The Twin Cities area could spare 150 square miles of open space and farmland from development over the next 30 years if it chooses a new growth pattern that concentrates higher-density housing closer to jobs and transit stops, a leading authority on regional planning told the Metropolitan Council on Wednesday.

The scenarios presented by the California-based Peter Calthorpe bring a sharp new focus to the issue after years of fuzzy talk about the council's desire for "smart growth" and "livable communities." They are not actual plans of action, but models intended to spur discussion.

The Met Council, the regional planning agency, influences but does not dictate growth patterns for the metro area. Whatever plan it draws up will mean little without the support of whomever is elected governor in the fall.

The Met Council's members were all appointed by Gov. Jesse Ventura, while the DFL Party's endorsee, state Sen. Roger Moe, is a strong supporter of managed growth.

Of the declared gubernatorial candidates, Republican Brian Sullivan has been the most outspoken against centrally managed growth.

"This community developed over a 125-year period without the benefit of a Met Council and is universally acknowledged as one of best places to live," Sullivan said Wednesday. "So now the smart people at the Met Council can't leave well enough alone and want to dictate to communities. It's fine for them to live in the inner ring. But don't force the rest of us to. It's a question of freedom."

While Sullivan's views are commonly held, Calthorpe counters that a disconnect exists between what local communities want and what a broader public wants and needs.

In an era when baby boomers are close to retirement and young couples are looking for affordable homes, he said, the demand is for inexpensive townhouses and other more compact forms of housing. But communities have a bias toward single-family homes.

"People think piecemeal, one project at a time," he said, rather than consider the needs of the region as a whole.

The baseline for the study was the 193 comprehensive plans that communities have slowly been completing over the last several years.

Calthorpe's team asked: If these plans are carried out, what will happen? And what could happen if things were done differently? Among the highlights:

• Current plans envision the paving over of nearly 183,000 acres of farmland, when the same number of households could be accommodated in a way that spares more than half that acreage.

• Although it's admirable that communities by themselves are planning 25 percent of their housing to be walkable to parks and stores, that figure could rise to 70 percent.

• The result would be as much as a 17 percent reduction in miles driven, which yields a major reduction in emissions of pollutants -- more than 70 tons per day.

What it would take

This all would be achieved, however, by means of a drastic shift in the balance between single-family and multifamily dwellings, as well as smaller lots for many of those detached homes that still would be built.

Instead of building twice as many single-family as multifamily units, as communities call for in their plans, the ratio would be roughly equal. That's about 50,000 fewer single-family homes over 30 years, under the most aggressive scenario.

High land costs and smaller families are already driving the mix much more toward multifamily dwellings. So it's not clear how much of a change that would actually represent.

Fiscal conservatives should applaud these plans, Calthorpe said, because they can be carried out at a savings of at least $3 billion for things such as roads and sewers. Even more savings would be achieved by not building and staffing as many new schools on the fringe.

What 'local' means

Ventura, an ex-suburban mayor who hasn't announced whether he is running for reelection, has repeatedly said he does not want his council telling local communities what they should do but rather assisting them with achieving their objectives.

Met Council officials contend that these plans do emerge from local desires, in that they were influenced by those local officials and citizens invited to workshops last year.

Sullivan responds, however, that the plans that Calthorpe is questioning were the product of years of study and hearings within local communities. "The more we respect the democratic process within local communities," he said, "the better."

Moe said he couldn't comment on the plans without examining the report.

Other major players in the process have mixed feelings about the Met Council's approach. Rick Packer, a spokesman for Twin Cities homebuilders, said in a recent conference that he agrees with many of the Met Council's objectives and trusts the appointed council members, but that he is wary of central planning in general.

"The minute Ted leaves," he said, referring to Met Council Chairman Ted Mondale, "everything is open to interpretation."

Realtors are "listening to all sides at this point," said Bill Gerst, chief operating officer for the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors. "We have people in the inner city and people in Hutchinson, so it's a challenge to come to a position that says anything very specific."

-- David Peterson is atdapeterson@startribune.com .