ClimatePlan

ClimatePlan Welcomes New Steering Committee Members

ClimatePlan — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:03:01 +0000

We are thrilled to announce the selection of four new members to ClimatePlan’s Steering Committee: Parisa Fatehi-Weeks with Public Advocates, Patricia Ochoa with Physicians for Social Responsibility , Liz O’Donoghue with The Nature Conservancy, and Walter Ramirez with California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation. The Steering Committee guides the partnership and makes decisions related to policy, strategy, and resource allocation. As an organization that is built on collaboration, we strive to ensure our governance is both democratic and representative of the many constituencies, regions and communities that we serve. We are thrilled about our new Steering Committee members and we hope you’ll join us in welcoming them.

SCAG & ARB Workshops on Southern CA RTP/SCS

ClimatePlan — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:38:50 +0000

SCAG Regional Council & Policy Committee Workshop: 11:30
California Air Resources Board Workshop: 1:30
Click here for more info on Southern California’s RTP/SCS.

Rethinking redevelopment in California

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:34:39 +0000

Los Angeles Times – February 8th, 2012. Opinion — by Madeline Janis.
Last week, one of the country’s oldest and largest public economic development programs came to an inglorious end when the governor and Legislature pulled the plug on California’s 400 redevelopment agencies. So why did the governor and lawmakers end the state’s only real community revitalization program, especially at a time when there is such great need for jobs and affordable housing?
Link to article

Where to next?: Urban Land Institute returns to Stockton to think up ideas

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:33:43 +0000

The Stockton Record – February 7th, 2012. By Scott Smith.
David Leland, a Portland, Ore.-based real estate strategist, stepped off a bus in downtown Stockton on Monday morning. So far, he had soaked in part of the beleaguered city center, and his mind started to reel. “I see some opportunities already,” he said, leaving a little mystery for a public report to come Friday. “Frankly, we’ve just gotten into town.” Leland chairs an elite team of downtown revitalization specialists from some of the nation’s most vibrant cities.
Link to article

Most Americans Want a Walkable Neighborhood, Not a Big House

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:29:47 +0000

GOOD – February 7, 2012. By Nona Willis Aronowitz.
The symbol of American success often involves having the biggest house possible, but our outsized fantasies seem to be shifting. According to a new survey, more than three quarters of us consider having sidewalks and places to take a walk one of our top priorities when deciding where to live. Six in 10 people also said they would sacrifice a bigger house to live in a neighborhood that featured a mix of houses, stores, and businesses within an easy walk.
Link to article

Why Planners Need to Take Agenda 21 Criticism More Seriously

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:27:59 +0000

Atlantic Cities – February 7, 2012. By Andrew H. Whitemore.
The New York Times over the weekend picked up the thread of the Tea Party-related anti-smart growth movement, which in truth has been gaining steam for a couple of years now. This isn’t even the first time The Atlantic Cities has written about it. It’d be easy to wholly dismiss the Agenda 21’ers. Consider, however, that the ubiquity of sustainability as a concept in today’s planning circles does constitute something of a revolution.
Link to article

A rational approach to rail

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:27:00 +0000

Los Angeles Times – February 6th, 2012. By George Skelton.
California’s proposed bullet train is being recalibrated. And designers may finally be on the right track. Sensitive to growing public and political opposition, high-speed rail officials seem to be coming to a rational conclusion: It makes good sense to begin service ASAP in urban areas where people might actually ride the trains. Construction still would start next fall in the rural San Joaquin Valley, the thinking goes. But simultaneously there’d be major upgrades to conventional lines in the Los Angeles and San Francisco regions.
Link to article

Tools can help cities cope after redevelopment

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:26:24 +0000

The Sacramento Bee – February 4th, 2012. By William Fulton.
For now, redevelopment in California is dead. But that hasn’t eliminated the need for public policy to support urban revitalization. Indeed, Gov. Jerry Brown still supports aggressive policies in this vein – for example, implementing the SB 375 regional planning law, passed in 2008 as part of the climate change effort, and streamlining environmental review for infill projects. So the question is not whether redevelopment will come back, but how and in what form.
Link to article

Poor, minority residents face most health risks with climate change

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:25:50 +0000

California Watch – February 3rd, 2012. By Bernice Yeung.
Poor, urban and minority residents are most at risk for health problems linked to climate change, according to a new California Department of Public Health analysis of Los Angeles and Fresno counties. The department examined social and environmental factors ranging from the rising sea level to public transportation access and found that African Americans and Latinos living in these counties are more likely to be exposed to health and safety risks related to poor air quality, heat waves, flooding and wildfires stemming from climate change.
Link to article

Massive Coalition Opposes House GOP Attempt to Eviscerate Transit

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:25:13 +0000

Streetsblog Capitol Hill – February 3rd, 2012. By Ben Goldman.
The House Ways and Means committee has just passed a bill that would kick transit out of the highway trust fund, casting aside a 30-year history of providing a dedicated funding source for federal transit programs. Transit instead would be funded by a transfer from the general fund, which would have to be offset by cuts elsewhere to avoid raising the deficit. As US PIRG’s Dan Smith said yesterday, this is like saying that transit funding will come from the Tooth Fairy.
Link to blog

Planners say U.S. has too many big houses

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:24:26 +0000

San Diego Union Tribune – February 3rd, 2012. By Roger Showley.
Consumers thinking smaller, creating glut of 40 million homes because consumers are shifting preferences to condos, apartments and small homes, experts said Thursday at the New Partners for Smart Growth, which is holding its 11th annual conference in San Diego through Sunday. Relying on developers’ surveys, Chris Nelson, who heads the Metropolitan Research Center at the University of Utah, said 43 percent of Americans prefer traditional big, suburban homes, but the rest don’t. “That means we are out of balance in terms of where the market is right now, let alone trending toward the future,” he said.
Link to article

The environmental building blocks of urban happiness

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:23:23 +0000

NRDC Switchboard Blog – February 2nd, 2012. By Kaid Benfield.
As regular readers may remember, I am fascinated by the relationship of our cities, and the way they are configured, to our mental and emotional well-being. The relationship of urban form to physical health is finally getting some of the attention it deserves, but how the shape of our communities and neighborhoods affects mental health and the much more elusive concept of happiness remains under-explored.
Link to blog

Communities Learn the Good Life Can Be a Killer

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:22:45 +0000

The New York Times – January 30th, 2012. By Jane E. Brody.
Developers in the last half-century called it progress when they built homes and shopping malls far from city centers throughout the country, sounding the death knell for many downtowns. But now an alarmed cadre of public health experts say these expanded metropolitan areas have had a far more serious impact on the people who live there by creating vehicle-dependent environments that foster obesity, poor health, social isolation, excessive stress and depression.
Link to article

What Is Car Culture Doing to Our Children?

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:20:54 +0000

The New York Times – January 31st, 2012. By KJ Dell Antonia.
Here is the question I am wrestling with: Do I want my children to embrace our rural life, learning how to negotiate playtime with one another and how to find fun in the woods and the garden, or on the bookshelves and in the kitchen and playroom? Or do I want to move them to town, where they could walk to friends’ houses, to some school activities, to the movie theater and the bookstore?
Link to article

Walk this way

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:19:33 +0000

The Economist – January 31st, 2012.
For years urban planners have emphasized the needs of the motorist over those of the pedestrian. Thanks partly to greenery, partly to a greater understanding of how pedestrians behave, and partly to concerns about social cohesion, priorities are changing. London provides two good examples of this shift. On February 1st Exhibition Road, a landmark street near many of the city’s museums, is being formally reopened after a three-year construction project to turn it into something that transport engineers like to call a “shared space”. Kerbs have been stripped out, along with the usual road markings, to create a thoroughfare that is designed to be shared by cyclists, pedestrians and cars alike. Link to article

House Transportation Bill Officially Drops, Lands With a Thud

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:17:51 +0000

Streetsblog Capitol Hill – January 31st, 2102. By Ben Goldman.
John Mica, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, officially unveiled his committee’s transportation bill, the “American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act,” at a press conference outside the House wing of the Capitol this afternoon. Streetsblog wrote about some of the bill’s low points last week: no more dedicated bike/ped funding; no more TIGER or other discretionary transit programs; more money for highways, less accountability for state DOTs. The truth is that there are a lot of things that a lot of sensible people find objectionable about this bill, and they’re having their say while they can — the bill will be marked up on Thursday.
Link to article

The Mayor’s Office, Measure R and Multiple “Plan B’s”

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:16:51 +0000

Streetsblog LA – January 30th, 2012. By Damien Newton.
When the Mayor and his staff in city hall say that nothing is off the table when it comes to accelerating project development and construction for the transit projects funded by the Measure R sales tax, they aren’t just talking. While the Mayor promised that there was a “Plan B” if his efforts to change federal law to favor communities that tax themselves to build transit don’t go anywhere in D.C.
Link to article

Suits could force L.A. to spend huge sums on sidewalk repair

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:15:48 +0000

Los Angeles Times – January 30th, 2012. By Ari BLoomekatz.
Los Angeles may be the land of the freeway, but it is notorious for its bad sidewalks — buckled, cracked and sometimes impassable. By the city’s own estimate, 42% of its 10,750 miles of pedestrian paths are in disrepair. Now a series of civil-rights lawsuits against Los Angeles and other California cities is for the first time focusing attention — and money — on a problem that decades of complaining, heated public hearings and letter-writing campaigns could not.
Link to article

With earmarks gone, California must work for transportation dollars

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:15:00 +0000

Fresno Bee – January 30th, 2012. By Michael Doyle.
California lawmakers and lobbyists must find new ways to steer federal transportation dollars to the state. Earmarks are out in the massive House and Senate transportation bills moving this week. Once famed for their pork, the transportation bills are now shorn of locally targeted funding. That means it’s time to get creative.
Link to article

Jerry Brown says cap-and-trade fees will fund high-speed rail

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:14:14 +0000

The Sacramento Bee – January 29th, 2012. By David Siders.
Gov. Jerry Brown said in an interview airing in Los Angeles today that California’s high-speed rail project will cost far less than the state’s current estimate of nearly $100 billion and that environmental fees paid by carbon producers will be a source of funding. “It’s not going to be $100 billion,” the Democratic governor said on ABC 7′s Eyewitness Newsmakers program. “That’s way off.”
Link to article

Sustainable growth — boon or bane for Contra Costa residents?

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:12:59 +0000

Contra Costa Times – January 29th, 2012. By Tom Barnridge.
Two little words: sustainable growth. In the lexicon of regional planners, the term describes the only sensible strategy for managing residential sprawl, congested roadways and greenhouse gas. In the eyes of wary opponents — tea party members particularly embrace this view — it is a code phrase for governmental intrusion and loss of personal property rights and lifestyle options. In all likelihood, the truth lies somewhere between those extremes. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is much too lively a discussion to cut short.
Link to article

Why Conservatives should SUPPORT Smart Growth

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:12:02 +0000

NRDC Switchboard Blog – January 27th, 2012. By David Goldstein.
I have come across a number of blogs from conservatives that attack Smart Growth – land use planning to revitalize older communities, protect sensitive areas, and enable more walkable neighborhoods – based on fundamental misunderstandings of what Smart Growth means for government control of our choices as well as for improving the quality and property values of our neighborhoods. I wanted to reply to these arguments and show how Smart Growth policies actually are resonant with true conservative values.
Link to article

Room for Debate — Does California Need High Speed Rail?

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:09:11 +0000

New York Times – January 27th, 2012. Commentaries by various authors.
President Obama and Newt Gingrich can agree on at least one priority: high-speed rail. But Floridians decided they would rather not have one. Now the debate is raging on the West Coast. Does California need a high-speed rail line, ultimately connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles? Can the state afford it? This “Room for Debate” section includes commentary by Peter Calthorpe of Calthorpe Associates, Shannon Tracey from Transportation for America, Emily Rusch from CalPIRG, and others.
Link to article series

Governor Announces CEQA Reforms, per SB 226, AB 900

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:07:16 +0000

California Planning and Development Report – January 27th, 2012. By Josh Stephens.
This week Gov. Jerry Brown announced a package of reforms to the California Environmental Quality Act. The reforms are intended to streamline and simplify certain types of urban developments in order to reduce costs and hardship for developers who are pursuing environmentally friendly infill projects. The reforms, drafted by the Office of Planning and Research, come in accordance with Senate Bill 226 and Assembly Bill 900, both of which were signed into law late last year.
Link to article

Popuphood: How To Revitalize A Struggling Neighborhood In Six Months

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:00:18 +0000

Fast Company – January 26th, 2012. By Ariel Schwartz.
Many cities in America are facing the slow decline of their main streets and shopping areas. But a new program in Oakland might be the key to reviving vibrant, local commercial centers. All it takes is a little free rent and some entrepreneurial spirit. Old Oakland, a historic district in downtown Oakland, California, has long struggled in its quest for vibrancy. It’s not that the neighborhood is in an inconvenient location; it’s close to the Oakland convention center and multiple transportation hubs. And it’s not because the area is ugly–it contains some beautiful buildings. But the combination of a down national economy and Oakland’s local struggles (the city has a 16% unemployment rate) have left retailers scared to open new shops and restaurants in the area.
Link to article

Credit Modesto mayor’s focus on growth

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:58:48 +0000

Modesto Bee – January 25th, 2012. Editorial.
There was relatively little discussion about it Tuesday night, but the City Council’s 7-0 vote on a long-term growth map for Modesto represented a milestone for outgoing Mayor Jim Ridenour. For most of his eight years in office, Ridenour has been convening the nine mayors in the county with a goal of getting each city and the county to take a regional approach to planning.
Link to article

LA County’s New Standards For Health-Conscious Urban Design

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:57:55 +0000

Curbed Los Angeles – January 24th, 2012. By James Brasuell.
The County Board of Supervisors today approved the Healthy Design Ordinance, which rewrites planning regulations in unincorporated parts of the county to “modify and establish uses, development standards, and permit requirements to encourage more walking, bicycling and exercise, and encourage better access to healthy foods.” The HDO is the latest effort from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s Project RENEW(Renew Environments for Nutrition, Exercise and Wellness), which is working to “implement policy, systems and environmental changes to improve nutrition, increase physical activity, and reduce obesity, especially in disadvantaged children.”
Link to article

‘Social Equity’ to Be Weighed in U.S. Transit Funding Rule

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:06:18 +0000

Bloomberg – January 25th, 2012. By Lisa Caruso.
The U.S. Department of Transportation wants to give more weight to factors including affordable-housing policy in deciding which local mass-transit initiatives will get federal money. Its proposed rules, published in the Federal Register today, are part of a move over the past two years to alter the criteria that President George W. Bush’s administration used to award grants for light-rail, subway and rapid-bus systems.
Link to article

Calif. AG Joins Lawsuit Challenging San Diego Transportation Plan

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:05:23 +0000

KPBS – January 23rd, 2012. By Ed Joyce.
The SANDAG plan lays out priorities for building roads and improving mass transit through the year 2050. Opponents have criticized the plan for leaning too far toward road construction and not enough on public transportation or the environment. They contend most of the transit improvements are delayed for several decades. The Cleveland National Forest Foundation and Center for Biological Diversity sued in November 2011 to stop the plan. Monday, California Attorney General Kamala Harris joined the on-going lawsuits.
Link to article

State transportation cuts unfair to rural students

ClimatePlan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:04:25 +0000

The Modesto Bee – January 23rd, 2011. Opinion – by Kristin Olsen.
Two young kids. One attending a school in Escalon and one attending a school in San Francisco. Aren’t their lives of equal value? Don’t they both deserve the same opportunities for education? Apparently not because the education trigger cuts pulled by Gov. Brown last month result in taking $132 from the Escalon student but only $36 from the student in San Francisco.
Link to article