Housing "Quotas"

The front page article in this weekend's Daily Post about Palo Alto losing its appeal on its so-called "housing quota" reminded me that this same farce affects B'game.  The Association of Bay Area Governments, known as ABAG, issues poorly grounded growth forecasts for Bay Area population, then uses those forecasts to dictate how much housing each city needs to add.  In Paly's case it is 2,179 new units over the next decade!  Paly Mayor Greg Scharff is quoted saying "Most people think it's too much housing for our community."  Indeed, and the rest aren't thinking.

The stick that goes along with this dictatorial move is the authority to pass out federal transportation funds.  In B'game's case, they want us to add 800 units over the next decade!  Yikes.  Here's hoping B'game and the rest of the Peninsula continue to ignore ABAG.  Where are the Greens on this one?

Comments

[pat giorni]

Having lived in B'game for 30 years the population has grown by just under 1000 since 1980. What good is signing on to Sustainability Pledges and Climate Action Plans if we are being forced to accomodate a greater population that will upset the balance we already have?

Below is the email I sent to various Bike groups and although bike specific, it pertains to the idea that transportation funding is being held hostage to artificially inflated housing needs. On a county-wide basis it denies geographic equity to our coastal cities and residential communities of county controlled jurisdictions,...Burlingame Hills.

Sorry on this one Joe. We cannot afford to ignore the One Bay Area Plan. It is implicit that we all take time to read and comment on the Draft One Bay Area Plan Now.

Many of us witnessed the "farce" of c/cag BPAC's bike and pedestrian funding process in March, and this was in no way the fault of c/cag. Monies are going to get slimmer for these projects as the One Bay Area Plan takes shape and is adopted. Therefore it is important to understand how transportation funding is now being held hostage to housing.

The Metropolitian Transportation Committee was chartered to handle and distribute State and Federal Transportation dollars, not to make policy on speculated housing needs and land use. With the exception of Menlo Park, no municipality in SM County has or appears likely to challenge what are inflated housing requirements. However, a number of Marin County cities are openly questioning the need to expand housing, especially in areas where there are few resources to do it sustainabily....think WATER. http://www.marinij.com/opinion/ci_22852629/dick-spotswood-marin-should-grow-its-own-housing

[Joe]

One wonders if ABAG has heard this message that the State Senate got recently? Will they build it into their population forecasts? Doubt it.

On Monday, however, members of the state Senate heard a cogent synopsis of California's demographic and economic present and its likely future that they should take to heart.
Simply put, California Lutheran University economist Bill Watkins told the Senate, California's once-vigorous population growth has slowed to a crawl, the state's population is likely to begin dropping in the next couple of decades due to out-migration and a dropping birthrate, and it's mostly losing middle-class families "because of a lack of opportunity."

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/16/5344580/dan-walters-california-senate.html#storylink=cpy

[pat giorni]

This article pretty well explains One Bay Area Plan...

Residents voice opposition to regional plan
MTC, ABAG criticized for environmental impact report

http://www.marinscope.com/news_pointer/news/article_fe41161e-a7b4-11e2-94cb-0019bb2963f4.html

[pat giorni]

Monday, April 29 is our chance to comment vocally and locally on the ABAG/MTC One Bay Area Plan that creates high density/mixed use development along transit corridors...think ECR in Millbrae. Over the next 20 years an estimated $270Billion will be given to local communities that obey these groups....putting a lot of pressure on our elected officials to go along or miss out on all that "free" money.

Now is the time to voice opposition to this undemocratic plan that will wrest local control from local government and residents, and masquerades as Social Justice and Sustainable development.

Crowne Plaza Hotel
1221 Chess Drive
Foster City

Open House Hours -- 6pm - 7:30pm
Public Hearing Hours -- 7pm - 9pm

[Alan]

Whenever you hear the words "social justice" just substitute either "socialism" or "unionista"- almost the same but not quite.

[Joe]

Since I am posting bits from the Wall Street Journal today (see the High-cost Rail part 89 post), this was also in today's paper to the topic of social justice:

"Environmentalists Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus writing at the Breakthrough Institute website, April 29:

Once upon a time, social justice was synonymous with equal access to modern amenities—electric lighting so poor children could read at night, refrigerators so milk could be kept on hand, and washing machines to save the hands and backs of women. Malthus was rightly denounced by generations of socialists as a cruel aristocrat who cloaked his elitism in pseudo-science, and claimed that Nature couldn't possibly feed any more hungry mouths.

Now, at the very moment modern energy arrives for global poor—something a prior generation of socialists would have celebrated and, indeed, demanded—today's leading left-wing leaders advocate a return to energy penury. The loudest advocates of cheap energy for the poor are on the libertarian Right, while The Nation dresses up neo-Malthusianism as revolutionary socialism. Left-wing politics was once about destabilizing power relations between the West and the Rest. Now, under the sign of climate justice, it's about sustaining them."

Keep that in mind when you see your PG&E rates over time.