>> the planning commission is back in session. commissioners, you are on item number 11. it is an informational report. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am with the planning department. i am here with my colleagues at the san francisco county transportation authority. together with a multitude of other agencies, we have been working to track the bill, which i will explain to you is a pretty landmark bill trying to reduce greenhouse gases from transportation cars, light trucks, and san francisco. we have been working with a multitude of other agencies to the sustainability, which will

also tell you a little bit more about that presentation. it is kind of acting with the regional entities and they have been doing a great job so far. >> the afternoon, commissioners. we are pleased to be here and we definitely wanted to acknowledge and thank the department and a bunch of other folks that we work with collaborative lee on leading coordination for the sustainable community strategy. in just a few moments, we will have a few slides. this legislation was passed in 2008 to implement another bill that said greenhouse gas reduction targets for all of california. we're focused on the mobile

sector that is the result of the transportation decisions that are made in each jurisdiction. >> can we have the overheads, please? >> this will be the legislation that we discussed in 2008. it requires us to create a new element. it is done every few years and is updated as well. the element is called a sustainable community strategy. what is a sustainable community strategy? it is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the bay area. the have adopted a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 15% by 2035. they also aim to accommodate the region's population at all

income levels, and requires coordination with the regional housing process. it is a process of the planning department he to do every eight years are so. in addition, it requires the transportation networks be consistent with the land use strategy. it is the regional transportation plan for the next 25 years for the region. it is quite a big deal because this is where the public investment resources can be tied it turns to devise some of the land use changes. the four stages of this integrated process is the planning that is happening now, some detailed scenarios. they're going to be releasing

some of the results of an initial vision scenario. it will allow the region and ourselves to weigh in on the if we had a certain vision, we will see how far it gets by placing development where we think we can mere transit. we did not assume a financial constraint. it does require us to consider restraint transportation as a piece of the plan. those types of planning will happen during early summer. it will lead us toward a preferred scenario. that will be followed by the environmental review of the whole thing and adoption in 2013. this whole process is being accelerated to meet the schedule of adoption by 2013. we have been working very hard to keep track of it.

the initial vision scenario, what is it. as you may know, there are 100 cities in the bay area. they have input on how much they plan to grow. we will talk a little bit about san francisco's input. we will distribute about 270,000 more households that have been identified as housing needs for the region. they are putting it where they think it is best placed. have they have assumed this and transportation investments. what will this division scenario show? how much trouble there is and how much miles are travel, how many tons of emissions are produced. other equity and performance results will also be analyzed. we suspect the region will get some of the way toward our goal,

but it will not be sufficient and we will need to make more specific investments have and strategies to reach the housing and emissions goals. we will also have to do more with less. the next step after the initial vision scenario requires us to use what is known as the financially constrained set of revenues. we do need to follow the region and's guidance on how much available revenue there is. we will need to prioritize investments in infrastructure within an investment unhearresos envelope. and there'll be the form of more concentrated or dispersed land- use patterns. we will also test alternative transportation strategies. some of which might be more policy based.

these are the types of strategic meet our goals cost effectively. those scenarios will be analyzed and the results will be shared with the region. we'll be collecting input from the public on those. he prefers scenario is expected to be identified by the end of this year. the preferred scenario will be a regional transportation plan, but i will speak to that in another slide. this speaks to how the agency is doing the court nation on behalf of san francisco. there is a lot of policy level coordination boards. we're trying to keep everyone apprised. they are interested in trying to coordinate with us in sending a

very strong and coordinated message that san francisco is trying to do our part to grow and a sustainable manner and that we need investment resources to bring the transportation infrastructure and service levels up to the necessary levels. the agencies involved are the whole range of agencies that are providing input into this process. as well as within the peninsula. as you could imagine, the transportation needs are both local and regional. in addition, in terms of public our reach, he there are a number of mechanisms and committees. there is a set that will be planned for march when the vision scenario was released. andrea maintained online

resources to provide information as well. my final slide before handing it over to syria to explain why this all matters, the metropolitan transportation commission doesn't have an update to the plan that i mentioned. it distributes about $200 billion of funding. that is about $6 billion in the last plan that is not quite keeping with our significance in the region in terms of how much trouble we accommodate, transit trips, he had a we are closer to 14. the funding formulas are based on population and outdated things like freeway lane miles. it's not really pertinent to policy today. how do we reduce our carbon

footprint? the policy question is to what extent will they redirected discretionary funding? let me give this back over to sarah. >> i will talk a little bit about the other process. the housing means allocation that you will have heard me talk about plenty, basically our housing target that we are required to meet for the five- year housing elements. as you know, we are assigned a regional housing target to buy income level. it will become an eight-year target. the difference here is that the

area that is allocated to us has to be consistent. the state is trying to make sure that all the things they are asking us to do are lined up. there is confusion as to what consistent actually means. we are participating here in the allocations committee phew for the next allocation to make sure that things work out in an equitable manner and we don't use it as a way to forget about the affordability goals. what does this mean for us? what we are hoping is that what it does, it ads state and regional level support for all the work we have already been doing. for example, the planning work we have already done, as you can see, if it has already -- we're

looking at 70,000 housing units. almost all of the plan areas, we are in really good shape. it means that while we are relatively low in terms of population share, we are hugely

important in terms of transit. we have already sent -- and these are posted on the web site. there are really at four major points that they are trying to get across. they have to prevent displacement and ameliorate the effects. the second big one thing is

accommodating regional growth. we need to prioritize the resources to words places like us so we can keep running the assistance that we have. as you know, that is really important. it is absolutely critical. we are asking them to prioritize expansion resources for jurisdictions they are proactively planning. and lastly, we want to see them prioritize discretionary funding for projects that not only reduce greenhouse gases in terms of emissions, but also do it in a way that is equitable and cost effective. it includes affordable housing as a good example of that. those are really the take away is that we are pushing. we would like to work with you

and with members of the community as we are already starting to meet with them to decide whether these of the ones we continue to hammer or if there is more that we need to add to that as we follow this process. how do people get involved? this is a hard thing for us to provide as we are a participant in the process. we don't have much control over it. we are doing our best to provide avenues and connections so that people can get involved here in our agencies and directly with the regional efforts. we set up a local web site hosted by the planning department, but it is the agency's web site. it will tell what it does, and we have not added it yet. we're trying to add a component that would serve as a discussion forum where we can have people

talk about their feelings so that we can give those comments directly to the region which is kind of a hard thing to do right now. they do have their own web site set up at onebayarea.org. they have been promoting the information on their homepage for the transportation plan update which is strongly linked to this. both the authority and other agencies are willing to talk to neighborhood groups as they are interested and as it moves along. the very last slide, we are issuing a call for projects. project ideas that should be considered, this was launched late last week. the deadline for submitting all

types of transportation projects is march 24. we will take that set of ideas, we will try to fit is many of them as we can into a budget constraint. they will run them through the detailed scenario that i mentioned previously. there will be opportunities to learn more through the web site, to contact us, we can come to neighborhood groups and organizations to give presentations. we're particularly interested in trying to reach communities of concern because of their demographic. we appreciate the help getting the word out that there is an opportunity to forward your transportation ideas to be included in the regional transportation plan. i think that is the end of our presentation. i am happy to take questions.

>> one group requested a block of time. on this one. and we will open up for public comment. >> i have been prepared, calling critical response, so we will give a kind of opening idea here. let me introduce you to this capacity.

we're working with groups, several of which are working this evening. really in a kind of larger community development, it is economic development issues and try to get our heads around what it means to talk about regional sustainable community policy at ground level. we are thankful you're having a first hearing. we want to give you our sense of why this becomes relevant. i think we have all found it very interesting that in san francisco, we tend to focus on intemperances go. there is a role for advocates to play bringing our collective experience to the region. the advocates in the jurisdictions elsewhere are trying to do what san francisco has done. they try to -- san francisco is

looked to as this kind of a bellwether of good work and a progressive and advanced planning. we bring that to the regional conversation in a way that is more intentional. what we are here to do today is perhaps not to disagree with the presentation you heard, but to have of that more of a cautious tale about the lessons learned, the experience of a smart growth over the last 10, 15, 25 years. san francisco has been doing smart growth in many respects. we have a lot of things we have learned. what has worked, what has not worked so well, the differences between aspirations and the realities of applying those concepts. i think generally speaking, that is the tenor of our comments.

a few things i would like to say about the distinction of aspirational concepts and realities, we have heard a lot about what a sustainable community strategy will give us. one is this idea that identification is itself mitigating. it is a better way to grow a better pattern. thereby, it is inherently self mitigating. we are learning that the related infrastructure needs and are critical. they are, for the most part, on funded. it means that we should grow more concentrated, and hope that the infrastructure comes. it is a lot easier to spread things around and everybody has to figure out how to make it happen and come up with the infrastructure necessary to do that. the other is this idea of affordability.

that by design or compactness, the affordability is going to happen. we have all seen that throughout the region the dramatic underproduction of affordable housing at any level of affordability. it does not just happen, it is always hard work and we are always behind the curve. it is complete neighborhoods, the concept of a complete neighborhoods that is a san francisco planning department's term about the community infrastructure that it takes to be sustainable and livable. we find that that kind of infrastructure is not linked to development. the approvals for housing happened in their own pipeline, but the process for bringing on infrastructure is a very -- is very de-linked.

we would like to have them tied together, the reality is that they move on very disconnected tracks. i am emphasizing the infrastructure linkages. it is just an idea, but we wanted to remind the the commission of this particular study that was done for the eastern neighborhoods. where there was a recognition, we can debate on how successful it has become, but a recognition that there needs to be infrastructure. this needs assessment with an attempt to say, what are the various types of infrastructure necessary to meet the growth? there were some cost factors put into that. that should be standard practice. there should be no sustainable communities without some kind of a real analysis of the infrastructure to match its.

another point i would like to make is about the needed funding. with three development under pressure, and certainly, if we are lucky, it will shrink. the worst cases that it will disappear. the process could come down to the local level as an unfunded mandate. whether that is the housing subsidy that is needed or whether that is the street or other things, a word of caution that the funding at this point, the staff is clearly not there. on that note, the big points that were made, we agree with those. we have been working somewhat collaborative lee with conversations about where the shared values are, and all of those goals are very important to us.

funding these is absolutely critical. before i turn it over to my colleague, who is affected by this? this is not just a generic landscape of an increased infill. this is targeted communities throughout the region, and let me point out this map. this is the association of area governments communities of concern. they are defined at where growth might be focused. and also communities that are vulnerable to displacement or gentrification for whatever reason. if you zoom in on san francisco , you can see that most of the