Transcript No Slide Title
Hsng pref, NIMBY vs. smart growth Steve Raney, Cities21
• Reduce suburban driving/GHG (for Emma) • Suburban city councils: – Main jobs: Budget, land use • Takes courage.
City planning for GHG in 5 slides
• Bird’s nest of trip vectors • Regional model • Squeeze this geometry – Inconvenient – Beyond Prius • Obvious to elites – Little effort to educate the masses – Media mis informs.
Efficient Human Settlement Patterns
• Reducing driving is BIG, BIG, BIG – Prius is good, but not sufficient • For each person, minimize the distances in the triangle below (units: miles feet) – 4-story transit village 50% of trips w/o car, mostly walk, not transit (GB Arrington, TCRP 102) – “walk to quart of milk” • Benefits: more happiness, less carbon, lower cost of living, better health, etc • Must
innovate
, need smarter Smart Growth – Gap: risk-averse cities, real-estate developers/bankers. Home Job Activities
Palo Alto / Stanford
• Office park – 28,000 jobs – 50% asphalt – 80% solo commute – 2% transit • Commute Shed: – 47% within 2 miles of Caltrain – 49% within 10 miles • 185+ “edge cities.”
Family Energy Consumption – driving matters most UCB student vs. Palo Alto single family home
250 Transportation Use Household Use 200 125 150 Million BTU per Year 100 83 28 20 50 115 115 20 81 69 42
0 Suburban Avg (240 MBTU) Suburban Green (164 MBTU) Urban Avg Urban Green (143 MBTU) (89 MBTU) Urban Multifamily Green (62 MBTU) Single Family Household Type
© Jonathan Rose Companies, LLC
Vulcans instead of humans
• Rational, well-informed voters – Land-use conversant – Fox News viewership: 0 • Regions control major city land use decisions • ’92 (Rio) unified to protect climate – In 2011, meet 2035 AB32 (50% of 1990) • US gas price: $8 per gallon – like Europe 33% less driving • Ripples into policymaking • $200/ton CO2 • Population reduction • President Reich.
1. Move closer to your job: Traffic Reducing Housing Preference
• Goal: squeeze geometry • Priority access to new housing for green commuters – Waiting list • The most cost-effective traffic reduction policy (ever). SF San Jose (swap) – Or, “Proximate Commute” for Starbucks workers.
?Teacher housing preference?
• Lottery for a few teachers, rest get no benefit – Versus: pay all teachers more, duh • Fair Hsng Test: no less discriminatory remedy – Broader preferences • ?First responders, closer for emergencies?
Traffic Reducing Hsng Examples
• Santa Barbara: 42 affordable apartments – Casa de Las Fuentes – 40 block walkable, mixed-use downtown – Priorities: no cars, work downtown – Result: TWENTY cars – ?Like? • Eviction if job moves from downtown • Stanford West Apts: 515 apts – Arose from negotiation for 5M square feet new buildings • Palo Alto (perhaps-hypocritically) imposed “no new net trips” – Shuttle bus, biking, hostile to cars (like UCB) – 396 Stanford U, 96 hospital, 14 Palo Alto, 9 long commutes – 10% short-commute rent discount • Lose discount if job moves away (annual check) – Green outlier in high footprint area.
Traffic Reducing Hsng Examples
• Redwood City: 800 $500K mkt rate condos – “Crowding out problem” • 45% East Bay transit village transit commutes, 17% South Bay • City “manifest business purpose” to cut GHG – city “finding of fact” – 1 mi from downtown, bike path – Developer desperate for approvals innovation • I presented at a Sierra Club chapter meeting, he volunteered for it – 4 months: sell only to green commuters – Commute preferences • No commuters in household • 4 out of 5 days/week of green commutes • Work within 4 miles (big job zone) • Fair Housing Act 4-mi test – Mortgage qualifiers • Supremes: education income – Latino/Afr Am % in 4-mi vs. region • “disparate impact” “protected category”.
2. Palo Alto NIMBYs
- Not in my back yard • Anti-change, anti-growth. Fear-based • “I’ve got my home in Palo Alto, you can’t have yours. I got in, now I’ll pull the draw bridge” – Proposition 13: If I make Palo Alto housing scarce, my property value skyrockets, but my property taxes stay low (20X difference) • UCB PolySci Bruce Cain: “mean-spirited” • Optimize for their neighborhood, ignoring regional externalities – Widespread NIMBYism is tragic – Historic foothills preservation. In ’60s anti-growth was pro-environment • Palo Alto NIMBYs: smart, articulate, effective – Two career family is too busy – Some folks have lots of time for causes • Unending series of objections. Winning 4 items doesn’t help • NIMBY vs. Smart Growth – Both sides think they are saving the world from the other • In a battle, I need an internal dialog “they don’t kick kittens, etc” • I had a long, deep battle this area. Engage enemies & learn.
RHNA – regl hsng needs allocation
• Statewide intelligent growth planning – Plan to accommodate population growth • Minimize externalities – Piecemeal, unplanned growth is deleterious • Our hero: Ward Connerly (Pete Wilson) • State gives region a growth target (ABAG) – Plus affordable hsng requirement • ABAG doles out housing allocation to cities – More if you have a train station or jobs/housing imbalance – Many cities unhappy, therefore it’s probably fair – Much moaning, but no better process proposed (Vulcan) • Framing of “ABAG” within Palo Alto – “Alien bastards against goodness,” four-letter word – Never “the assn of bay area govts. Palo Alto is a member” • General plan update. Must have a “compliant” housing element.
Reaaaally elite Palo Alto
• Traditionally white. 10% Asian census gain (twice) • Latinos: gardeners, nannies, restaurant – East Palo Alto housing – Affordable hsng research: “want to live here?” no – Vs. “each community should house its own” – S. McPeak • “Basic Aid” school district. More $ per pupil – Highest SATs.
YIMBY: Livable Berkeley Core Values
•
Change
. We believe that change and growth are inevitable and provide positive opportunities •
Compact Growth
quality of life . We believe that compact, well-designed infill development reduces automobile traffic and sprawl while improving our •
Regionalism
. We recognize that each individual neighborhood is a part of the larger city, and that Berkeley is part of a larger region. Berkeley should exercise regional leadership, making planning decisions that balance neighborhood, city, and regional perspectives • 60’s free speech hippies NIMBYs w/ great tactics • Founder leads Palo Alto public process.
YIMBY Palo Alto battle
• Green Ribbon Climate Task Force – Ignored smart growth / land use (light bulbs focus) • Formed Alliance for a Livable Palo Alto – Courageous councilmember (John Barton) • Steve Levy. SVLG. LoWV. Chamber. Insiders – OpEds in Palo Alto Weekly (yes! add 3K homes) • Town Square anonymous chat forum – “Utopian socialist,” “autocratic totalitarian” • Press coverage became less bad – Public comment at Council – Survey about adding 3K homes • General Plan Update – Housing Element Technical Advisory Group.
Palo Alto NIMBYs
• Person X: Neighborhood assn – Tons of free time, strident • Planning Commissioner Y – Hood assn Planning Commission • Councilmember Z – Council $600/mo full-time job w/ headaches – Elected for greenness, yet • “my top issues are restricting the amount of housing constructed … and combating global warming.” • Via e-mail, denied smart growth geometry – Uses his own “gut” theory (this is a problem in many cities) • Rumor: sponsored CA League of Cities effort to neuter RHNA IE the biggest anti-climate proposal in the US • Do neighborhood assns represent neighbors?
– No, just axe-to-grind folks with time on hands – Cal Ave workshop altercation vs. Cal Ave survey.
RHNA Survey: Grow or Protect the Climate?
• “Push polling” – Close issue with 2 frames, phone survey with 1 frame. Changes votes • Treat respondents as grownups – Dual framing (both sides) is fair. “There are two valid sides” – “ABAG represents Bay Area city govts, so not valid to argue that ABAG out to harm individual cities. The fact that most cities are unhappy with ABAG’s allocation supports the idea that ABAG has a fair, if unpopular, process. The conflict is much more basic: the region is growing but most cities do not want to grow as fast as the region. It’s hard to find a villain in this conflict.” (Media? Council? Staff?) • Implication: “it’s tragic” – “The 3,505 home allocation is not politically popular” – Given conflict between pro-climate and anti-growth sentiment, we’re using this survey to probe.
RHNA Survey
• Use surveymonkey.com, provide lots of free text entry fields so folks can vent our town” & econ goals” reveal fallacies – In Silicon Valley everyone is a Capitalist, right?
• Voters are socialists: “those greedy real-estate developers are out to ruin – “Palo Alto is built out” – “This isn’t about race. This is about being forced to change the character of a city, which is now a very desirable place to live. It’s about being forced to subsidize people who can’t afford to live here, but could afford to live somewhere else” • 221 responses (pretty large number) – PA weekly article on the survey – Neighborhood assns have yahoo groups • “Residents obligated to plan for homes in support of regl envt – 49% agree, 36% disagree – Built a majority via new facts persuasion?
Druckman’s “belief content change” • Given “source credibility,” could this be used for wide
Palo Alto NIMBY Solutions
• Jerry Brown take over general plan, like Pleasanton – Palo Alto made powerful enemies by vilifying ABAG • “Adult” dialog: pick between feasible choices & make tradeoffs • Educate masses. Civics – Weaken Prop 13 corporations • More democratic process land use, climate – Progressive staff brings in progressive outside urban planner speakers • Strengthen RHNA & SB375 SCS. Implementation legislation. More regional control. CEQA streamlining • Livable Berkeley organizations (ALPA) neutralize gadflies (irritants) • County-level RHNA collaboration is increasing • Prof Reich Supercapitalism: govt grabs power from Koch Brothers, Exxon, Cato Institute • China land use works great. US sham processes: too long; faux-democratic; fails to address externalities.
THE END
Behavior Change – green culture
• WWII homefront vs. climate protection culture – Ration: Meat, butter, coffee, 3 gallons gas/week, clothes – Stopped: housing, appliances, cars, tires – Egalitarianism of consumption – Draft, big tax increase, unions thrive, air raid drills, etc, etc.
• 2050 CO2: humans must evolve socially: cooperate
3 stage path to sustainability
• Can’t go straight there • 1) Populist: Consciousness raising, recycling, sea bass, Prius, non-threatening to government, current smart growth best practices, light bulbs • 2) Fundamental (2020 goals): efficient human settlement patterns. Land-use conversant population, government restructuring. Green building. Smarter smart growth • 3) Profound (2050 goals): 80% NRG & resource reduction, 4B population, accurate pricing, renewable NRG, local vegetarian, anti materialism, lower GNP, etc.