with laundromat and dance club
– Apartment houses of four to five stories for medium-sized families
– Two-story cottages for large families
Source: http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/planning_-_smart_growth/smart_growth_parallels_russian_soviet_planning_20051104158

10. University of Moscow planners
book: “The Ideal Communist City”
Source: http://falmouthcitizens.com/smart-growth/smart-growth-and-the-ideal-city/

11. Creep into Farms and
Rural Areas
• The Dept. of Agriculture website
unabashedly refers to UNCED
– Protect farm and forest land from being
converted to other uses
– Restrictions on grazing
– Wildlife protection
– Wetland protection
– Conservation easements
Source: http://www.usda.gov/oce/sustainable/background.htm

12. • In June, Obama created the White House Rural Council to
promote, among other things, “expanding opportunities for
conservation…on working lands and public lands.”
– 25 Cabinet Secretaries, chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture
– Work to develop a conservation agenda and
connect people to the outdoors
– Facilitate the protection of habitat (through
restoration and management) and access for
hunting and fishing on public and private lands
– Improve access to green space and supporting
livable communities through urban and
community forestry programs
Source: http://www.ocfo.usda.gov/usdasp/sp2010/sp2010.pdf

13. • Stalin’s Five Year Plan (1932-1933)
– Stripped landowners of property
– Organized citizens into communes
– Centrally controlled agriculture
– Increase industry (steel, iron, electric power)
– Result: Famine death est at 7 million Ukrainians
• Mao Tse Tung’s Great Leap Forward (1959-1961)
– Stripped landowners of property
– Organized citizens into communes
– Centrally controlled agriculture
– Increase industry (steel, iron, massive building projects)
– Result: Famine death est. at 17-40 million people
• Obama’s Rural Council (2011- )
– “Encourage public/private partnerships”
– “Help rural communities connect regionally to collaborate”
– “Expand markets for agriculture”
– Increase renewable energy and conservation
– Result: TBD

14. “Fostering Sustainable Development”
• Definition of “quality growth”
– discouragement of cul-de-sacs
– encouragement of pedestrian communities
– reduction of urban sprawl through ¼ acre residential lots
• Starter Code
– zoning ordinances to “prevent land inefficient and poorly
functioning strip-type development”
– require a Land Use Permit to “use or occupy…any building,
structure, land, water or premises.”
Source: http://www.georgiaqualitygrowth.com/whatisqg.asp

15. • Operates under the GA Dept. of Community Affairs
• Green Communities Certification Program
– Inspection program to enforce energy codes, outdoor lighting ordinances
– Green space (20 acres per 1000 residents, or 8% total green space, or all residents live within ½ mile of a park
– Community gardens, farmers markets
– Adopt bicycle and pedestrian policies
– Offer incentives for smart growth
– Educate public on green communities program
• Livable Centers Initiative
– pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use developments, greater balance between jobs and housing
• Lifelong communities
– Alternatives to car, pedestrian-friendly
• Promoting TSPLOST
– Projects: Rail, buses, sidewalks, bicycle lanes
Source: http://www.atlantaregional.com/

16. Cobb County
• Follows ARC’s Green Communities Program
• Includes zoning ordinances for Redevelopment
Overlay Districts (RODs)
– Targets certain areas for conversion to mixed-used
sustainable communities, and incents developers
using tax abatements to follow regulation minutia
• HWY 41 Corridor
• Austell Rd Corridor
• East Piedmont Corridor
• Old Mableton Area
Source: http://www.cobbcountyga.gov/green/index.htm

17. Cobb Parkway – Terrill Mill to Galleria Austell Rd – Brookwood, Mimosa, Hurt, Floyd
Sandy Plains – East Piedmont to Post Oak Tritt Mableton – Vet Mem Hwy, Daniel, Clay, Floyd

18. City of Marietta
• Cobb County Bike/Pedestrian Improvement Plan
• Cobb County Comprehensive Transportation Plan
• Marietta Comprehensive Plan
• Multi-Use Trails
– trail network will connect various neighborhoods to the
downtown, employment centers, as well as to the Silver
Comet trail
• Kennestone Area Land Use & Transportation Study
• LCI (Livable Centers Initiative)
– Envision Marietta LCI
Delk TOD LCI Study Plan
• Roswell Streetscape Project
• Powder Springs Street Master Plan
Source: http://www.mariettaga.gov/departments/devsvcs/planzone/studies.aspx

19. Source: http://www.mariettaga.gov/departments/devsvcs/planzone/studies.aspx

20. Local Govt Implement Smart Growth
• Implementation tactics
– zoning
– ordinances
– permitting
– fees
– park expansions
– transportation corridors
– endangered species
– wetland restrictions
– conservation easements
– access restrictions
– grazing limitations
– hundreds of other central
planning regulations and
schemes

21. NGOs and PPPs
• Accomplices: Non-government organizations and
public/private partnerships
• ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability
– Instrumental in creating Agenda 21
– Hundreds of cities using tax dollars to pay ICLEI to
implement and enforce Sustainable Development
– Promotes development management of virtually
everything:
• natural resources, energy, construction, food sources,
and even employment, education, health, and social
equity
– Socialist organization Center for American Progress is
prominently featured in ICELI’s STAR Community
IndexTM brochure.
Source: http://www.icleiusa.org/library/documents/STAR_Sustainability_Goals.pdf

22. Community Improvement
Districts (CIDs)
• Private/public partnership: a unit of government with power
to provide governmental services and facilities, tax power
– Provided for in Article 9, Section VII of the Georgia Constitution, amendment providing for CIDs was approved by the voters in 1984
• Town Center CID
– 1997 - established to promote infrastructure improvements
– 2000 - expanded purposes to include parks, recreation, land use planning
– 2004 - Livable Center study, called Supurb
– Supporting TSPLOST and light rail
• Cumberland CID
– Road construction, curbs, sidewalks, street lights, and traffic flow devices
– Parks and recreational areas and facilities
– Storm water and sewage collection and disposal systems
– Development, storage, treatment, purification and distribution of water
– Public transportation, bicycle and pedestrian facilities
– Livable Centers Initiative
– Supporting TSPLOST and light rail
Source: http://www.thelocalzoom.com/, http://www.cumberlandcid.org/

23. Town Center CID
SuPurb LCI Initiative

24. Infiltration of Education System
• Several Georgia universities offer degree programs in
sustainable development
• The National Association of Scholars
– sustainable development has a “ubiquitous presence in the K-12
curriculum…sustainability is used as a means of promoting to
students a view that capitalism and individualism are
‘unsustainable,’ morally unworthy, and a present danger to the
future of the planet.”
Source: http://www.nas.org/polStatements.cfm?Doc_Id=1936

25. Visible Results
• Millions of dollars spent by governments to acquire private land,
which is then centrally planned and managed
• Assault on private property rights
– Designate land for public use (eminent domain)
– Designate prime farmland, forests and land near water as
"preservation areas" that can't be developed
– Downzone land, then use gov’t money to buy it at cheap prices
• Miles of sidewalks to nowhere with no pedestrians
• Increase in bicycle paths
• Push for incredibly costly and inefficient rail systems
• Gov’t ownership of aquatic centers, performing arts centers, etc.

26. • “Restrictive state and local land-use regulations
are a key factor in escalating housing prices.
Delinquency and foreclosure rates in the areas
with tight land regulations…are among the
highest in the nation.”
Source: http://www.heritage.org/Issues/Housing/Smart-Growth

27. “Aside from the staggering presumption that a
select group of elites in America should be allowed
to decide how and where the rest of the people live,
the reality of SMART growth is that it often fuels
suburban sprawl, pollution, congestion, and a lack
of affordable housing, the very problems it purports
to solve.”
Source: http://www.americansforprosperity.org/smart-growth-economic-wolf-sheeps-clothing-jan-brauner-0

28. Summary
• Smart growth is more about economic control
than being responsible stewards of the
environment
• Restricting access to energy, land and
transportation gives unfettered control over
citizens and tramples on our liberty
• As one pundit said, “Smart growth? Smart for
whom?”

29. Next Steps
Learn
• What smart growth plans exist
in your city and county?
• What NGOs, PPPs and CIDs
are in play?
• Is ICLEI involved?
• Follow the money
• Who’s in charge?
Attend meetings & town halls
• FIRST – know their strategies
and techniques

30. www.regs-gridlock.com
Presentation posted on “Resource” page