BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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| SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER |
| Senator Fran Pavley, Chair |
| 2013-2014 Regular Session |
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BILL NO: AB 1179 HEARING DATE: June 10, 2014
AUTHOR: Bocanegra URGENCY: No
VERSION: January 6, 2014 CONSULTANT: Bill Craven
DUAL REFERRAL: No FISCAL: Yes
SUBJECT: Strategic Growth Council.
BACKGROUND AND EXISTING LAW
1. The Strategic Growth Council (SGC) was established in 2008
through companion legislation to SB 375 (Steinberg). The SGC was
viewed as an attempt to focus the work of several state agencies
on the integration of land use, transportation, housing, and
other policies in order to accommodate the future growth of
California while achieving the state's aggressive climate change
goals.
2. The first major role of the SGC was to manage and award
financial assistance to Councils of Governments (COGs),
Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), Regional
Transportation Planning Agencies (RTPAs), cities, counties, and
Joint Powers Authorities (JPAs) to develop, adopt, or implement
a regional plan such as the SB 375 sustainable communities
strategies or other planning instrument that improves air and
water quality, improves natural resource protection, increases
the availability of affordable housing, improves transportation,
meets the goals of AB 32, and encourages sustainable land use.
Those funds, provided by Prop 84, are likely going to be fully
allocated this year. The Council is likely to have a role in
allocating cap and trade revenues in the future, although the
exact role has not yet been determined and is pending in the
Budget Conference Committee.
3. The membership of the SGC includes the secretaries from the
Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency, the
Transportation Agency, the Health and Human Services Agency, the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Natural Resources Agency,
the director of the Governor's Office of Planning and Research,
and a public member appointed by the Governor.
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4. Government Code 53094 allows school districts to exempt
themselves from a city or county's zoning ordinance unless that
ordinance provides for the location of public schools and unless
the city or county has adopted a general plan. That same code
section also allows the governing board of a school district,
with a two-thirds vote, to render a city or county zoning
ordinance inapplicable to a proposed use of district property
for classroom facilities.
5. Existing law also allows the governing board of a school
district, with a two-thirds vote, to render a city or county
zoning ordinance inapplicable to a proposed use of district
property for classroom facilities.
PROPOSED LAW
This bill would add the Superintendent of Public Instruction, or
a designee, as a voting member to the SGC.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT
According to the author, "In recent years, the state has taken
significant steps to better align statewide transportation,
energy, and land use infrastructure investments in order to
promote sustainability, efficient use of resources, and
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions levels. Evidence of this
shift was seen with the passage of SB 732 (Steinberg, 2008)
which established the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC),
a cabinet level committee tasked with coordinating the
activities of member state agencies to improve air and water
quality, protect natural resources and agriculture lands,
increase the availability of affordable housing, promote public
health, improve transportation, encourage greater infill and
compact development, revitalize community and urban centers,
assist state and local entities in the planning of sustainable
communities, and meeting the goals of AB 32.
"However, despite the importance of schools as community
infrastructure and their impact on the state's sustainable
communities priorities, the state's K-12 facility program
remains wholly disconnected from these broader efforts to align
infrastructure investments around a common set of goals.
Schools, Local Educational Agencies (LEAs), and the School
Facilities Program (SFP) have been virtually left out of
California's state policy framework on sustainable communities
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planning. At the state planning level, there is no K-12
infrastructure investment representation on the SGC.
"In 2010, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction created
the Schools of the Future Initiative to provide recommendations
in the area of School Facility Program Reform, among others.
Subsequently, in 2012 the California Department of Education
commissioned a report by the University of California Berkeley,
Center for Cities and Schools that analyzed and expanded upon
many of these recommendations. This bill seeks to implement one
of the recommendations from that report by placing the State
Superintendent of Public Instruction, or his or her designee, on
the Strategic Growth Council."
The non-profit groups in support recognize that school siting
has contributed to sprawl in many California regions. The
consequences are many: schools are not in walkable locations,
schools exacerbate traffic and associated emissions, school
siting exacerbates public health issues such as asthma, and many
other policy considerations. Many of them expressly recognize
that this bill could fairly be called "a first step" to
including schools in the effort to improve land use decisions in
California.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION
The California Right to Life Committee is in opposition.
COMMENTS
1. As noted recently by the Assembly Local Government Committee,
this is not a new issue. Many attempts, through legislation,
conferences, foundation reports, and elsewhere have grappled
with this question. The Strategic Growth Council hosted a policy
roundtable entitled Smart Schools for Sustainable Communities on
this issue in August of 2010 and included representatives from
the Department of Education, the Governor's Office of Planning
and Research, UC Berkeley's Center for Cities and Schools, and
several COGs including the Sacramento Council of Governments
(SACOG) and the Association of Bay Area Governments, as well as
other interested state agencies and groups.
From that discussion, a document was prepared by UC Berkeley's
Center for Cities and Schools to summarize the discussion at the
roundtable and provide recommendations and next steps.
2. As noted by the Assembly policy committee, changes in state
policy over time have eroded what legal structures once existed
for local planning collaboration with regard to school siting.
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In particular, in 1998, Senate Bill 50, which established a new
state school facility funding program, reversed the prior
Mira/Hart/Murietta court decisions, and significantly decreased
local agency cooperative planning requirements. Today, regional
planning agencies and cities have few requirements to plan with
or for school districts, and school districts do not need to
obtain city or county approval of new school sites and can
override local zoning ordinances.
Also, the current funding structure deters school modernization.
As a consequence, current reinvestments in schools through
modernization and expansion are more challenging than building
new facilities. As a result, the Assembly Local Government
Committee concludes that inequities persist in facilities
funding and in the physical conditions of schools across the
state. This bias does not align to the state's planning
priorities that include "promot[ing] infill development and
equity by rehabilitation, maintaining and improving existing
infrastructure?[Government Code 65041.1(a)]."
3. As a result of the Berkeley roundtable, recommendations
included adding the Department of Education as a member of the
Strategic Growth Council, undertaking further analysis on school
infrastructure funding patterns, using the next statewide school
construction bond to prioritize the modernization of existing
schools, and establishing state policy structures, mandates, and
incentives for local planning collaboration.
This bill chooses only one of those options and does not focus
on strengthening the relevant laws that would establish a direct
connection between school siting and sustainable development
which were the core recommendations of the roundtable.
4. In the absence of a direct statutory connection in law
between school siting and sustainable development, the Committee
may wish to consider whether it makes sense to add the
Superintendent of Public Instruction to the SGC. It could be
argued that it does not make sense to have this official
involved in the many other issues that are not related to
education that the SGC considers. It could also be argued that
including the Superintendent could have some beneficial effect
within the SGC when matters of education policy and school
siting are considered. The possible recommended amendment below
proposes an alternative outcome.
Possible Recommended Amendment:
The Committee may wish to consider another option which would
add the Superintendent to the SGC as an ex officio member. He or
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she would then have a platform at the SGC to make suggestions on
education and school siting questions, but would not have a vote
on other matters. Staff could provide that language if that is
the desire of the Committee.
SUPPORT
Transform
RAMP (Regional Asthma Management and Prevention)
Safe Routes to School National Partnership,
California Pan-Ethnic Health Network
OPPOSITION
California Right to Life Committee, Inc.
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