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corridors
• recommendations east 14th/international
el camino real
san pablo avenue
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Recommendations - Corridors
Regional and Local Governments should Establish Mutual Priorities
Regional support has begun, and should continue. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has funded the development of eight "station area plans" to encourage local governments to plan for more housing around future transit stations. In addition, the Bay Area's regional agencies, including MTC and ABAG, have begun, through "Focusing Our Visions," or FOCUS, working with local governments to set mutual development priorities. Over the next several months, the region will be entering into strategic negotiations with local governments to determine regional "priority areas" for development. These areas will be places with jobs and near transit, and will be predominately located in existing inner Bay Area communities. These places should be directly aligned with existing local priorities, including activity nodes and transit stations.
Region and State should Align Funding to Support Mutual Priorities The region should develop financial incentives to support development in priority areas. The region is in the early stages of developing a funding package for both planning and capital improvements that facilitate infill development, especially near transit. These funds would be distributed to adopted, jointly-owned regional and local priority development areas. The largest source of funds currently being explored are the region's discretionary transportation dollars. These funds are distributed throughout the region by the MTC. The Commission is considering innovative ways to "prioritize" these discretionary funds for priority areas. The state should recognize and leverage these efforts, particularly through recently available state bond monies.
Recent voter-approved state bond measures, including Propositions 1-B, 1-C, 1-D, 1-E, and 84 should support development consistent with local and regional priorities. California is a state of regions and communities. All of the largest regions have undertaken major regional planning efforts and are identifying the best places for development. Communities have developed local land use plans that identify local priorities. Financial support ought to be given to areas where there exists common state, regional, and local objectives to promote compact, infill development that supports and revitalizes existing communities, maximizes transportation efficiency, and conserves land resources. Where regional planning and local work has been done, the state should acknowledge and reward that effort by prioritizing funding for projects located in these areas.
Use Limited Funds to Reward Risk and to Set Examples Available
local, regional, and state incentive monies should be used to set examples
and achieve real results. Noticeable successes should be replicable.
With limited funds, it will be impossible to support all good projects.
Incentives should be directed at risk takers and potential trendsetters.
State funds can help to reduce the impediments and risks, but may not
be as necessary
In addition, in establishing regional and local priorities, the region should prepare annual investment programs, identifying the projects and areas to receive infill incentive investments that year and the amount of each investment. Regular reports ought to detail progress on investment programs and the contribution of those programs to the region's goals.
Balance State, Regional, and Local Priorities State, regional, and local agencies should work together to find policy solutions that balance conflicting state, regional, and local priorities. In addition to conflicts between planning for cars and people, there are also environmental and public health concerns about infill development near highways. Infill development protects open spaces and promotes walking and bicycling, but environmental and public health impacts call some projects into question.
In an attempt to further improve water quality in the region, the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board is proposing new regulations for managing stormwater runoff associated with development projects. These regulations would tighten existing regulations that require developers of smaller projects, in addition to larger projects now regulated, to incorporate on-site stormwater management systems into their projects. These regulations are costly to cities and developers, apply only to projects in existing urban areas, and therefore may inhibit infill development. While the goal of the policy is laudable, the Board should consider ways to mitigate regulations that inhibit infill development and promote development on the urban fringe.
Air pollution and its health impacts are a concern in many neighborhoods, especially those near freeways, ports, and other industrial uses. The California Air Resources Board and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District released the Air Quality and Land Use Handbook: A Community Health Perspective in 2005 to address these concerns. In this report, the air board and district advocate for 500 feet buffer areas around freeways, ports, and industrial areas. To protect public health, housing, schools, playgrounds, and medical facilities are advised against within these buffers.
A no-build buffer around freeways and other air contaminating uses would exclude housing development along many local highways and near transit. The El Cerrito del Norte station provides an excellent opportunity for new homes and businesses near transit. El Cerrito del Norte is also within 500 feet of Interstate 80. People living and working near the station would be exposed to elevated levels of particulate matter.
The San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Air District and the Air Quality Control Board, MTC, ABAG, and representative local governments ought to meet and discuss these conflicting policy objectives to determine appropriate policy solutions.
Change Political Will and Public Attitudes Both the state and region are aware of the collective impacts of individual local actions: traffic congestion, high housing costs, and air and water pollution. This awareness is rarely articulated in a real, personal way to local communities. While the state and region recognize that progress toward reducing these collective impacts can only occur at the local level, the state and region have done little to help local communities overcome a major barrier: public resistance to change.
Both
the region and state ought to expend focused energies on assisting local
governments with changing public perceptions about growth and development,
and its bigger regional and state impacts. In one-on-one informational
interviews between ABAG
To present the "big picture" or the collective impacts of individual behavior, a public information campaign should be developed and administered at the state and regional levels. The campaign could be similar to the statewide "First Five" and regional "Spare the Air" campaigns. Such a campaign could raise general public awareness of the benefits of more housing in existing communities and near transit. Standard advertising methodologies could be utilized to develop the campaign, so that it is both responsive to existing opinions and perceptions and effective in gaining public understanding and support for housing development. A professional public advertising firm could be used to frame the informational messages. Currently, a limited regional effort to frame public messages is underway, with several Bay Area locations targeted, including some along East 14th and Menlo Park. This effort includes developing public messages to generate awareness and build public support for development near transit. The region and state should support and expand this limited local effort.
The regional agencies should develop marketing materials to support the public information campaign. Materials could include a website, a newsletter, brochures and pamphlets, posters, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, and videos. These materials could be used at local speaking engagements, public events, and town hall meetings or in other venues where informational material is needed. The "messages" developed through the public information campaign should be incorporated into all materials.
Support Neighborhood Planning People live in neighborhoods. Neighborhoods are collections of buildings, places where people live, work, and play. Cities, however, often plan on a project-by-project basis, and can easily lose sight of the collective impacts projects may have on the larger community and their needs, such as missing neighborhood uses. Limited recognition of these collective impacts can lead to loud vocal resistance to new development. Concerns often include traffic congestion, noise, loss of views, and limited access to housing, jobs, transit, grocery stores, parks, and other services or amenities.
To
support comprehensive neighborhood planning, the region should provide
neighborhood planning grants to local governments.
Once a community plan is established, cities should ensure that development projects respect the community's vision. This could benefit the developer too, for the more specific a concept is, the more certainty a developer may have that their vision-supporting project will be approved by community members.
Transportation planning should be a component of neighborhood plans. Promoting transportation choices requires pedestrian access between transit stations and the places people need to go. Therefore, a vision for walkability in a community should be part of the community planning process. This includes walkways, adequate sidewalks, pedestrian amenities, and safety features. Having the pedestrian infrastructure in place may be essential to promoting development that supports walkability. Minor, project-level improvements alone are insufficient in transforming places into people-friendly places. This was a major finding in SamTrans' 2001 Peninsula Corridor Plan.
Directly Assist Local Governments in Overcoming Public Resistance to Change The best local plans are produced through a genuine participatory process. Establishing a plan that is jointly owned by the city and the community can build mutual trust. To elevate the quality of community engagement, local communities may want to consider their existing processes. According to community surveys, residents often feel that there is a need for better procedures for notifying them about upcoming projects. Residents commonly learn about planning and development issues through local newspapers, city and other government newsletters, community-based organizations, and e-mail LISTSERVs. Using community-based organizations, neighborhood organizations, and other grassroots institutions to get information out to the community may help in getting more participation. Attending neighborhood meetings, such as school meetings or community center gatherings, is an effective strategy to draw broad participation.
The region should convene workshops wherein local governments and community-groups learn from each other. Within the region, local governments use a wide variety of innovative community engagement strategies. Community-based groups have also developed effective community engagement techniques for mobilizing residents. The region could develop, host, fund, and/or facilitate customized individual city or county workshops per a local government's request. This would help bring groups together so they may learn from each other, thereby advancing community-engagement practices in the region.
The
region, supported by the state, should provide direct outreach services
to local governments. Local community representatives have expressed
an interest in one-on-one assistance in garnering community support
for planning changes in their communities. The region could assist local
governments by providing outreach services, like photosimulation. Photosimulation
is an effective tool to engage the community.
As successful planning and development examples emerge, regional agencies should share these stories, or "best practices," with local governments. The region should provide opportunities for cities to convene and share success stories related to overcoming challenges to infill, pedestrian, and transit-oriented development. This could provide local governments with the necessary tools for performing outreach, development financing, land assembly, and other specific project-level tasks.
Institutions Ought to Coordinate and Communicate In pursuing state, regional, and local objectives, especially on state highways, government entities ought to coordinate improvements within a subregional area, such as a highway segment that runs through multiple jurisdictions. State, regional, and local committees should be formed, with a more clear emphasis placed on resolving state, regional, and local objectives. The El Camino Real Grand Boulevard Initiative and the San Pablo Working Group are examples of state, regional, and local committees that have formed to discuss development of the highways into pedestrian-oriented places. These committees have given local communities the opportunities to get feedback from Caltrans on specific projects. Subcommittees could form within these larger committees to resolve specific project-level issues along the highways.
Monitor Progress The region should continuously measure local and regional progress. This was the first attempt to look at local progress toward regional objectives. We assessed land use, housing, and transportation conditions to determine how well local conditions and policies support regional objectives for more housing in infill areas, especially near transit, and more transportation choices. To build upon this initial effort, government entities should develop a comprehensive set of regional and local metrics for each regional policy goal, including: revitalize existing communities, housing, transportation, land conservation, infrastructure efficiency, air and water quality, and social and economic equity.
In addition, the regional agencies ought to produce an annual or biannual regional monitoring report that measures progress toward each policy goal. Such a report could spur state, regional, and local dialogue about their shared objectives, actions, and the continued support needed to achieve objectives.
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Many
cities are taking a focused approach in planning for development on
their highway segments. Local governments are focusing their incentives
by planning and marketing efforts to their downtowns, along major transportation
corridors, and at their transit stations. San Leandro encourages the
creation of activity nodes on their main street highway and near the
Bayfair BART station. El Cerrito designates three nodes: the Del Norte
BART station, Mid-Town, and at El Cerrito Plaza BART. Redwood City and
Millbrae have specific plans to turn their train stations and adjacent
highways into people-oriented places by adding sidewalks, landscaping,
and safety features. Regional agencies should support these local efforts.
for
those who are able to learn from these early successes. To the extent
possible, state and regional funds should be used to maximize learning
potential for subsequent local plans and projects. Projects and plans
should be evaluated on the basis of short-term, on the ground results,
such as actual infill housing units added to existing communities.
staff
and local planning staff, it was requested that the region provide this
kind of support. They requested real, meaningful assistance in overcoming
local, neighborhood resistance to realizing regional and state objectives.
Where
there is a strong, active community-based organization with a history
of relationship building in the community, grantees could partner with
them. The community-based organization could take the lead to ensure
community participation in developing the plan. Local planning grants
could be distributed on a region-wide competitive basis, much like MTC's
Transportation for Livable Communities transportation planning grants.
Photosimulations
visually demonstrate "before" and "after" renditions
for development. This visual can be a powerful means to convey how development
may improve the physical character, form, and aesthetics of an existing
community. Transit improvements, densities, building facades, and streetscape
improvements can be overlaid on existing conditions so the public can
see the positive impacts of changes to their neighborhoods. This tool
is particularly effective in demonstrating how an automobile-oriented
transportation corridor can be redeveloped to be more pedestrian and
transit-friendly and how new development can make an area more attractive.