San Francisco Bay Area greenbelt development debated

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The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) wants to limit greenbelt development to only 900 acres per year for the San Francisco Bay Area -- barely enough for a single subdivision. Conservationists say the amount of acreage is too high.

by Broderick Perkins
© 2008 DeadlineNews.Com

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Deadline Newsroom - The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) wants to limit greenbelt development to only 900 acres per year for the San Francisco Bay Area -- barely enough for a single subdivision.

Conservationists, on the other hand, say the amount of acreage -- about the size of Golden Gate Park -- is high. They say there's no reason to disturb the greenbelt with more development, because there are ample infill locations better suited for the area's growth needs.

ABAG's biennial "Projections and Priorities 2009," for the first time, sets forth a land use performance target to restrict green field development to 900 acres for the entire nine-county Bay Area -- among other targets. The report also includes targets for reduced driving times, traffic congestion, the share of income spent on housing and transportation, and others.

ABAG is an association of elected officials from member cities and counties who examine regional issues like housing, transportation, economic development, education, and environment. The association describes itself as "the official comprehensive planning agency" of the Bay Area region.

Every other year since 1970, the association's biennial Projections series has provided long-term forecasts and projections of population growth, transit trends and housing and job needs.

"Model results are relied on by transportation and air quality agencies, local government, and private industry," according to ABAG's documents.

However, the 2009 greenbelt land use target likely won't find its way into policy any time soon.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) does incorporate ABAG's data in its planning, but "Transportation 2035 Change In Motion" was published before ABAG's 2009 report. The report incorporated ABAG's older 2007 land use projections.

The MTC, the transportation planning, coordinating and financing agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, says its next plan is four years away.

Local jurisdictions also say ABAG's projections and new targes aren't carved in stone.

Santa Clara County, for example, has pretty much closed the door on greenbelt building. An official there says while ABAG data is examined by planning officials it doesn't result in land use, zoning and general plan issues in Santa Clara County.

Home builders haven't specifically challenged the greenbelt target, but if the target became policy it would severely restrict development, housing or otherwise.

San Jose's Silver Creek Valley Country Club, for example, sits on about 1,500 acres and has 1,538 homes, a golf course, country club facilities and other open space.

ABAG says from 2000 to 2010, much more greenbelt, an average 4,000 acres, is developed every year.

ABAG itself says its targets are not binding, however, rather than just projections ABAG decided to include the greenbelt land use target, and others because times are changing.

Rapid population growth in general and among the aging population, higher energy costs, and climate change dictate the need for regional performing targets -- numerical outcomes -- to show how policy choices impact the quality of life.

ABAG plugs the target numbers into models to get a better grasp on not just general assumptions or projection estimates, but something closer to reality -- specific goals.

"The results suggest that accomplishing the targeted outcomes and ensuring a better, or at least the same, quality of life into the future will require a significant departure from previous planning strategies and policies," the report says.

But for each target the report also includes a more likely projection. While the greenbelt target is at 900 acres, the ABAG forecast is for 1,950 acres to be developed year, still below the annual greenbelt development in the past decade.

The Greenbelt Alliance thinks 900 acres is 900 acres too much.

According to the alliance's "Grow Smart Bay Area Infill Research" some 25,000 sites are available throughout the Bay Area for infill development that would eliminate the need for any green belt development.

Comprised of some 17,000 acres, these properties can provide the region with an additional 304,000 homes and 637,000 jobs, according to the alliance's study.

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The United Metros of America

by Broderick Perkins
© 2007 DeadlineNews.Com

Deadline Newsroom - Just as real estate thrives -- or doesn't -- by location, so does the nation, according to a recently announced blueprint for national prosperity.

The blueprint is designed as a new partnership with federal, state, local, and private sector leaders to strengthen metropolitan economies, build a strong and diverse middle class, and grow the nation in environmentally sustainable ways.

It isn't federal policy or a presidential campaign promise.

It's, well, metro.

And it has a strong housing component.

"We are a full-fledged Metro Nation and need to change our mental map of the United States, from a union of 50 states to a network of 363 highly connected, hyper linked, and economically integrated metropolitan areas," said Bruce Katz, Vice President and Director of Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program recently, when launching the "Blueprint For America Prosperity".

That a think tank, rather than the federal government, is launching such a bold bid to reshape the nation, is itself indicative of the nation's ills.

Brookings says more and more often, large metropolitan areas are at the forefront of social change, quickly addressing housing policies, sprawl, sustainable development, education, immigration, infrastructure, energy independence, technological innovation, global warming and a host of other pressing social concerns.

"Metropolitan areas are vital to national prosperity because they're the engines of the economy. So much of what happens in America happens in metropolitan areas," says Rey Ramsey, Chairman and CEO, One Economy Corporation a non-profit spreading technology and information to low-income people.

Eighty-three percent of Americans live in metropolitan areas, which contain 86 percent of American jobs. The vast majority -- 94 percent -- of people in the nation's 100 largest metros live and work in the same metro.

It's not surprising then, that with such a constituency, metropolitan leaders, not Washington D.C. politicos, are the ones with their fingers on the pulse of innovation and the need for both swift and long-term change.

Unfortunately, dynamic efforts on the metropolitan level are getting short-circuited by out-dated policy and procedural procrastination from a growingly more detached federal government.

Stuck on political partisanship and legislative lethargy, bogged down in war and embroiled in another national election, the slow, plodding federal government is too often ineffectual when it comes to addressing the national penchant for prosperity.

"America's metros find our national government strangely adrift, ignorant of the dynamic changes sweeping the country and the new spatial geography of our economy.

Our federal government is mostly a legacy government, a collection of ossified agencies carrying out decades-old programs and policies, through means and mechanisms suited to a pre-Internet world. As a result, our federal government is out of step with rapid change, and is failing to leverage those assets that drive secure and sustained prosperity," Katz said.

He also characterized current government's housing policies aimed at "the expansion of McMansions at the periphery of metropolitan areas, while failing to address the rapid suburbanization of poor people and employment opportunities."

While the blueprint calls for plans to fully recognize and further tap metropolitan might, it also seeks an upgrade in the federal government to foster a federal-metro partnership to put the nation back on the right track.

"A metro can focus on building its economic strengths, but its economy is profoundly influenced by federal monetary, trade, regulatory and investment practices. A metro can focus on reducing income disparities, but only the federal government can close the gap between wages and the cost of living. A metro area can focus on environmental sustainability, but only the federal government can regulate industries on a national scale," Katz said.

Following the blueprint's introduction, Katz's Brookings crew will begin identifying specific reforms for the next administration and Congress to advance key national priorities including boosting innovation and productivity, replicating the best examples of urban school reform, increasing the supply of workforce housing, improving transportation within and across metros, and making energy efficiency in our homes part of the solution to climate change.

"We are a metro nation. And now it is time to start acting like one," Katz said.

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Broderick Perkins, an award-winning consumer journalist of 30 years, is publisher and executive editor of San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews.Com, a real estate news and consulting service, and the new Deadline Newsroom, DeadlineNews.Com's new backshop. In both cases, it's where all the news really hits home.

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