Friday, April 26, 2013
The Incredible Light Rail commuting solution in LA
A light hearted look at the realities of light rail as a commuter alternative. The One Bay Area Plan aims to get people to take mass transit instead of cars. Higher parking fees, bridge tolls and "congestion management" fees in downtown San Francisco is meant to discourage single car use. In addition they are considering installing tracking devices to tax people on the miles driven.
It is time to pay attention to what One Bay Area Plan means to you.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Important Meetings to Speak Up about the Urbanization of Marinwood Lucas Valley
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| ABAG is pitching their 30 year One Bay Area Plan for housing, transportation and commerce to 107 communities on Monday, April 29th from 6-9 at the Marin Auditorium and Exhibition Center. |
Monday April 29, 6-9pm: Marin County Plan Bay Area Open House and EIR Public Hearing: same as above except an Open House prior to public testimony. Marin Center, Ave of the Flags (across from Civic Center) This is an important meeting for everyone to attend. They will be discussing the master central plan, "One Bay Area" they want to impose on us until 2040.
Come to learn and be heard.
(Your silence is consent.)
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Outrage at the One Bay Area Plan meeting in Walnut Creek on 4/24/2013
People across the Bay Area and every political philosophy are outraged at the huge power grab of local communities and property rights.
This Monday, please come to the One Bay Area meeting on Monday, April 29th from 6- 9 pm. Details in article "Important meetings"
Casa Marinwood's Carrahar Issues Warning about Marinwood Village's 2008 Proposal
Casa Marinwood's Dan Carrahar warns residents about Marinwood Village proposal in 2008.
He urges residents to get involved in the process early to avoid losing the opportunity for their input.
For the complete presentation see: http://marin.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=459
Dick Spotswood: Are our county supervisors out of touch?
For IJ article: Dick Spotswood: Are our county supervisors out of touch?
Posted: 04/21/2013 05:50:00 AM PDT
I HAVE KNOWN MEMBERS of the Marin County Board of Supervisors from the days of the legendary Vera Schultz to the present. Since the 1970s, Marin has been a center of reform and good government due to top-notch elected officials guiding its county government.
Marin has come to expect that county representatives would always exhibit that same high quality. That makes developments in the past few years perplexing.
All five are honest, intelligent and true to their own principles. These are good people who too often do their own thing while exhibiting a disconnect from average Marinites.
Fanning my disappointment was a recent conversation with Supervisor Steve Kinsey, who some consider the board's effective leader. In measured terms he opined that many opposed to high-density housing in single-family neighborhoods are racist.
I appreciated his on-the-record candor, but he and the radicals who make such inflammatory and self-righteous charges are very wrong.
If this was an isolated instance of Kinsey's frustrations it would simply be a sign that the four-term supervisor had been in public office for too long. Unfortunately, it's symptomatic of
the divide between county supervisors and those they represent.
Why have Marin supervisors taken no meaningful steps to curb the dictates of Bay Area regional agencies pushing arbitrary housing mandates? Why haven't they sought to build alliances with similarly situated communities around the Bay Area?
It's becoming clear from their collective inaction that the supervisors quietly support MTC, ABAG, HUD and other alphabet agencies in their effort to destroy local control of land-use planning. Despite uttering sympathetic platitudes, it's more about their personal ideology than constituent representation.
The $143 million Highway 101-Greenbrae-Corte Madera freeway project is widely lampooned as an unnecessary boondoggle that will adversely impact Corte Madera. Do the supervisors challenge the project's sponsors MTC and Caltrans? Instead, they stonewall ever-increasing calls for the funds to be shifted to a multi-modal approach to mobility.
Marin was once a beacon of governmental reform. When urged to emulate Cook County, Ill., of all places, the supervisors cry, "impossible."
The suggestion was that Marin's property tax bills be changed to provide comprehensible information regarding local government's outstanding liabilities and pension obligations. Perhaps revising the tax bill's format might make what's designed to be complex, understandable.
The board's consistent use of expensive consultants, including spending $140,000 to redesign Marin County's Parks' signs, is a running joke.
Pension reform? Only small and mostly symbolic steps.
There is no political logic here. Few of these board actions have popular backing. Some might argue it's principle over popularity. Others reply it's arrogance.
This isn't a Democrat versus Republican issue. Even many progressives are critical while Republicans feel disenfranchised.
It could be that supervisors are convinced they can't be defeated. They appear unaware that their popular support is skin-deep outside the Civic Center's confines, the Marin Community Foundation, public employee unions and activists who benefit from the county's largesse.
Marin does enjoy "good" county government. The fact that it's only occasionally "very good" and rarely "excellent" isn't the fault of staff. County Administrator Matthew Hymel is first-rate. Highlights like the county's fine bond rating have mostly been accomplished by the professionals, not by elected district supervisors.
Ultimately, the reality is that the only way current supervisors will get the message and the status quo will change is when one of them is defeated at the polls after an issue-based campaign.
Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley now shares his views on local politics twice weekly in the IJ. His email address is spotswood@comcast.net.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Marin Voice: One Bay Area plan is Bad Planning
from Marin IJ 4/21/2013: Marin Voice: One Bay Area plan is bad planning
Posted: 04/21/2013 05:42:00 AM PDT
IN MARCH, the Citizen Marin Town Hall meeting offered our community a rare opportunity to come together to examine planning and affordable housing challenges — a key element of One Bay Area plan.
The event coincided with the Association of Bay Area Governments and Metropolitan Transportation Commission's release of Plan Bay Area, with its focus on building high-density housing and its draft environmental impact report.
Back in May 2011, ABAG/MTC held public "hearings" that promoted pre-determined solutions to the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent by 2035, as required by AB32/SB375. Their simplistic, one-size-fits-all "solution" is to build high-density housing along transportation corridors.
During the public workshops, it was clear that no other visions were considered, but their own.
Then, as now with the newly released plan and draft EIR, ABAG/MTC will consider five alternative scenarios, with their decision scheduled for mid-summer. The project is rapidly moving toward adoption with compliant head-nodding among elected officials, reminiscent of the Marincello project of the 1960s (housing and shopping centers for 30,000 people in the Marin Headlands).
That scheme had support from county supervisors, until it was stopped by community activists.
To comply with CEQA, the EIR must "inform members of the public as to the range of environmental impacts of the proposed plan." But since officials who will vote on the plan have not engaged the public on the scope and the changes to our local zoning, the public is not informed.
Controversy surrounds this plan, even as it is being fast-tracked through the approval process. Issues include the accuracy of the population growth and jobs projections; the proposal to weaken environmental enforcements; the impacts on public services, schools, infrastructure and water supply; rising sea level; and the irretrievable loss of local control.
While many groups promote the plan, believing it will provide much-needed affordable housing near jobs, the DEIR concludes that income needed to cover transportation and housing costs are projected to increase for low-income households, and travel time to jobs will also increase.
The first of the five alternative scenarios calls for "No Project," which honors the long-standing tradition for communities to set the framework for city planning, zoning and growth in their general plans. It is based on the belief that local problems are best solved with local solutions, in collaboration with regional planners, not heavy-handed threats of not getting state or federal transportation funds if our cities don't follow bureaucratic dictates.
However, not only did ABAG/MTC fail to analyze the "No Project" alternative, but in a peculiar circular logic, removed it as an option our representatives are allowed to choose. Marin's vote to adopt the Plan Bay Area EIR is in the hands of Supervisor Steve Kinsey, Marin's representative on MTC and Supervisor Katie Rice and Novato Mayor Pat Eklund, who represent Marin on ABAG..
Plan Bay Area is a 25-year plan that would change the face of Marin and the Bay Area forever, yet ABAG/MTC has just one last Marin public meeting, on April 29 from 6-9 p.m. at the Marin Civic Center.
So what can you do?
- Attend the public hearing.
- Submit comments on the EIR to info@onebayarea.org.
- Contact your representatives and ask how they have fulfilled the CEQA requirement to "inform the public."
- Press for their support for Alternative 1: No Project.
Democracy is not a game played from the sidelines, but ABAG/MTC is dominating the field.
It's time to get into the game and reclaim home field advantage.
Susan Kirsch of Mill Valley is co-founder of Citizen Marin
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Susan Adams confirms massive expansion in Marinwood-Lucas Valley
Editor's Updates: The recent revelation that the Oakview development and the Rocking H ranch proposals were previously uncounted. They will bring another 200 affordable units making our total burden of 900 affordable units in our 5.78 square miles. That is 37.5 % increase in our housing stock. Also, occupancy rates for low income units tend to be much greater than market rate housing. It is not unusual to see double the average amount of people in low income housing. It is realistic to expect that if all of the low income housing is built half of our population will be low income. The other half of taxpayers will be forced to pay for the increase in government services and infrastructure most likely through parcel taxes voted in.
No other city or town in Marin or THE ENTIRE BAY AREA is faced with a housing allocation as severely challenging as ours. Where are our leaders?
Susan Adams, Supervisor
From Susan Adams October 2012 newsletter, 686 units have been confirmed for the 2012 Housing Element for Unincorporated Marin. The article is printed on this site. By the counties own estimate in the Housing Element an average 2.23 people per household can be expected. This means that approximately 1500 people may join us for a total population increase of 25%. By definition, most of these residents will be Extremely Low to Low Income meaning that they will contribute little, if anything to our property tax basis. In contrast, tax payers will be forced to upgrade infrastructure , schools, police, fire, safety, recreation services increasing everyone's taxes. More traffic and pollution is inevitable.
This is not green. This is not economic. This is not equity for all of us. This is not "fair housing". It is government assistance housing to fulfill the Association of Bay Area Government housing mandate. 83% of all low income housing in unincorporated Marin will happen here.
Sure. They will tell us that these are only "possibilities" and it is "highly unlikely" that developments will be built because of the economy and shortage of development funds. It this is so, why pre qualify all of this property for high density of housing? "Trust us" they ask of us.
This "vision" is really a catalog of "projects" that have been pre-qualified for fast track development. All a developer needs is a pile of government or foundation cash to start the project. They will surely come and build if there is cash. HUD will bring the cash. The State will bring the Cash. Foundations will bring the cash.
Each of us has a duty to stand up for our community and demand sensible, sensitive growth. We cannot be the dumping spot for the rest of Marin's unwanted low income development. Developers must know that the locals will not simply allow unbridled development of any kind that destroys our bond with our neighbors and our beautiful open space. We want responsible development.
Come to the upcoming meetings and speak up for your future. Commit yourself to become better informed. Talk with your neighbors. Let them know our community will preserve what is good, fight what is bad and is prepared to grow our future responsibly.
P.S.Some politicians and "community leaders" would rather not have you pay attention to the housing element. They want to get their fast track plans in place, so that State and Federal monies come to Marin and development can begin. Then you will hear that it was a "public process" approved by "community leaders" years ago. You don't have a voice because it was "decided long ago". Baloney!
Where do you want our future to lead?
Friday, April 19, 2013
Still more photos of Apartment Overcrowding.
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| Pakistani Workers in Dubai |
What Is The New Suburbanism?
Joel Kotkin, author of the November 2005 report "The New Suburbanism", introduces the new planning theory, clarifies what it means, and describes how it remains very much a work in progress.
What Is The New Suburbanism?
Ever since The Planning Center published its original report last year on "The New Suburbanism", my colleagues and I have been asked repeatedly for a more precise definition of what we mean.
Put simply, New Suburbanism represents an effort to create better suburban communities. It is a philosophy of planning, design, and development that aims to improve all of the complex elements that make up a successful community -- governmental, physical, economic, social, and environmental -- creating a flexible template for a wide range of existing and newly designed suburbs.
One critical aspect of New Suburbanism lies in its pragmatism. One cannot always assume, for example, that building a new town center, constructing denser housing, or introducing mixed-use development would automatically improve quality of life -- though these strategies can be useful, as we illustrated in our report. In some communities, physical infrastructure systems may be more important, such as schools, parks, and water systems.
New Suburbanism is not a new design paradigm that seeks to compete with or discredit principles of New Urbanism. Instead, our perspective represents a broad-based attempt to find the best, most practical ways to develop and redevelop suburban communities.
Suburban Inspiration, Old And New
New Suburbanism embraces many of the principles championed by the smart growth and New Urbanism movements, but finds most of its inspiration in already successful developments dating well before the development of New Urbanism. These include The Woodlands, outside of Houston, Texas; Irvine, California; Columbia, Maryland; and Reston, Virginia.
These market oriented developments have successfully incorporated a mix of uses and ethnicities, while providing a well-balanced ratio of jobs and housing. They have also usually managed to preserve a significant amount of open space, featured neighborhood centers, steered away from strip commercial development, and integrated extensive bicycle and pedestrian paths.
In addition to an examination of relatively recent suburban development in the United States, an even longer historical perspective has also been critical to our viewpoint. Looking over the historical evolution of cities, particularly during the writing of The City: A Global History, it became clear that suburbia grew not merely as a result of "white flight", or a conspiracy of oil companies, auto firms, developers and governments. All may have played a role, but we believe suburban, multi-polar places flourished mostly because they offered consumers something traditional cities all too often could not: safety, good schools, privacy, and space.
Flawed Anti-Suburban Arguments
As a result, we do not approach suburbs with the disdain and contempt that unfortunately informs much contemporary thinking. Many students I run across now equate suburban development with monotonous, irresponsible sprawl. More extreme New Urbanists, such as James Howard Kunstler, regard suburban development as inherently wasteful and evil, adding hopefully that due to rising energy prices, suburbs "are liable to dry up and blow away." "Let the Gloating Begin," he says, predicting a general catastrophe will impact the suburbs, and urges people to leave these places as soon as possible.
A less extreme but still flawed notion contends that metropolitan areas dominated by auto-centered suburbs somehow lack the intrinsic community values that informed traditional cities. Andres Duany, for example, has written that in sprawling, multi-polar cities like Phoenix and Houston "civic life has almost ceased to exist" and that many people in these areas complain about their quality of life.
Yet one would be hard-pressed to say a Phoenix or a Houston has a less vibrant civic culture -- witness the remarkable grassroots response of Houston to the Katrina disaster. Nor can one say that there has been more widespread disenchantment there than in more traditional transit-oriented cities like Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. After all, these cities have been losing population and jobs while the sprawling ones have been growing. Places like Houston and Phoenix are also developing many of the elements of civic culture, such as great hospitals, museums, and cultural centers, that tend to arise in vibrant, commercially vital cities.
Suburbs Are The Future
Rather than reject such cities, we are committed to their improvement. All our analysis of current and likely future trends reveals that sprawling multi-polar cities with overwhelmingly auto-dependent suburbs will continue to enjoy economic and demographic growth over the next several decades.
Specifically, we looked at where jobs are being created. Fortunately, my work for the annual Inc. Magazine "Best Places" survey with economist Michael Shires has given me access to the latest data. Overwhelmingly, the fastest job growth -- including in fields like information and professional business services -- has taken place in suburban areas around older cities, or in the famously sprawled out multi-polar cities of the west and the sunbelt, places like Boise, Ft. Myers, Las Vegas, and Reno.
We believe developers and planners must look at what consumers are communicating through their migration patterns. Although there is a strong market niche for traditional urban living, surveys and census data reveal that this niche remains relatively small, perhaps no more than 10 to 20 percent of the total population. Surveys conducted in California, a heavily urbanized state, show that most people -- upwards of 80 percent -- want a single family home.
Now, some will say, "yes, but if you asked them if they wanted a single family home that is two hours away from their job, or a condominium loft only 15 minutes away, they would choose the loft." Yet this may be a false choice. As jobs move to the suburban periphery, the commutes for residents there, as Harvard's Ed Glaeser has demonstrated, tend to be shorter than those who live in denser, more transit-oriented places. Far-flung Houstonians, for example, suffer much shorter commutes on average than New Yorkers or Chicagoans.
For these reasons, it seems a bit quixotic to push for a future that takes its signals from the dense, centralized, transit-dependent urban past. We instead should follow a pragmatic, market-oriented approach to improving the areas in which people increasingly choose to live. For example, in a low-density suburban community that seeks to retain its single-family character, it may be more appropriate to introduce small-lot, single-family detached housing, rather than assume multi-family apartments and lofts must be part of the solution.
Yet for all the growth and evident market appeal of suburban areas, we do agree with critics that many suburbs clearly need to improve, particularly in terms of their public spaces and treatment of the environment. Most importantly, however, we also know from past experience that better suburbs are possible.
This is the primary focus of New Suburbanism. We started last year by setting up roundtables with various developers, suburban government officials, planners, and environmentalists. Our concepts have been informed by their suggestions and insights. We will continue this interactive process, both in our next report and at a conference scheduled for mid-May, to discuss next steps with interested parties from across the country.
In the short run, we will seek to learn how to make the increasingly decentralized metropolis work better. Looking to the future, we envision a heavily wired "archipelago of villages", with relatively compact and economically and culturally self-sufficient communities spread across our landscape. The time has come to acknowledge the dispersed reality of our metropolitan future, and to find out how to make it a better one.
Joel Kotkin is an Irvine Senior Fellow with the New America Foundation and a senior advisor to The Planning Center, a development and environmental design firm based in Costa Mesa, California. He is also the author of The City: A Global History.
more at: http://www.planetizen.com/node/19457
More people = More Pollution in Marinwood Lucas Valley
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| More People = More Pollution in Marinwood-Lucas Valley |
Current plans in the 2012 Housing Element will increase the population of Marinwood Lucas Valley by 37.5% if built. This means that pollution and traffic will increase by at least 37.5% too.
From www.planbayareamyth.org
Increased Carbon Emissions
Plan Bay Area claims that housing 2.1 million new residents in transit-based apartments will decrease carbon emissions and traffic congestion. However, here's the fact: even if individual emissions drop 15 percent by 2035 (the goal of S.B.375) if population increases at the same time by 30 percent (2.1 million), then total emissions will rise by 10.5 percent (.85 x 130 = 110.5% of current emissions). The math is the same as asking whether you'll have more money if 130 people give you $0.85 each ($110) than if 100 people give you $1.00 each ($100). That would be the right choice for dollars coming in but not for carbon emissions going out into the air.
- From the State of California Air Resources Board - Resolution 10-31, Sept. 31, 2010, page 6: "WHEREAS, on July 28, 2010, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) Board took action to recommend Regional Targets of 7 percent per capita reduction by 2020 and 15 percent reduction by 2035 for its region;..." This per person measurement contradicts the intent of the California Global Warming Solutions Act (A.B. 32) by allowing for an actual increase in total Bay Area emissions.
- From the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Report, December 2008, pages 8-9: "In 2007, 102.6 Million Metric tons of CO2-equivalent (MMTCO2E) greenhouse gases were emitted by the San Francisco Bay Area (95.5 MMTCO2E were emitted within the Bay Area District and 7.1 MMTCO2E were indirect emissions from imported electricity)." Factoring the emissions increase from a 30 percent population increase outlined above, 10.5 percent of 102.6 MMTCO2E means a net increase of 10.77 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year.
- Indirect emissions: The numbers used by developers, lobbyists and state agencies do not include the indirect greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacture of products for the individual needs of all those additional people - from hairspray to horseradish to heaters - whether they drive cars or take public transportation, nor the emissions from demolition of existing structures, production of building materials or operation of heavy construction equipment. Here's a helpful graphic illustrating global sources of total emissions.
- According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the average American household is responsible for 59 tons of CO2 annually (including indirect emissions). If each new resident in the Bay Area emits 15% less than that, that figure will be 50.15 tons per household. So those 903,000 new households will add over 45 million tons of CO2 emissions to the air in the Bay Area each year.
- These emission reductions are not even mandatory. From S.B. 375, The Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008, page 8 (B): "Each metropolitan planning organization shall prepare a sustainable communities strategy... ...(vii) set forth a forecasted development pattern for the region, which, when integrated with the transportation network, and other transportation measures and policies, will reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and light trucks to achieve, if there is a feasible way to do so, the greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets approved by the state board; and (viii) allow the regional transportation plan to comply with Section 176 of the federal Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. Sec. 7506)."
Thursday, April 18, 2013
VIDEO: The whole meeting with Bridge Housing and Susan Adams on October 27, 2012 ( appx 30 minutes)
Supervisor Susan Adams introduces Bridge Housing
The meeting ends with a filibuster and with no further questions answered.
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