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tv   [untitled]    February 28, 2011 3:00am-3:30am PST

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of tod in this company is a giant retail over giant parking garages. if that is smart growth, i missed it. we think of a transit village. those of the exceptions, and not the rules. my fear is that well as operationally smart growth mean something, we need to look to what is happening to our population patterns of dispersal, and especially today. the few years back, and during the housing boom, we had more resources for affordable housing than ever. we never reached more than 50% of our goals. what do we do now, when there is no more local money, no inclusion mary handing money -- no inclusionary housing money? how do we replace that? if we do not, more people are going to live in fairfax, driving $2,000 cars, polluting
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like we have never seen. president olague: thank you. gendan fujioka. >> we have an office in oakland. i sit on one of the equity working groups with mtc. i wanted to raise a question or to request. the whole bay area is looking to san francisco as providing leadership in this area. i think it is great to have the participation of staff from the planning department in a number of these discussions. i think one of the challenges we face is to get real numbers about what we can get in terms of affordability over this next time. i think some of the previous commentators raised this concern
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about not portable housing. it does not do as good if we build affordable housing at the same time we are losing it through displacement and gentrification. a recent study from abag called "development without displacement" researches displacement effect in san francisco from 1996 through 2006. the data results were stunning. another is not time to cover all the data in there. there is information worth considering. one of the findings was that a replacement levels in areas that are considered high transit in san francisco have the highest rates of displacement. the communities that were being displaced were primarily lower
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income households. this chart shows a decline of 32% of low and very low income households and high transit areas. that is in six years, from 2000 to 2006, in san francisco. the study tracked by ethnicity and income where people were going. it found that is proportionately the population is being displaced were communities of color. there were being displaced to communities with poorer transit. the outcome of this process may be that although we continue to provide greater access to transit, lower income folks will have to drive in, and in essence generate more vehicle miles traveled. you do not seem maids, cooks,
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and gardeners taking light rail to work. they do not have transit. as people get displaced further and further out from the urban corridor, the result is going to be the opposite of our intended efforts, which is more greenhouse gases. there is also in equity. -- inequity. president olague: any additional public comment? >> good evening. marc solomon, mission resident, ground zero for ted next to have ways. i worked on the transportation plan for the western settlement. i associate myself with the remarks on community housing. never say never.
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greenhouse gas reductions. is there evidence in a full life cycle analysis that new san francisco housing, as built, competes with suburban sprawl? if someone is going to choose between a rincon hill condo and tracy, i do not think that is a realistic economic comparison. the land-use plans in san francisco were built at the height of the bubble. the presumed realistic economics were normative. it turns out there were an aberration. yet we are still dealing with state laws that were built when real-estate and money to invest in lobbyists. with current economics, or economics likely to take place over the next 20 years, that is cold water. how can we expect the city to reduce greenhouse gases when all tod is located within three blocks of an exit ramp of a highway? this department is planning to up-zone the area just south of
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the freeway under the theory that it will be tod. i do not think that will be the case. our apartment is facing 100 new parking spaces under the guidance of tod. every dollar you invest in transit capital is more important than transit investment. we have to be sure we have no new investment in transit capital until we have operations resources that can run the existing transit system. only when we have additional operations resources to run the new capital investment -- or else we are going to be falling further behind. can we make developers pay their fair share for development and infrastructure under these plans? they have made that not happen to political power. as a compromise, we need to make it so developers cannot build until the partner with the community to identify ways to figure out how to get money to
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keep the transit system running on operations and additional capital infrastructure, as i remarked earlier. that is the compromise position. we will not let them build until the partner with the community to make this work. that will make developers the best allies of transit and affordable housing you can't imagine, if those were linked. the director made a comment in his letter to the mtc that said it was a threat that neighbors might go to the ballot to demand such a metering. the threat is that we will entitle new development that does not meet our needs and take away from existing infrastructure. thank you. president olague: thank you. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner antonini: a few observations on this. very interesting comments about who are the commuters.
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one group i think we all will acknowledge are completely underserved our middle income families in san francisco. i think they comprise a very high level of the traffic coming into san francisco. we know their numbers in san francisco have diminished over the last few decades to a very low level relative to the entire population. one of the things we have to try to do as we look at this growth is mary the job growth which is projected with the housing growth. another thing that was very well done is the area's -- the areas, are also the areas where the largest housing growth is projected. what we do have to do is address
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our lack of transit within san francisco, particularly in the areas such as treasure island, hunters point, and parkmerced, which generally are underserved by transportation. we have to figure how we will get transit to the areas where jobs are being created. this is a good graphic, and it sounds really good. much of the 61% our suburban commuters coming in on bart. they are well served. someone in the richmond district is not well served. one reason they may not live there is they do not want to go on a bus that will take an hour to get them to their work from an area that is 5 miles away. even though it may cost more to
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build transit the right way, with its own right of way in subways or exclusive right of ways, it is worth doing it once and doing it right. to go around in circles -- i know is an improvement, but it is taking a lot of time. it is costing a lot of money. it is going to eliminate parking lanes. traffic is going to have to go somewhere. people will not stop driving from san jose to the no. they just because we have taken a lane of traffic away. we should look to the big picture on transit, figuring out how we could improve trend -- improve san francisco transit to serve the suburban communities. those of the big things. even as far back as 1918, when we had a problem with non-having enough housing, they did not say we would build a little trail over twin peaks and run a horse
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and buggy. they dug a tunnel and were able to develop that part of the city. i think we have to have the same philosophy if we are going to develop all these units in hunters point and bayview. how are we going to get those people to the downtown area where jobs are being created, quickly, so there will want to live there? there will not want to wait around for a bus to figure out how to get their -- there. we need to make the type of housing people are demanding, the kind that isn't being built, particularly family housing. they are going to want parking most of the time. the would like to have a little space of their own.
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these are the groups leaving san francisco for the very reasons that we are not creating part. we are not creating housing appropriate to their needs. those are the things we have to look at in this picture. i think we can do a lot to decrease emissions if we address these problems. what do we have to do to keep jobs in san francisco and mary these jobs which residents that hold these jobs so people are not on highways, driving long distances. vice president miguel: i would like to compliment the presentation and the work they have been doing in the departments. six to nine months after sb 379 passed, i was asked to be on a regional panel at berkeley. i had to do a little study to
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catch up a bit. but i found it very interesting the representatives in san francisco, berkeley, and oakland got it. they understood what it was about. but if you went further east, north, or south to get it, they did not know anything about it. they are not point to get it. i keep in somewhat touch with the organizations that sponsored this. i read through their e-mails. they are starting to see a little more action. but i do not think i understand what is required in this regard. i appreciated the comments that people looked at san francisco as a leader in this. that does not mean we are perfect. we are obviously not. we do, in effect, get it a little bit more. commissioner antonini echoes
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what we heard in our morning session regarding glenn park. when the first electric many of its time started to go out to that area, it had the transit infrastructure and the area that was developed. it is costly to do it that way, to put it in before it is needed. but it is the only logical way it should go. he should not have to build a thousand units of housing in order to afford a transit. i do not know where the money is coming from. i do not think it has to come entirely from extraction's from the new developers in the new area. there has to be some equity involved.
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everything the organizations are saying is correct. there is no question about it. that infrastructure -- that for my was that over in berkeley was basically on low income and communities of color. the reconsidering those items predominantly. but everything everybody has been saying today is correct. i do not know where the money is coming from in order to do the planning correctly. commissioner sugaya: i would like to think planning staff and mta for the hard work. i think everyone is trying to meet whatever the requirements are. i also appreciate comments by the audience. i think that sets a different
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perspective on the issue of how to implement what the legislation is trying to do. i used to think it was good legislation because it was forcing us to think of the to but more about coordinating transportation and housing and addressing through greenhouse gas the whole issue of regional planning. some of the presentation today seems like -- i do not know the entire background on the legislation. i am sorry. it seems somewhat backwards to me now that we're being forced into this through what i see -- maybe this is heresy. artificial greenhouse gas targets. why are we picking 15%? why isn't it 20%? why isn't it 10%? i do not think there is a real scientific basis. but we are stuck with it because
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it is state law. that is one concern. the other concern is how equitably all of this housing distribution is going to take place around the region. communities from alameda can have ordinances that prevent housing. how are they being treated by abag in terms of the regional housing allocation? lastly, it was not part of the presentation, and i apologize for not being familiar with the legislation, but all of the approvals were done on the regional level, according to the floater to have here. and suppose the only way we influenced it is to continue to be involved in the process.
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it does not look like things are inequitable. what kind of penalties are there? but if communities do not meet their targets? >> is more of a carrot than a stick. we are required to demonstrate that the land use plans are in accordance with the adopted plan in the region. you can use the alternative. in our community, and the other
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communities that are not doing the same planet everybody has talked about, or are not meeting responsibilities toward housing -- because it is ^ based, by not conforming, -- because it is carrot based, by not conforming, you do not get funding for transportation infrastructure projects. we hope it will include affordable housing funding. there are some very vague and unsure benefits about reductions the proposed. commissioner sugaya: as long as you are still up on your feet,
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can you describe a little bit more what these projects are supposed to look like? >> the rtt projects? commissioner sugaya: there was mention that you would issue a call for project ideas. >> the regional transportation plan -- this round of projects is seeking project ideas for initial vetting. in order to contain the universe of projects, the most important project to be included that is going to need federal funding or state funding -- in order to seek federal or state grants, you need to be in the rtp. ne capacity-enhancing project needs to also be in the rtp.
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finally, a large project that cost a lot should be in the rtp so we have consensus in the community. ideas that are most important fall into that project there is the trans pay terminal, the central subway, and all the lines we have been working on -- balboa, glen park, and the south of market area, the eastern neighborhood, central freeway and octavia. we have a list of projects. we know a lot of them are partners. we do invite members of the
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public to submit their ideas, just to make sure we have the right list. commissioner moore: i sense a great deal of discomfort between the idealism of the idea, responding to the challenges of the legislation, and the reality of how it relates to the state of california. the city is easily jumping onto every answer without asking the next question. i would agree that realizing the funding vacuum and asking ourselves who is affected sets the right way to respond to the challenge.
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if they set a state law -- we found ourselves last december being challenged by proposition 23 to overturn the entire thing. what are we rushing to be the first one to respond to something which we have not even been asked to examine how it can work? i believe there is an examination of the type of housing we have. we basically do not have rules which speaks to how you identify existing housing stock and still maintain a livability which will be guaranteed into the future. i find that discussion basically a discussion which is not based on the same type of equitable way.
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i have lived in this city all my life. on the other hand, i have lived in a country where the higher density rules are much more fine grained. they have light, air, and livability as a metric for how you fill in and what you can do. building spacing, tower spacing, hours of sunlight in your home are all protected rights of ability. we are identifying this without ever having asked that question. here is another variance. have we really asked all the questions? are we displacing the real heart and soul of the city, which is the entire variety of people who live here, and move it bunch of people packing because they cannot afford living here anymore? i found mr. rand paul's comments
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challenging. mr. sullivan had important things to say. we need to look how we are responding to this. i find this diagram frightening. i am not prepared to sit here as planning commission and say where to go because we are responding to a state mandate. i cannot do that. commissioner borden: i will reiterate what other people said, and think members of the public. -- think members of public -- of the public. we do not even on land for the most part. other people have land. they develop it as they see fit. the cost is expensive. we all struggle with what would be the right policy or responses. dealing with infrastructure is smart. i think it is challenging.
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it is a thing we grapple with when we look at projects in issues around parking, the reality of transit and the promise of transit. i know you were handling the funding and the bigger projects. talk about muni. when we talk about the plan and the transit effects put forward, how is that all working together? >> that is a great question. there is a big disconnect. it goes back to the disconnect other commissioners have identified in terms of our goals, which are aspirational. we do not have enough funding for basic services that meet existing population needs in terms of any number of service areas, but especially transit. the funds for transit operators in the whole state have legislo plug the budget crisis. that instability is worrisome.
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the long-term trend that has been more worrisome. there are deep service cuts july 1. we have known this for all the transit operators, who of been struggling and trying to look for revenue. that causes other distortions in public policy, like raising parking fees, when it is not parking policy, but the need to shore up operating deficits. this is not a local or state problem. it is a national problem. our national funding problem is week. the gas tax has not been raised at the federal or state level for decades. the highway trust fund is funded by the gas tax. we do not have enough to maintain our federal transportation system. it is discouraging.
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transit is something the mtc is acknowledging. we have led a transit system ability project. looking at the region, the bay area has six transit operators. are there ways to better produce transit in this region than to have 26 operators? are there other ways to create more stable funding options, whether from automobile user fees, parcel taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes, and a range of potential sources? that discussion is happening in parallel. we cannot be pursuing this growth policy without a having the resources not only to pay for the capital, but the operating funds to run that service. commissioner borden: would that
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be our get out of jail free cards? you just discussed a constraint scenario we had to take into account with the public plan. we have the reality that we do not have the funding for existing transit. >> this time around, the mtc has offered to you as discretionary transit sources for the first time. in the past, those funding sources were considered committed or non-discretionary. mpc is putting on the table certain funding sources, including transit funding sources. san francisco has an opportunity to grow the share of the pie or places that are producing all of this planet -- all of this transit. oakland and san jose will also have some claim to that. a dollar that goes to transit operations may not be going to road maintenance, may not be road maintenance, may not be going to highway development