CFE 021201 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

ews &Observer(Print. Filendly ) : http : //www . . . rsday/news/nc/Story/276997p - 258581c . html http : // 152452816 . 193/standing/help/tools/_scripts/friendly -print. cgi 3 4 newsobserver. com Published : Thursday , January 18 , 2001 3 : 45 a . m . EST Goof as big as Orange County now set straight By RICHARD STRADLING , Staff Writer For more than a year , politicians , environmentalists and other foes of urban sprawl have cited these numbers : 781 , 500 acres developed in North Carolina between 1992 and 1997 , an average of 17 . 8 acres bulldozed and paved each hour . The numbers came from the U . S . Department of Agriculture , and they appear prominently in reports by the Brookings Institution , the Institute of Government at UNC - Chapel Hill and the Triangle J Council of Governments . Former Gov . Jim Hunt and environmental groups used them to support Hunt ' s plan to protect a million acres from development over the next decade . Now the agriculture department says it goofed . Last week , it quietly released new statistics that show 506 , 600 acres were developed in North Carolina in those years . That ' s a difference of 274 , 900 acres , a mistake the size of Orange County . " Wow , that ' s a lot , " said Ben Hitchings , a planner with the council of governments , which uses the USDA figures in reports and presentations for local government officials and the public . " How did they explain the discrepancy ? " Error quoted widely The agency blames a computer programming error that caused researchers to overestimate the amount of land developed in every state . Nationwide , the agency now says , 11 . 2 million acres were developed , about 30 percent less than it figured a year ago . Hitchings said the new numbers still show the state is losing open land at an alarming rate . " Whether it ' s 11 or 12 acres an hour or 17 , no matter how you slice it , the landscape is changing rapidly , " he said . Vice President Al Gore and Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman released the original numbers in December 1999 . The figures confirmed that " too much of our precious open space is being gobbled up by sprawl , " Gore said . The USDA discovered its mistake in March and posted a warning on its Web site that it would revise its report . The agency released the updated figures through the Web site last Tuesday , without the fanfare and speeches that launched the earlier version . N . C . builders not concerned No one has openly questioned the numbers in North Carolina . But the N . C . Home Builders Association downplayed their significance , saying urban areas remain a small fraction of the state ' s land . " Anyone who has flown in an airplane over the metropolitan areas of North Carolina can see there is a tremendous amount of open land present even in the so - called urban sprawl areas , " said Michael Carpenter , the association ' s executive vice president . " It simply is not a significant issue . " Because the error affected all states , North Carolina still ranks high in land development , placing sixth behind Texas , Georgia , Florida , California and Pennsylvania . The previous report ranked North Carolina fifth . But the new numbers show that the rate of development did not increase as dramatically in the 1990s as the previous report suggested . On average , 101 , 000 acres were developed each year between 1992 and 1997 , less than 10 percent higher than the rate over the previous decade . The hazards of sampling People should be wary of any statewide development statistics , said Richard Whisnant , a professor who specializes of 2 1 /23/2001 8 : 45 AM