SPUR Publications

Measure AA, on the June ballot in all nine Bay Area counties, is a $12 parcel tax dedicated to protecting and restoring San Francisco Bay. This is a historic opportunity for the Bay Area to vote as a region and raise local revenue to protect our signature natural resource. It’s our generation’s chance to save the Bay — while there’s still time.

Pressure for development at the urban edge of the Bay Area is growing. At the end of 2015, the cities of Morgan Hill and Gilroy in southern Santa Clara County both proposed expanding their city boundaries into farmland. Upcoming decisions on these proposals, which county analysts have called reminiscent of a bygone era, will set an important precedent for the county’s next phase of growth.

Santa Clara County’s proposed transportation sales tax has been politically contentious. But the reality is, transportation investments have not kept up with job and population growth. Meanwhile, federal and state funding for transportation has declined. We will need better transportation infrastructure in order to enjoy continued prosperity and a high quality of life — and we’re going to have to make these investments locally.

Few low-income Californians will ever have the opportunity to live in a subsidized affordable housing unit. How do we help everyone else? A new paper from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office provides evidence that market-rate housing construction plays an important role for low-income households. The LAO’s data shows that urban counties nationwide with more housing construction had slower rent growth than California coastal cities.

Thank you to everyone who joined us on January 27 to mark the official opening of SPUR Oakland at 1544 Broadway. More than 500 people came by throughout the day to welcome SPUR to Oakland. We were proud to introduce our community-oriented space, one where Oakland residents can learn from one another and share ideas about the future of their city.

Located on San Francisco’s eastern edge, India Basin Shoreline Park is full of promise and begging for attention. The parks department and the Trust for Public Land have launched a design competition to help realize the park’s potential. The five finalists recently presented their design proposals at SPUR.

Listening to some San Francisco advocates, it’s easy to get the impression that the proposed Affordable Housing Bonus Program will dramatically alter the city overnight. But this ignores two key factors. First, the program has been very thoughtfully crafted to add housing without displacing anyone. Second, the length of the building cycle means these changes will happen gradually, over two decades or more.

The Bay Area is on the cusp of the biggest change in regional planning in decades. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments have just begun a study into how they might merge. Our editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle explains why this is the right move for the region.

When San Jose adopted its general plan, Envision 2040, it signaled a major pivot toward an urban future. This year will see the first review of the plan since its adoption in 2011. G etting the plan right is key to the city’s future, and this review is a chance to do just that. Here are the big issues we need to address.

For more than 100 years, SPUR has helped develop solutions to the most important issues facing the Bay Area. Now we are expanding our community and our work in Oakland — and we need your help. With our beautiful new space at 1544 Broadway, SPUR will create a community-oriented place where Oakland residents can come together to envision the future of their city.

Both Caltrain and highways on the Bay Area Peninsula are more crowded than ever. Will we solve the area’s transportation challenges in the future — or will things only get worse? SPUR is working with a group of partners to shape a vision for the Peninsula travel corridor. We believe passenger rail and other transit can be the backbone of the solution.

Over the last decade and a half, San Jose’s budget has been on an economic rollercoaster. Two recessions, budget deficits, lay-offs and service cuts have all plagued the largest city in the Bay Area. SPUR has been exploring some of the factors that have affected San Jose’s fiscal position, as well as analyzing it's performance compared to other cities in Santa Clara County and California.

In 2012, the voters of San Francisco passed Proposition C, a consensus measure that created a $1.2 billion set-aside for affordable housing while also reducing the on-site inclusionary housing requirement, which obliges developers of market-rate housing to build some affordable units on the same site. Now some city leaders are revisiting whether the measure asked enough from developers.

2015 has been a significant year for SPUR. We officially became a regional organization, with offices in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. By helping to coordinate policy and planning work across the region, we can make much greater progress on our goals. But we can't do it without your help. We hope you'll consider making a contribution to SPUR at this year end.

The BART Silicon Valley extension is the largest transportation investment the South Bay will make for decades. Phase I of the extension is under construction and scheduled to start service in the fall of 2017. Now the Santa Clara VTA and many others must answer the question: Where will the money for Phase II come from?