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SPUR's 2003 Activities
This article
first appeared in the April,
2004 SPUR Newsletter, p. 12.
Good Government
CITY BUDGET. The San Francisco City and County budget was a major focus of our work in 2003. Our report, “Crisis and Opportunity in the City Budget” (in the May 2003 Newsletter, issue 416) outlined a long list of ways to close the budget gap, long-term changes to make local government more efficient, carefully targeted cuts, and new taxes. We argued that they all needed to be on the table— and they still do. Faced with deficits in the hundreds of millions of dollars, we have no choice but to change the way we operate if we are going to continue to provide quality public services.
DEMOCRACY AND PLANNING. Reflecting on a decade of new experiences with neighborhood planning, the move to district elections, and the continued evolution of California’s ballot-box government, we analyzed the results to date, and made a number of recommendations on improving the functioning of planning and permitting in San Francisco, as a contribution to the ongoing discussion about how to plan in a democratic society. (Trends in Planning, July 2003 Newsletter, issue 418).
NOT-SO-GOOD LEGISLATION. We spent a lot of time at City Hall not of our own choosing. Less visible perhaps than many of the things SPUR does are our efforts to bring the clear, logical, principled thinking you read in SPUR newsletters and reports to the rough-and-tumble of the legislative process at City Hall. You read about the final legislation in your morning paper. Many of the most important things are the things that never happened and you won’t read about. Let’s just say there were some legislative proposals that could have caused a great deal of harm had they been enacted.
RAINY DAY FUND. One recommendation from our City Budget issue (May 2003 Newsletter, issue 416) was placed on the November 2003 ballot by the Board of Supervisors and happily it passed. Proposition G was a Charter Amendment developed by Supervisor Ammiano to create a reserve fund out of the General Fund to essentially smooth out the peaks and valleys of the City’s tax receipts by setting cash aside in high-growth years and spending it down in slow-growth years. Had this been in place before the last boom and bust, things would be a lot easier today. A victory!
SUPPORTHIVE HOUSING. Following on the heels of SPUR’s report, “Homelessness in a Progressive City” (August 2002 Newsletter, issue 408), we have continued to focus on the most important long-term solution: increasing the supply of supportive housing. We don’t know all the answers yet, but we are heartened to see a rare consensus emerging in discussions around homelessness that supportive housing must be at the core of San Francisco’s solution. Progress on “Care Not Cash” has been slow, but as of this writing it is actually moving forward. 2003 saw modest progress on this issue and we will continue our focus on this crucial issue this year and beyond.
SUNSHINE AT THE BALLOT. In a city committed to openness in government, at least one area calls out for more sunshine, and that is the process of putting things on the ballot. The Mayor or four Supervisors can place a measure on the ballot without any public discussion—and they do, every year. The problem is not that measures go to the voters, it’s the fact that things are written at the last minute behind closed doors and then go straight to the ballot, where they can only be amended by a subsequent vote of the people. Each election we are faced with measures placed on the ballot without the public having any chance to vet proposals, point out flaws, or suggest improvements. The public process that SPUR advocates is important for fine-tuning even the best ideas. We worked with the Supervisors to develop a piece of legislation that would have required public hearings of proposed ballot measures and given sponsors the ability to make changes based on what they heard. Unfortunately, this issue was a failure for SPUR in 2003: we could not get the Supervisors to vote the legislation out of committee. But we are not ready to give up and are vigorously pursuing this good-government reform at this time.
VOTER GUIDE. For both the November 2003 and March 2004 elections, we worked hard on our analysis of every local ballot measure, providing what we hope is the best single source of information about what each measure would do. Whether you agree with our recommendations or not, San Francisco’s style of “direct democracy” demands a high degree of education on the part of the voters, which we did our small part to help provide.
Healthy Economy
BIOTECH. Over the last 150 years, San Francisco has reinvented itself a number of times—from Spanish mission and military outpost, to stepping-off point for the Gold Rush, to becoming a port and industrial city, to a Fortune 500 and stock-exchange headquarters, to a visitor center, to the dot-com capital. Many analysts are concerned with developing a sustainable economic future for San Francisco, one that reflects the skills and needs of our population, is less subject to boom and bust cycles, and will provide the revenues necessary to sustain our high-service-level government. SPUR has helped nurture the city’s fledgling biotech industry by acting as fiscal agent for establishment of a biotech incubator.
CED. Under the leadership of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, SPUR is a partner in the San Francisco Center for Economic Development, along with the Municipal Fiscal Advisory Committee (MFAC) and the Committee on Jobs (see the February 2003 Newsletter, issue 413). The Center has published a number of papers on economic development (see www.sfced.org), assisted the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development (recently reestablished by Mayor Newsom under expert professional leadership), and been directly active in the retention and attraction of jobs in San Francisco.
ENERGY RELIABILITY. While every year we hear the same old saws about the city “taking over energy production,” SPUR has been supporting the positive efforts San Francisco has been taking to manage its own energy—including installation of solar panels on City properties, siting studies for combustion turbine generators in the city, and the siting of a new transmission intertie on the Peninsula that allows the phasing out of the obsolete Potrero power plant while protecting the Golden Gate National Recreation Area lands. (August 2003 Newsletter, issue 419).
ECONOMIC INDICATORS. In 2003, SPUR published a set of up-to-the-minute economic indicators (February 2003 Newsletter, issue 413) that are worth tracking over time: share of high-tech jobs across ten major cities; office vacancy rates by neighborhood, employment clusters (an update of the economic base analysis SPUR published in 2000, San Francisco Economy—Implications for Public Policy, July 10, 2000), patents issued per capita, growth of the City budget over time, and others. We brought in dozens of speakers through the year to help SPUR members understand the way the economy is evolving and learn which indicators matter. The big question remains unanswered: what will the city’s future economic base look like? Will real work get done here or will we become just a place that caters to tourists?
OPEN LETTERS. We published two open letters this year, one to the left and one to the business community. Both were widely reprinted and both generated a great deal of controversy (February 2003 Newsletter, issue 413). The core message to the left was that, having gained some degree of power, it’s time to take on the responsibilities of governing instead of just being a critic. The core message to the business community was to focus on getting effective government instead of just fighting taxes. And to both groups we said, stop demonizing each other and find some common ground.
TAXES. Given the weak economy and the growing budget deficit at the local level, everyone expected that a host of tax increases were being prepared by City Hall. So we spent much of 2003 getting ready for the debate—researching the economic literature on taxes and looking at the numbers that compare rates in San Francisco with other cities. Because SPUR believes in the importance of a well-funded public realm, we are inclined to support increases in the financial support for many public programs. But there are two important caveats. First, in many cases, the City wastes the funds it already has, and these areas should be fixed rather than papered over with more money. Second, it’s important to be smart about the economic effects of the taxes we levy. We need to ask: Are the taxes fair? Are they economically efficient? Do they discourage job creation and economic expansion? Will they discourage harmful activities or beneficial activities? And do they fall on those most able to pay them? We hope our policy analysis is helping to shape the debate about the city’s tax structure.
TRANSPORTATION
BRIDGE TOLLS. Throughout the year, we were active in both the public and the behind-the-scenes work to develop a plan for raising bridge tolls. Considering the expenditure plan has to be approved by both the State legislature and the voters, it was a remarkably rational, policy-oriented proposal that emerged. Hats off to the Transportation and Land Use Coalition for leading the effort which culminated in the passage of Regional Measure 2 on the March 2004 ballot which won in six of seven counties.
CITY CARSHARE. This will be the last SPUR annual report that features City CarShare, because this year, it flew away from the nest and is fully on its own. It was back in 1998 that SPUR called for the creation of a car-sharing organization in San Francisco, modeled on the precedents in Europe, to help alleviate the parking crunch. SPUR provided incubator office space. Jim Chappell helped raise start-up funds. And Gabriel Metcalf served as the Board Chairman. City CarShare has grown beyond our wildest dreams. The founders have passed the organization onto a new set of transportation leaders. This year, Congresswoman Pelosi got City CarShare a federal earmark, and Regional Measure 2 included a line item for the program. We look forward to the day when car-sharing is a normal part of every city-dweller’s lifestyle. Why own a car? Why pay to insure it? Why worry about taking care of it? Why look for parking when you get home? Why be stuck with just one car when you could have a car, of whatever size you need, anytime you want it, without all that hassle? If you haven’t joined yet, check out www.citycarshare.org.
DOYLE DRIVE. It’s been said that government works in “dog years.” One example of this has been the project to replace the substandard and dangerous Doyle Drive with a more efficient, beautiful, and safe parkway through the Presidio National Park, connecting the Golden Gate Bridge with the city. SPUR has been working virtually continuously on this project since a task force was established by the City in 1991, in the aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake. While the Board of Supervisors adopted the SPUR plan in 1993 (in a City report entitled A Scenic Parkway for the Park, February 2, 1993), it took another ten years to reach agreement with Caltrans, the Presidio Trust, the National Park Service, and a wide group of other stakeholders, as well as advancing the engineering studies and environmental review. With the passage of Prop. K (November 2003), the next piece of city funding is ensured, and we continue to work to advance this plan (see the January 2004 Newsletter, issue 423, Replacing Doyle Drive).
TRANSPORTATION SALES TAX. As we’ve already noted, one of the great victories of 2003 was the passage of Proposition K in November. This measure reauthorized San Francisco’s half-cent sales tax for another 30 years. This measure is literally the most important local funding source for virtually every major capital transportation project, from the Transbay Terminal to new bike lanes to street repaving. It also included a major injection of funding for bus rapid transit in the region. SPUR served on the advisory committee which developed the expenditure plan, and we campaigned hard for passage of the measure.
TRANSIT IMPACT DEVELOPMENT FEE. Since 1981, the City has assessed a one-time $5 per square foot Transit Impact Development Fee on new downtown office construction to bolster Muni service. Since then, the courts have determined that a “nexus,” or connection, must be established between actual impacts and fees charged. Therefore in 2001, 20 years after its first passage, the Planning Department commissioned a study to reexamine the level and application of these fees, the real impacts of development, and recommended changes. In August 2001, SPUR reported on and endorsed the recommended changes (see the August 2001 Newsletter, issue 398, “Planning for Growth: A Proposal to Expand San Francisco’s Transit Impact Development Fee”). At the start of 2004, the issue resurfaced at the Board of Supervisors. While the result is yet to be determined, SPUR’s position on this fee is that, if the level is set correctly, it can provide a critical funding stream to expand the transit system, while still making it economically feasible to build. If set incorrectly, it can do the opposite.
Sustainable Development
GREEN BUILDING CODES. It is time for San Francisco to join the national movement to make resource-efficient, high-performance buildings the standard. In past years we have focused on the lack of progress in green building for the private sector. However, this year SPUR’s Green Building Subcommittee (of the Sustainable Development Committee) had some dramatic successes in encouraging green building. For example, we have argued strenuously against adding a third permit for the environmental impact of a building (on top of the use permit from the Planning Department and the building permit from the Department of Building Inspection [DBI]). We advocated that green building criteria be gradually integrated into the Planning Code and the Building Code, and that compliance be made easily understandable for everyone. In 2003, at our behest, DBI initiated code revision working groups in the areas of solar energy, water, and plumbing. We also worked with DBI, the Planning Department, and the Fire Department to facilitate interdepartmental communications. All of these departments are involved in the building-permitting process. Their cooperation has been crucial in helping to move in the direction of green building.
LANDSCAPE AND INFRASTRUCTURE. With support from the Department of Public Works (DPW) and others, we organized a workshop on “ecological street design.” Attendees included representatives from SF Beautiful, Sherwood Design Engineers, DPW, University of California at Berkeley, the Alliance for a Clean Waterfront, Department of Parking and Traffic, Friends of the Urban Forest, PG&E, Van der Ryn Architects, San Francisco Tree Council, the Urban Forestry Council, the Planning Department, the Department of the Environment and the Neighborhood Parks Council. The outcome was a definition of major opportunity areas to make the design of streets in San Francisco more sustainable. These areas include developing an integrated stormwater management system, increasing tree planting and landscaping, improving the pedestrian environment, improving the city’s natural ecosystems, and increasing public awareness through eco-revelatory design. The Green Landscape and Infrastructure Subcommittee of the Sustainable Development Committee is moving forward on implementation plans for all of these ideas.
PARKS. Parks are not only physical spaces, but social, cultural, and political spaces. Not surprisingly, in San Francisco they also become a battleground amongst the competing forces in our highly fractured post-modern society. In June 2003, SPUR brought together some of our latest thinking about parks in a newsletter issue on Golden Gate Park (June 2003 Newsletter, issue 417, Golden Gate Park). We used this issue as an opportunity to both explore the evolving uses of the city’s central park, and also to try to establish a framework for thinking about changes to our parks to make them work better in the contemporary city.
SUSTAINABLE REDEVELOPMENT. With the encouragement of SPUR’s Sustainable Redevelopment Subcommittee, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency added LEED Silver (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, the national green-building certification) as a goal in the Design for Development Guidelines for the Transbay Redevelopment Project Area. SPUR’s Task Force also facilitated joint work between the Redevelopment Agency and the Department of the Environment that should bear fruit over time.
HOFF ST. PARK. In 1995, Youth at SPUR conducted community-planning workshops with students from St. John’s Urban Institute in the Mission. One of the results was to identify the need for a new park in the north Mission. SPUR took students to the city’s Open Space Committee, the Planning Commission, and the Recreation and Park Commission to obtain priority funding for such a park. Now almost ten years later, that new park is under construction on Hoff Street near 16th Street. SPUR looks forward to the opening of this new facility and the demonstration that every resident can make a difference in our community.
Urban Planning and Design
CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS. Golden Gate Park was developed beginning in 1865 as a “rural pleasure ground” to bring the feeling of the countryside to an urban population unable to get to the real countryside and to evoke the visitor’s memory of the country and the instinctive attraction it holds. Since then, of course, society, the city, and recreation have undergone numerous transformations. One of the reasons Golden Gate Park is still beloved (unlike scores of urban parks nationwide which are unloved and effectively abandoned) is that it has adapted and changed with society. Like all living organisms, those that survive are those that are most able to change. For almost a decade, SPUR has worked to help the City manage those changes in a way that will help meet 21st century needs. If you haven’t seen it yet, go see the new de Young Museum, presently receiving its copper skin, and get ready to visit the temporary home of the California Academy of Sciences at 4th and Howard Streets, as their spectacular new building in the park gets closer to construction. Despite the fact that a new traffic-calming plan is being developed for the Concourse area, battles are still raging in the courts over the construction of the privately funded parking garage around the Concourse approved by the voters in 1998.
EASTERN NEIGHBORHOODS. SPUR continues to monitor and provide input to the Planning Department’s work in the former industrial areas of the city. Called the “Eastern Neighborhood Planning Process,” SOMA, Showplace Square, and the Mission all had plans active in 2003 (the Bayview and Visitacion Valley less so). The city continues to be divided about the fate of these areas—which parts should be re-planned for mixed-use residential neighborhoods, and which should be “preserved” for industry. At this writing, the future of the eastern neighborhoods still remains up in the air. A consensus may be developing around a middle ground proposal for converting some of the former industrial areas to housing. SPUR has been working to secure funding for the Department to carry out environmental evaluation of the Department’s proposals so decision-making can proceed.
HEALTH CARE PLANNING. SPUR followed the process of the proposed rebuilding of San Francisco General Hospital and made important inputs into the alternative conceptual plans. We also followed the progress of planning for the California Pacific Medical Center. In general we looked at these projects in terms of their overall impact on providing health care services for the entire city, the costs to the public, and ways to get the highest level of service in the most cost-efficient manner.
LEARNING FROM VANCOUVER. In our line of work, it’s critical to learn from the successes and failures of other cities. So the SPUR Board took a trip to Vancouver, accompanied by several members of the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission, where we met with the Planning Director, former City Council members, City department heads, and developers. Vancouver is by no means perfect, but it has done a great job of planning to convert former industrial neighborhoods into popular high-rise residential neighborhoods ringing downtown. The urban design of the buildings and the investment made in the public realm are both inspiring. And not incidentally, Vancouver has succeeded in driving down the cost of housing by making these new additions to the supply, something San Francisco’s stranglehold on the development process has prevented. We came home with new ideas about city-building, both in terms of design and democratic process (see the November/December 2003 Newsletter, issue 422, Learning From Vancouver).
LONGEVITY REVOLUTION. In September, SPUR convened a day-long Citizen Planning Institute on the issues related to aging, from senior housing and day services to medical care and community involvement. Thirteen experts spoke on how this group—the fastest-growing demographic nationwide—is being anticipated by their communities. Seniors are living longer, but not always healthier, lives, and specialized health services that are integrated with housing are as important as day-health services that allow seniors to live at home. The symposium, entitled “The Longevity Revolution: Planning for Housing, Services, and Community Involvement,” drew over a hundred attendees, and launched a new SPUR task force that is looking at ways the City’s building code can be revised to help more senior housing get built. Another positive outcome is a course SPUR experts are teaching at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University, entitled “San Francisco and the Future of Cities.”
MID-MARKET STREET. SPUR was an early leader in rethinking Market Street with its 1961 (yes, you read it right, 1961!) report What to do About Market Street. For almost the last decade, SPUR has been an elected member of the Redevelopment Agency’s Project Area Committee, the body which is taking the lead in developing a Redevelopment Plan and accompanying land-use controls. Through countless weekly meetings the group has finally been able to agree on a proposed plan and controls and it is hoped that they can be adopted this year and this long-neglected part of the downtown can soon begin a transition to a vibrant residential, arts, and entertainment district.
RINCON HILL. If there is such a thing as agreement in this town on a major land-use change, the idea of locating high-rise towers in Rincon Hill would be an example. A plan for this change has been in the works since 1994. SPUR put a lot of energy into completion of a new and improved Rincon Hill plan and rezoning in 2003, participating in workshops, testifying before the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors, and providing detailed comments on every document produced. Our goal: end up with a realistic plan that will lead to economically viable high-density housing and a wonderful, pedestrian-oriented, complete neighborhood at the edge of downtown.
TRANSBAY NEIGHBORHOOD. In January 1995, SPUR began rethinking how to redevelop this underutilized district so close to downtown. The planning took a great leap forward with the publishing of the Transbay Redevelopment Project Area Design for Development Vision in 1993, as well as the passage of Prop K in November 2003, partially funding the construction of a new Transbay Terminal. While much work, many agreements, and further funding are required, SPUR is pleased with the forward motion on planning this crucial new neighborhood in the city.
SPUR CENTER. We continue our “due diligence” to create a new home for SPUR in an important building that will feature space for public exhibitions about urbanism and environmental design. In 2003 we hired Pfau Architecture, Ltd. as our architects and took the first steps to acquire a building— deliberately but surely laying the foundation for taking SPUR’s mission “retail” in a dramatic publicly accessible building. This dream is still developing, and the capital campaign to raise the money is just beginning in earnest. This is a project you will be hearing a lot more about soon.
WATERFRONT. The San Francisco waterfront continues to undergo dramatic evolution, from the former working industrial Port to a linear series of public space and use “moments.” We organized an all-day Citizen Planning Institute called “On the Waterfront: Planning for People, Parks, and the Bay” to raise awareness of waterfront issues, encourage cohesive planning of the waterfront, and advance an open-space agenda. We also looked at best practices in other cities, including Vancouver. SPUR continues the work begun at the CPI through our Waterfront Parks Task Force.
Housing
BETTER NEIGHBORHOODS. The City’s foray into real neighborhood planning extended into its fourth year, and unfortunately is still a long way from completion. 2003 saw modest progress on the three “Better Neighborhoods 2002” plans (Market/Octavia, Balboa Park, and the Central Waterfront). This program displays some of the best planning work ever done in San Francisco—we are especially pleased with the way the Market/Octavia Plan has turned out—and yet they are not on track to be completed. The promise of integrating environmental review into the planning process did not materialize, nor did the promise of integrating “public realm” planning materialize for the most part. (Originally the idea was that Muni, Recreation & Park, DPW, and other agencies that provide public services would do capital plans for each neighborhood so that increased densities went with concrete neighborhood improvements.) SPUR continued to work on all three plans in 2003. We have, in fact, attended every workshop for every neighborhood since the process began. At this point, SPUR’s primary goal is to get the work finished; we have invested too much to drop this effort now. But if the model is going to be replicated in other neighborhoods, we must find a way to get from start to completed rezoning in less than five years
HOUSING ABOVE GROCERY STORES. Working with the Housing Action Coalition, we held two charettes at SPUR to look at the barriers, and possible incentives, to get housing built on top of grocery stores. While the traditional urban pattern is to do just this kind of vertical mixing of uses, prevailing zoning and development patterns since World War II have tended toward single-use stores. In 2003 we began work to chart a path to revitalize this more traditional urban pattern.
HOUSING ACTION COALITION. We continued our leadership role in the Housing Action Coalition, serving on the Regulatory Committee, Endorsement Committee, and Executive Committee, while helping to recruit new members into the organization. The HAC endorsed eight excellent housing developments in 2003, representing 917 units. All but one have already been approved by the City. The HAC has been pushing a legislative package—inspired by SPUR’s policy papers—that would help increase housing supply. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that the Coalition has been able to hold together, through so many controversial issues, in a city that is so divided over how to approach housing. The model is working: talk about increasing the supply of well-designed, well-located housing for all income levels, and don’t talk about anything else. The HAC’s focus is allowing it to represent the general, city-wide need for housing.
RESIDENCE ELEMENT OF THE GENERAL PLAN. The City still does not have an approved and adopted General Plan element on housing. The State Department of Housing and Community Development requires every city to be in compliance—meaning it has a realistic plan for meeting its projected housing demand—and 2002 was the year it was due, following a number of extensions. SPUR has been intensively involved in the drafting process, correcting the Department’s miscalculation of housing potential under existing zoning and going so far as to create the work plan that accompanies the Housing Element. In addition, we spoke at dozens of public hearings and neighborhood meetings in 2003. While the Housing Element will not rezone (and most cities in the State seem to never get around to actually doing the rezoning their Housing Elements call for), the least we can do is have a responsible plan on paper.
RESIDENTIAL DESIGN GUIDELINES. In May of 2003, the Planning Department released a revision to the Residential Design Guidelines. Although the guidelines are not as legally binding as zoning, they are a critical way to design new buildings to fit into the existing neighborhood context, ensuring that new development makes a positive contribution to our neighborhoods. The Department’s draft was good in many respects, but only for the low-density RH-1 and RH-2 residentially zoned districts. Many of its precepts are not appropriate for use in higher-density or mixed-use (commercial/residential) areas. Moreover, a serious flaw in the guidelines would have essentially prohibited modern design. We met with Planning staff and provided detailed comments to improve the guidelines, and we won many modifications that define neighborhood compatibility in a way that does not preclude interesting contemporary architecture. In addition, we were able to suggest changes that incorporated a perspective of energy conservation and environmental awareness. The Department recognized the need for separate guidelines of mixed use areas but, given staff shortages, did not commit to developing them. SPUR will continue to urge their development, perhaps in the context of the “housing above grocery stores” proposal.
SECONDARY UNITS. It’s been more than two years since SPUR called on the City to make it easier for homeowners to add secondary units to their property if they choose (see the August 2001 Newsletter, issue 398, “Secondary Units: A Painless Way to Increase the Supply of Housing”). We called this housing type a “painless” way to increase the supply of housing because it involves less visual impact in existing neighborhoods than any other type of housing, and because it produces relatively less-expensive units without costing any tax dollars. But the process so far has been anything but painless. Neighborhood opposition to even this most modest of housing types has been enormous. We aren’t backing down from the fight, but so far we’re not winning. We must once again thank Supervisor Aaron Peskin for his leadership on this issue. Stay tuned.
regional planning
ABAG/MTC TALKS. Throughout the year, we attempted to aid efforts to restructure the relationship between the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the Metropolitan Transportation Committee (MTC), since SPUR is looking for a better institutional framework for promoting regional “smart growth.” We provided advice to Senator Tom Torlakson, the leader of reform in this field. We were also regular observers and occasional participants in the six meetings of a joint MTC/ABAG Task Force that considered new ways to coordinate land use and transportation planning. Although the MTC rejected any merger with ABAG, the joint Task Force decided to make itself permanent as a joint policy committee between the two organizations, a small advance.
HIGH SPEED RAIL. This was back-burnered by the State government in 2003, but at least it was still on the stove. The State is still considering a rail link that would link downtown LA to downtown San Francisco in 2.5 hours. And it’s still a good idea—provided the route and station locations throughout the state are planned to reinforce town centers and not sprawl. The Draft environmental documents were recently released (see http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov).The results so far are promising, if not perfect.
POPULATION GROWTH PROJECTIONS. We continued our quixotic attempt to raise the possibility of changing the way ABAG does its regional growth projections. Instead of the current practice of extrapolating from past trends (which means sprawl), why not present policymakers with more than one choice of how the region could evolve and allow a conscious decision to be made? In 2003, SPUR held a Citizen Planning Institute on regional planning (see next item). An important topic was these projections.
REGIONALISM CITIZEN PLANNING INSTITUTE. Everyone knows that regional planning is important, but no one seems to know how to make it happen, including SPUR. So we thought it would be a good idea to bring in some smart people to talk about what we've tried and haven't tried yet. Thus, we put together a fascinating Citizen Planning Institute on "Regionalism." The keynote speaker was David Bragdon, the head of Portland Metro, the only directly elected regional government official in the country, who talked about the successes and failures of Portland's model of regional decision-making. But we also brought together some of the leading thinkers in regional thinking in the Bay Area, including Mark DeSaulnier (Contra Costa County Supervisor), Joe Bodovitz (former head of BCDC and leader of the BayVision 20/20 process), Steve Heminger (head of MTC), and Eugene Leong (head of ABAG). SPUR committee members continue to work toward a better regional future.
STATE LEGISLATION. Through our participation in the California Futures Network and our relationship with the Bay Area delegation, we did our best to follow the literally hundreds of bills proposed in Sacramento that pertained to planning and land use. We provided comments on some of these bills and were heartened to see a lot of interest coalesce around an attempt to find ways to encourage infill development statewide.
TRANSPORTATION AND LAND USE COALITION. We continue to be active members in TALC's region-wide efforts to promote smart transportation investments. One of the main focuses for 2003 was the Regional Transportation Plan, where TALC has been working to protect transit allocations, secure funding to implement the Regional Bicycle Plan, and use transportation funding to reward transit-supportive local land-use planning. TALC also led the campaign for the bridge toll increase, and continued to issue authoritative reports on issues such as smart growth, social justice, and the links between transportation and public health.
