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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

November 2001

"Planners for a Day" Envision a Smart-Growth Future for the Bay Area

Smart Growth WorkshopParticipants at the Walnut Creek workshop debate the location and nature of future growth, with an eye to protecting open space and other resources. (Photo: Christopher Springmann)

The tallies are in and the popular verdict is clear: The smash hit of the fall season on the regional public policy circuit was a series of Saturday-morning workshops devoted to the topic of smart growth for the Bay Area. More than 1,000 local officials, representatives of social justice, environmental and business groups, and members of the general public participated in nine county-level meetings held in September and October as part of the Bay Area Smart Growth Strategy/Regional Livability Footprint Project.

The goal of this ambitious education and public involvement project is to investigate alternative land-use patterns and develop recommendations on how the Bay Area can short-circuit sprawl and instead grow in a "smarter," more compact way. The initiative is jointly sponsored by the Bay Area's five regional public agencies -- MTC, the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Bay Conservation and Development

Commission, and the Regional Water Quality Control Board -- along with a coalition of public and private groups known as the Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Development.

At the workshops, participants first listened to a presentation on some of the principles of smart growth -- including compact land use, a balance of jobs and housing, and easy access to public transit. Later, organized into groups of 10 and seated around colorful, table-sized maps of their county, these "planners for a day" vigorously debated their points of view as they strived to reach agreement on the character and location of future growth. They were aided in this process by knowledgeable facilitators and a special GIS-based (geographical information system) computer program that gave immediate feedback on the impact of their ideas on the future supply of jobs and housing, use of public transit, pedestrian friendliness, open space, and the like.

"I was impressed with how involved people were in the mapping exercise," noted ABAG Principal Planner Victoria Eisen, project manager for the smart-growth effort. "The size of the turnout for these weekend workshops and the level of involvement indicate that smart growth is an important issue for a lot of people. People are hungry for solutions." MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger, a participant in the Contra Costa County workshop, concurred. "There was a lot of interest in policies and tools -- like MTC's Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) grant program -- that support compact development and encourage walking, bicycling and transit use."

The results of the nine county workshops will be analyzed and distilled into three regionwide alternatives that will be presented for discussion at another round of workshops scheduled for spring 2002. The ultimate goals of the project are to develop a preferred smart-growth vision for the Bay Area and identify the regulatory changes and fiscal incentives needed to implement the vision. For more information, check the ABAG Web site at www.abag.ca.gov/planning/smartgrowth.

High-desity housing near transit routes in San Jose Developing "smarter' can mean clustering high-density housing along transit routes, as shown here in San Jose.

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