Coastal Commission Approves Adaptive Erosion Measures at Ocean Beach

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. Getting 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?

Coastal Sediment Managers have released a draft plan.

2015 Silver SPUR honoree Jim Lazarus is the senior vice president of public policy for the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. A former deputy mayor and deputy city attorney for the City and County of San Francisco, he has played a key role in good government reforms in San Francisco.

Silver SPUR honoree Carol J. Galante ran BRIDGE Housing for 13 years, leading one of California’s largest affordable housing development organizations. Galante served President Obama from 2009-2014 as the Assistant Secretary for Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She is now a distinguished professor in Affordable Housing and Urban Policy at UC Berkeley.

Silver SPUR honoree Harlan Kelly Jr.,the general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, directs a 2,300-person team to revitalize the city’s water and sewer infrastructure. His leadership in San Francisco government has spanned many departments, where he played a managerial and key civic engineering roles as San Francisco’s City Engineer.

2015 Silver SPUR honoree Leah Shahum led the 10,000-member San Francisco Bicycle Coalition for 12 years, building it into one of the strongest advocacy groups in the city, significantly growing the citywide Bike Network and the number of people riding in the city. She is now the director of the Vision Zero Network, advocating nationally for the elimination of all traffic deaths and severe injuries.