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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

October 2000
Shining Stars
24th Annual Transportation Awards

GRAND AWARD
TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT INCENTIVE PROGRAM

Project at Redwood City's Franklin Street
McLarand, Vasquez & Partners, Inc.

The explosive growth of jobs and traffic on the Peninsula in recent years spurred the San Mateo City and County Association of Governments (C/CAG) to find a way to promote smart land use that takes advantage of the county's existing transit network.

The plan the organization devised to meet this challenge is this year's Grand Award winner. C/CAG's Transit-Oriented Development Incentive Program encourages municipalities to locate new residential projects within a one-third mile radius of BART and Caltrain stations by offering them a financial inducement. Communities can earn up to $2,000 per bedroom built for housing constructed in proximity to transit stations and providing at least 40 units per acre.

The money, which comes from the State Transportation Improvement Program, can be used by a city or the county for transportation projects anywhere within their jurisdictions.

"It's tremendously important to tie housing and transportation together," said Carol Galante, president of BRIDGE Housing Corp., a San Francisco-based affordable housing development company, and chair of the MTC Advisory Council. "In order to get people off the freeways and onto transit, we need to have a volume of people living near transit who will use that system."

As a result of C/CAG's initiative, five projects are already in development. They will add approximately 1,300 bedrooms, as well as retail and office space, in the vicinity of transit stations. Two of the developments are located in the city of San Carlos, and one each in the cities of Millbrae, Redwood City and Colma.

The project at Redwood City's Franklin Street (illustrated above) is a good example of how well transit-oriented development can work. "It's a planner's dream project," said Redwood City Senior Planner Maureen Riordan. "It's close to the downtown, and it will help with the economic viability of businesses located there, because people can walk across the street to a lot of shops and restaurants," Riordan continued. "It's also very close to Caltrain and SamTrans bus service, so people don't have to use their cars to get back and forth to work, and it reduces air pollution and other impacts that planners should be looking to mitigate."

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