Following up on Dave Yaden’s post yesterday: now that Measure 37 has left Portland’s urban growth boundary in tatters, David Bragdon, president of the three-county Portland Metro governing body, is looking for other ways to encourage smart growth.

From the Willamette Week:

Most observers doubt Measure 37 can be knocked off by lawsuits or overhauled by the Legislature. So, Bragdon says, planners must seek new ways of promoting compact urban-style development. One of the most promising methods: jacking up fees. Numerous studies have shown development fees do not recoup costs of new infrastructure—roads, sewer and water—or services, such as police, fire, utilities and schools. As Metro lawyer Dick Benner puts it, “We subsidize rural development.”

Some localities, such as Lancaster, Calif., make developers and homeowners outside the urban core pay their own way—thus encouraging smart growth. Says Bragdon,”We need to be undertaking a similar methodology here.”

The principle that sprawling growth should pay its own way, rather than being subsidized by other taxpayers, should be applied to all of the Northwest’s cities and towns, not just Portland.