When a major earthquake strikes the Bay Area, it could take months to reestablish essential services and years to rebuild. Good land use planning will be crucial to a successful recovery. If we make needed regulatory changes now, we will have the tools we need to rebuild our cities, and our region, after the earthquake strikes.

Downtown San Francisco is the most sustainable job center in the region due to its walkable compact nature and its position as the hub of the regions transit infrastructure. The Central Corridor is one of the very few areas in the entire city that has the existing and planned transit infrastructure to build on these successes. It is critical that we consider the rezoning of Central Corridor Plan in the context of our long-term need for employment and housing space. It is with these priorities in mind that we provides specific comments on the proposed height alternatives for the Central Corridor.

When Google proposed a new vision for retrofitting its Mountain View campus as a dense and walkable urban place, the city embraced the plan — but balked at Google’s request to include housing. Increasingly, we are seeing expressions of the urban future of work through specific proposals by companies interested in retrofitting the suburban corporate campus rather than moving into cities.