By Alec MacDonald
Successful farmers don’t just scatter whatever seeds they feel like across their fields and expect a bountiful harvest; they take careful inventory of soil, sunlight, and water conditions, choose a suitable crop, and use fertilizers to maximize their yield. On the other side of the rural/urban divide, city planners don’t have it any differently when ‘growing’ neighborhoods. They need to account for housing demand, job availability, and surrounding geography, provide viable transportation options, and devise strategies to make everything mesh efficiently.
To support these efforts in the Bay Area, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has been seeking to help local jurisdictions cultivate thriving communities through transportation planning. One means to this end has been MTC’s implementation of its transit-oriented development (TOD) policy, which in the most general sense seeks to concentrate businesses, residences, and commercial services within walking or biking distance of bus, rail, and ferry stations.
More specifically, the TOD policy targets those stations that lie along transportation corridors specified under MTC’s Resolution 3434 (passed in 2001, the resolution allotted a collective $11.8 billion to a network of region-wide transit extension projects). The TOD policy has three primary objectives: set a desired level of development for each corridor, plan to implement that development near transit stations, and organize working groups to oversee the process.
As previously detailed in the Monitor, MTC adopted this TOD policy in 2005 and gave it an interim evaluation in 2006. Findings from the evaluation confirmed that corridor development could be expected to meet the desired levels, but were not conclusive about the other two objectives. In October, MTC issued an updated report from Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates confirming the TOD policy’s efficacy in facilitating planning for areas around transit stations (the jury is still out on working group activity).
In drawing its conclusions, the report highlighted a pilot cycle launched by MTC in 2005 that awarded station area planning grants to the cities of Alameda, Fairfield, Santa Clara (in conjunction with San Jose), Santa Rosa, San Leandro, Pittsburg, and Menlo Park, as well as the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). Ranging between $115,000 and $600,000, these grants provided funding to assist the recipients plan for infill development (primarily housing units) near key transit stations.
According to MTC senior planner James Corless, the agency sought to test out a variety of environments. “In the pilot cycle, we wanted to get our feet wet and go for a diversity of locations — different kinds of cities with different kinds of transit,” he noted. “We really tried to run the gamut.”
Two of the participating jurisdictions have already completed the grant program. In September, San Leandro adopted a plan for the vicinity of East 14th and Davis Streets, encompassing its downtown BART station and several AC Transit lines (including one proposed for Bus Rapid Transit). In October, Santa Rosa adopted a plan for a section of its downtown that straddles Highway 101, anchored on the thoroughfare’s eastern side by its Transit Mall (a bus hub served by Sonoma County Transit, Golden Gate Transit, Santa Rosa CityBus, and Mendocino Transit) and reflected on the western side by the proposed Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) station.
“The program was very beneficial to Santa Rosa, and hopefully to SMART,” said Santa Rosa planner Ken McNab, who remarked that the experience encouraged the city “to focus on the things most important to successful TOD: density, connections, walkable streets.” He spoke of how the new station area plan paved the way for infrastructure improvements to streets and sidewalks, provided for policy flexibility on development fees and zoning regulations, and incorporated over half a dozen mixed-use projects combining residential and retail space.
Voicing appreciation for the chance to draw on “regional expertise,” McNab explained how MTC staff took Santa Rosa elected officials on walking tours of existing TOD in the Bay Area (like the Fruitvale Transit Village in Oakland) to allow them to visualize the possibilities and dialogue with “planners, developers, financial and real estate people to ask pretty candid questions and get responses” — something that proved to be instrumental in “setting a comfort level with what we were trying to do with this plan.”
Another reassuring aspect turned out to be the participation of local interest groups, like Greenbelt Alliance and the Accountable Development Coalition, who helped advocate for the benefits of TOD and address issues such as “affordable housing, accommodating bike lanes in a historic setting, and green building requirements.”
Consensus and collaboration played a key role in San Leandro’s experience as well. San Leandro planner Kathleen Livermore described how the planning grant empowered the city to convene a 27-member citizen advisory committee, engage city staff from numerous departments, and host three exceptionally well-attended community meetings — efforts that ultimately “allowed us to have a lot of community buy-in.”
According to Livermore, the demonstration of leadership by elected officials was also critical. “The city council stepped up to the plate and changed the course of the future of San Leandro by taking a look at what the TOD strategy could accomplish,” she contended, mentioning that the plan would mitigate climate change, enhance the city’s retail sector, and protect its industrial base from conversion to residential areas.
“The MTC grant really allowed San Leandro to maximize its potential with the vacant and underutilized sites in our transit-rich downtown,” Livermore said.
Not too far down the line, other Bay Area jurisdictions should have the opportunity to follow suit. Corless reported that MTC intends to put in motion a second cycle of station area planning grants in December, with an application deadline likely to fall sometime in February. A total of $7.5 million should be up for grabs, enough for approximately 15 jurisdictions — and this time, not just those along Resolution 3434 corridors. The transit agency will also offer grants for stations within Priority Development Areas (PDAs), where half of the region’s housing growth is projected to occur over the next three decades (PDA designations are assigned through the FOCUS program, an initiative of the Association of Bay Area Governments also supported by MTC, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission; see August/September 2007 Monitor for previous coverage). This could mean even more grant funding in the years to come.
Beyond financial support, MTC wants to furnish additional resources to foster TOD. In partnership with the national nonprofit organization Reconnecting America (online at www.reconnectingamerica.org), the agency will soon publish a manual offering cities an arsenal of guidelines and examples to draw upon in the process of station area planning (see cover image). Offering detailed information and useful strategies for individual jurisdictions, the manual should also further advance a regional policy framework for these kinds of planning efforts overall. Related workshops are also being considered so that MTC staff can interface directly with interested parties across the Bay Area.
As the agency moves forward with carrying all of this out, one aim in particular should continue holding a place of critical importance: gaining support from the people who will be most affected. As Corless declared, “The trick is doing it in such a way that engages a lot of stakeholders and local folks — so that they can not only understand what’s going on, but be able to shape where development is going, and what it’s going to look like.”
By Sheila Chung Hagen
In 2000, Elida Pedraza worked for a janitorial company that trained her to apply strong, liquid cleaning agents to the toilets — then run out of the bathroom. The fumes and liquid would irritate her skin and eyes on contact. “They burned like hot water!” recalled Pedraza.
An immigrant from Michoacán, Mexico, Pedraza came to the United States to support her family and reunite with her husband who had migrated 15 years earlier. She worked as a cook and a merchandise packaging worker before becoming a janitor.
Like many other recent immigrants with limited language skills and scarce job training, Pedraza took any job she could find — even if that meant working under hazardous conditions.
Pedraza’s days of toxic cleaning agents came to an end in 2002 when she discovered WAGES, a nonprofit organization that incubates eco-friendly women-owned cleaning cooperatives. WAGES offered Pedraza training in financial literacy and management, marketing, customer satisfaction and using environmentally-safe products and tools. The organization also prepared her to become an entrepreneur.
In 2003, with the support of WAGES, Pedraza and eight other women launched the Natural Home Cleaning cooperative in Oakland. They raised the capital to secure a bank loan by selling 300 dozen tamales and organizing garage sales and raffles. Since then, Natural Home Cleaning has grown into an independent business with 13 members, living wages, an employee health care plan and monthly revenues totaling $70,000.
Natural Home Cleaning is just the latest WAGES cooperative. The organization launched Emma’s Eco-Clean in Redwood City and Eco-Care in Morgan Hill in 1999 and 2001, respectively. Next year, WAGES will open its fourth business in San Francisco, where organizers predict sales will outpace those of earlier cooperatives.
“The vast majority of our clients hire us because we use green cleaning products. They are interested in protecting their health and the health of their kids,” explained WAGE’s Ellen Love.
Indeed, respiratory problems caused by exposure to toxics impact children at disproportionately higher rates than adults. Of the 22.2 million Americans with asthma, an estimated 6.5 million are children.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that some cleaning products release volatile organic compounds, which react with the atmosphere to form smog. Smog and other atmospheric pollutants, in turn, can irritate eyes, noses, throats, lungs, and can cause asthma attacks.
But households are quickly switching to green alternatives to protect their family’s health and the environment. According to the Environmental Business Journal, sales of green household cleaners grew to $4.3 billion in 2005, an increase of 11 percent from 2004.
Planet, Inc., which offers a full line of non-toxic cleaning products, has watched sales grow from its initial $1.4 million revenues in 1990. Today, the Vancouver-based business is the second-largest green cleaning products company in North America.
While no national standards exist for green products, the EPA recommends using products that meet the Green Seal standard. Green Seal is an independent nonprofit organization that promotes the production of environmentally-sound products, starting with the manufacturing process and ending with disposal. To be certified by Green Seal, a product must submit to a battery of tests and prove that it reduces the environmental and health effects of housekeeping on both the indoor and outdoor environments.
Planet, Inc. promotes its products as hypo-allergenic and certified biodegradable. Its products have been reviewed by Scientific Certification Systems, another independent certification body. But do they work?
“One of our biggest challenges is changing the perception that green products are not effective,” explained company spokeswoman Elaine Powers. At the recent San Francisco Green Festival, she was passing out samples of Planet’s laundry detergent to encourage Bay Area residents to go green.
Reviews on the effectiveness of green products show that “green can clean.” A recent study of dishwashing powders and gels by Consumer Reports found several green products that matched or performed better than their conventional competition.
Having cleaned with green products for five years, Pedraza finds that she only needs to use a little extra elbow grease the first time she cleans a client’s home. “I would never go back to those old products. I’ve even switched what I use at home,” said Pedraza.
“My kids tell me that everything I’ve done to have this job has been worth it — for my family and for my health.”
WAGES – (510) 532-5465 or www.wagescooperatives.org
Planet, Inc. – (800) 858-8449 or www.planetinc.com
Green Seal – (202) 872-6400 or www.greenseal.org
By Chris Ingraham
In case you missed it, about a month ago, in late October, seven counties in the regions between San Diego and Los Angeles suffered some of the worst wildfires on record in California history. The fires — several joining together — burned over 515,000 acres and destroyed over 2,000 homes, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate, as well as the animals at the San Diego Zoo. The cost to fight these fires alone reached over $70 million, a price tag made even more staggering after calculating the mounting expense of the disaster’s ongoing rehabilitation and recovery.
Bay Area residents may need a comparison to put the San Diego fires in perspective. By contrast, the Oakland East Bay Hills fire of 1991 burned “only” 1,520 acres — but destroyed over 3,000 residences and took 25 human lives (countless animals also perished). At the time, the disaster was considered the third most costly urban fire in American history. The top two? The 1871 Chicago fire, and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. That two of the country’s top three most financially devastating fires took place in the Bay Area attests to the region’s extreme vulnerability, and given the recent conflagration in San Diego, now may be a good time to ask: what are the continued fire risks in the Bay Area, and what is being done policy-wise to mitigate those risks?
It’s a complicated question. This region faces hazards whose solutions cannot easily be modeled from others — in part because it offers such a densely-populated urban setting amidst tracts of grass and eucalyptus woodlands, both protected and not.
The East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) is currently working on a Draft Wildfire Hazard Reduction and Resource Management Plan (Draft Plan) that specifically addresses this urban/wildland interface.
The project’s first meeting in June of 2006 initiated the process of collecting background data, identifying goals and issues, jumpstarting a mapping project, and determining the project’s technical advisors. At the project’s most recent meeting this past June, eight EBRPD representatives, six consultants and 22 more attendees attempted to identify regional areas of priority based on locations of high wildfire hazards under Diablo wind conditions. Judy Malamut, the project manager and a consultant from LSA Associates, Inc. (a local environmental, transportation, and community planning firm) overviewed the risks. Using fire behavior modeling, which considers flame length and crown fire potential (essentially a measurement of ember production), and with the help of Fire Department personnel, Malamut addressed five principal considerations: urban/wildland interface areas, facilities at risk within parks, existing and planned fuel management areas, eucalyptus hazard zones, and major evacuation routes.
The second phase of the project — resource inventory and wildfire hazard assessment — has enabled the work program to begin making recommendations regarding the five principal considerations. These recommendations will be presented before two public stakeholder meetings, the first scheduled for December 12 and the second in early 2008. Already it’s been determined that specific regions of high risk include popular recreational areas such as Wildcat Canyon and Tilden, among others, and that these areas will require special attention when the Draft Plan is aired in the upcoming meetings. Going forward, the intention will be to provide specific and viable options for improved fuel management and habitat maintenance, with regard to overall benefit, environmental effects, and cost. Sounds simple enough.
It’s not. Federal funding for wildfire prevention does not trickle to the state level as much as necessary. On November 25, Parade magazine reported that the federal fire budget is $2.6 billion, although only $93 million (approximately 3 percent of the total) goes toward local and state fire departments and assistance.
Brian Wiese, chief of Planning and Stewardship for EBRPD, highlighted the importance of budgetary support in his agency’s fire prevention programming, pointing to Measure CC — the property parcel tax approved by the voters in the western portion of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties in 2004 to fund park maintenance activities — as a good example of dollars put to that purpose.
Wiese also emphasized the need for regional cooperation. He mentioned how “the Wildfire Hazard Reduction Plan that the Park District is working on now is only part of a coordinated effort with cities and other major public land organizations,” citing EBRPD’s collaboration with other entities like the University of California, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, and the City of Oakland. Through such teamwork, he explained, it’s much easier to tackle such tasks as managing vegetation vulnerable to windfire, establishing fire-safe building codes, helping homeowners eliminate hazards on their property, and procuring grant money.
Elsewhere in the Bay Area, Marin County Parks, in conjunction with the National Park Service, has received thousands of dollars in funding since 2002 for fuel reduction programs that seek to thin particularly flammable areas of forest and reduce the risk of wildfire in areas near Marin City.
With respect to the situation much further down the coast, the United States Congress recently met to discuss the San Diego fires and potential measures to prevent similar disasters in the future. To be sure, federal attention will be invaluable in counteracting this growing threat across the country (according to the Parade article, fires destroyed a record 9.9 million acres nationwide in 2006). But it’s also evident that the vigor and persistence of regional programs such as those being ventured in the Bay Area are also going to be increasingly imperative.
The next Draft Plan meeting will be held on Wednesday, December 12, from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. in the Trudeau Center at 11500 Skyline Boulevard in Oakland. The public is highly encouraged to attend. Call (510) 893-9888 for details or visit www.ebparks.org/stewardship/fireplan.
By Alec MacDonald
When people talk about climate change, they tend to focus on greenhouse gases and rising temperatures — basically, what’s happening with the air. But what’s happening with the water has increasingly become a part of these conversations as public awareness grows about the full scope of this complex problem.
Correspondingly, Bay Area water agencies are exploring the consequences climate change holds in store for them. One of the region’s largest water agencies, the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), has some idea of what unwelcome developments lie on the horizon. A July 2006 report from California’s Department of Water Resources predicted that an increase in temperature of just one degree Celsius would lead to a 14 percent decrease in the area of snow coverage in the Mokelumne watershed, which represents the vast majority of EBMUD’s supply. An increase of five degrees Celsius would shrink that area by 60 percent, according to the report (see box below ).
The problems brought about by such a reduction have to do with timing. Snowmelt feeds reservoirs gradually, releasing water on an even keel. As global temperatures climb, the process speeds up; streams flow fuller in winter and peak runoff comes earlier in spring. By the time summer rolls around, when the need for water becomes most pressing, there is less of it available. The situation becomes compounded during periods of drought — and more frequent and severe droughts are yet another expected outcome of climate change.
In anticipation of such circumstances, EBMUD has adopted a two-track strategy: (1) adaptation to climate change through promoting water conservation and developing alternative water supply sources and (2) mitigation to curtail its own contributions to global warming.
All water agencies try to promote efficient water usage, so the conservation aspect of its strategy is something that EBMUD works to achieve regardless. The agency has an arsenal of measures for this purpose, including customer conservation surveys, rebate and incentive programs for low-flow devices, support of water-efficient landscape standards, leak detection, pipeline replacement, and corrosion control. From 1970 to 2005, the agency already managed to decrease average consumption from 226 million gallons per day (MGD) to 206, despite a 25 percent increase in customer accounts during that span. In adopting its current Water Supply Management Program (WSMP) in 1993, EBMUD committed to achieving 35 MGD in water savings by 2020; thus far water conservation has reduced demand by 19.5 MGD.
The WSMP also covers developing alternative water supply sources; one of the other goals for the year 2020 is to be recycling water at a clip of 14 MGD. EBMUD has partnered with other public entities and wastewater districts for assistance in approaching this goal, and thus far such partnerships have yielded 6 MGD in water recycling for irrigation, industrial uses, and toilet flushing in commercial buildings.
EBMUD has sought out other kinds of partnerships to diversify its supply as well, namely:
· collaborating with the Sacramento County Water Agency to construct the Freeport Regional Water Project (which when completed will deliver up to 100 MGD to EBMUD customers during dry years),
· working with the Santa Clara Valley Water District, the Contra Costa Water District, and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to research the possibility of using desalinated water from the Bay (as covered in the February/March 2007 Monitor), and
· developing potential groundwater storage areas with a number of other water agencies in eastern San Joaquin County (EBMUD also expects its own aquifer, the Bayside Groundwater Project, to be functional soon).
Of course, deploying all these strategies to safeguard its primary commodity in the face of an environmental threat makes good business sense. But minimizing its own contribution to that threat — the other component of EBMUD’s response to climate change — requires a greater commitment to the common good. Reducing a carbon footprint entails a comprehensive reassessment of operations, and everyone who produces greenhouse gas emissions (not just water agencies) must consider the environmental impact of their activities.
For its part, the agency has sought to invest in renewable and alternative energy, while taking other steps to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. On the energy front, over 99 percent of the electrical energy EBMUD produces currently comes from renewable sources (mainly hydroelectric power generation at its Pardee and Camanche reservoirs, but also through biogas cogeneration and solar power), while roughly 30 percent of the electrical energy it consumes is derived from renewable sources.
As for calculating its emissions, the agency joined the California Climate Action Registry in March of 2006 as the first water district to do so. This gave EBMUD the opportunity to retroactively calculate its 2005 emissions, which measured 53,702 metric tons of carbon dioxide. It has also estimated its emissions from 2000, which will provide the baseline for measuring progress in emissions reduction and the target to beat by 2010.
Moreover, the agency has replaced its entire sedan fleet (59 vehicles in all) with hybrid Toyota Priuses (below), and conducted a biodiesel pilot project which produced around 100 gallons of biodiesel per week (enough to fuel two large diesel-powered trucks). EBMUD also invests half a million dollars annually on a transit subsidy program that encourages employees to walk, ride bikes, or take public transportation to work.
On the whole, the preparations of EBMUD demonstrate more generally how the pervasive effects of climate change will require responsive action from a variety of entities throughout the region. As people are realizing, this isn’t a singular problem that can be blamed on just one cause or reconciled by just one solution; rather, it is a complex challenge requiring the attention of many.
SAVE THE DATE
On Friday, February 22, 2008, the League of Women Voters of the Bay Area will present Bay Area League Day at Preservation Park in Downtown Oakland. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. and the program will follow from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Lunch is included. This year’s theme will be "Transportation Solutions to Climate Change." Scheduled topics are:
The Regional Transportation Plan 2035 and Climate Change
Perspectives on the Regional Plan and Funding Options
Safe Routes to Schools and Other Local Solutions
Sub-Regional Bus Services and Pedestrian/Bicycle Options
Call (510) 839-1608 with inquiries and look for additional details in the next issue of the Bay Area Monitor.