Marin Voice: Plan Bay Area follows Marin’s land-use model

Marin IJ Voice – POSTED: 06/06/15, 12:52 PM PDT

Marin likes to lead in sustainability. Four decades ago, we were first in the nation to set urban growth boundaries. Marin’s 1972 Countywide Plan downzoned all of West Marin to protect open space and agriculture. Key to this plan is the Highway 101 City-Centered Corridor, designated to absorb future growth through small-scale compact development in existing towns, instead of gobbling up open space.

Finally the rest of the region is catching up.

Plan Bay Area, a regional transportation and land-use program, also protects open space and agriculture by focusing new growth in already-settled areas. The vast majority of new development in Plan Bay Area is being absorbed by cities: San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose. Suburban areas are also asked to focus any new development toward existing town centers, near shops, services and transit. This form of land use is more efficient, fosters resource conservation and promotes community resilience.

So let’s stop lambasting Plan Bay Area with misinformation and focus instead on solving Marin’s actual housing and transit problems. Consider these facts and realities about planning in Marin and the region.

• Fact 1: Marin continues to experience very slow growth, not an unwanted building boom.

Since 2010, Marin’s housing growth has been even slower than during the Great Recession, less than one-tenth of one percent annually. The lack of new housing has resulted in a real crisis for local renters, employers and employees.

• Fact 2: Plan Bay Area supports continued slow growth in Marin.

Plan Bay Area currently calls for only 1 percent of total regional growth in Marin through 2040, though Marin has 4 percent of the Bay Area’s population. Plan Bay Area cuts projected housing needs in Marin by half compared to the previous planning cycle.

The plan recognizes that with so little vacant land left, any new development will come through redeveloping underutilized infill properties. Rapid growth is impossible in Marin.

• Fact 3: Corte Madera’s WinCup resulted from local planning decisions, not regional ones.

WinCup was approved by Corte Madera, under Corte Madera’s rules. It was planned and approved before Plan Bay Area was adopted. All jurisdictions have the responsibility to exercise their local land-use powers in a balanced way, responsive to community needs and desires, as well as economic and legal realities.

• Fact 4: Plan Bay Area supports local control.

Plan Bay Area invites — but doesn’t mandate — municipalities to identify Priority Development Areas — or PDAs — where new housing is desired over the next 30 years. Local governments decide how much growth they want within the PDAs. In exchange they receive priority for transportation and other funding.

Advertisement

Two Marin jurisdictions made local-control decisions to retain PDAs in order to receive the attendant funding. Other municipalities decided to reject PDAs and will share fewer transportation dollars.

Because a few people fretted loudly about a phantom loss of “local control,” many areas lost priority for significant funding for local improvements.

The reality is that Plan Bay Area takes the same approach to growth as Marin did in its renowned 1972 Countywide Plan, which preserved 80 percent of our land for recreation and agricultural use, and located growth along our single transportation corridor. This approach is endorsed by environmental leaders in Marin who call for infill growth focused in the town centers that define Marin.

Unfortunately, unlike Marin, parts of the Bay Area expanded over the past five decades with low-density suburbs reaching well into the Central Valley, paving over farmland and resulting in intolerable commutes. Consumption of open space outpaced population growth by a factor of four, while auto use doubled.

Plan Bay Area moves away from past mistakes that resulted in wasteful sprawl. It takes the wiser course of using tax dollars to improve transit and incentivize housing affordability, rather than extend freeways and development into our remaining open spaces.

Coalition for a Livable Marin and Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative invite Marinites interested in real housing and transit problem-solving to visit www.livablemarin.org.

Kiki La Porta and David Kunhardt are members of the steering committee of Coalition for a Livable Marin. Cesar Lagleva and La Porta are board members of the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative.