Think about the costs, though. For a property zoned Commercial Neighborhood under the UDC, the requirement for open space is 45 percent. This means that if you own an acre of ground zoned CN, nearly half of it is undevelopable. But multiply that result 50 or 100 times over. The end result is that more property must be developed in order to provide the same amount of shopping or office space.
More property being developed today means less undeveloped property in the future.
It means more traffic and more sprawl. Shoppers and workers must drive more and mass transit becomes less effective, as the same number of stores and offices are spread out over a larger area. Thus, a policy designed to provide more open space actually leads to more development in the long run. Higher density should help make transit more effective. Undeveloped land could be purchased to provide preserves, parks and recreation space.