BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE GOVERNANCE & FINANCE COMMITTEE
Senator Lois Wolk, Chair
BILL NO: SB 792 HEARING: 5/1/13
AUTHOR: DeSaulnier FISCAL: Yes
VERSION: 4/22/13 TAX LEVY: No
CONSULTANT: Weinberger
BAY AREA REGIONAL PLANNING
Expands the Bay Area Joint Policy Council's role in
regional planning activities and requires the Legislative
Analyst's Office to report on specified regional voting
disparities.
Background and Existing Law
With nine counties and 101 cities, the San Francisco Bay
Area is home to several single-purpose regional agencies,
including the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG),
the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), the
Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), and the San
Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
(BCDC).
ABAG is a voluntary "council of governments" (COG) created
by cities and counties with a joint powers agreement. Like
other COGs, ABAG prepares long-term regional plans and
creates the regional housing needs analysis that local
officials use in preparing their general plans' housing
elements. ABAG also has other statutory planning duties.
The federal government designates a metropolitan planning
organization (MPO) to coordinate transportation planning in
each urban region. Most of California's MPOs are COGs,
organized by the cities and counties in their own regions.
The Bay Area is an exception. The Legislature created MTC
to coordinate the Bay Area's transportation planning. ABAG
is the COG, but MTC is the MPO.
The MTC also functions as the Bay Area Toll Authority
(BATA). In 1997, the Legislature created the BATA, which
is responsible for managing and investing toll revenues
from the Bay Area's seven state-owned toll bridges, funding
the day-to-day bridge operations, facilities maintenance,
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administration, and long-term capital improvement and
rehabilitation of the bridges (SB 226, Kopp, 1997).
Created by the Legislature in 1955 as the first regional
air pollution control agency in the country, the BAAQMD is
the public agency entrusted with regulating stationary
sources of air pollution in the nine counties that surround
San Francis-co Bay.
Created by the Legislature in 1965, the San Francisco Bay
Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) is a state
commission which plans and regulates land uses under and
around San Francisco Bay and the Suisun Marsh.
In 2003, ABAG and MTC formed a regional Joint Policy
Committee (JPC) to co-ordinate their regional planning
efforts. At the direction of the Legislature, the JPC
subsequently added the BAAQMD and the BCDC as represented
agencies (SB 849, Torlakson, 2004 and AB 2094, DeSaulnier,
2008). State law requires the JPC to coordinate the
development and drafting of major planning documents
prepared by ABAG, MTC, BAAQMD, and BCDC, including:
The regional transportation plan prepared by MTC.
The ABAG housing element planning process for
regional housing needs.
The BAAQMD's Ozone Attainment Plan and Clean Air
Plan.
The BCDC's San Francisco Bay Plan and related
documents.
To help improve the JPC's coordination efforts, some Bay
Area elected officials want the Legislature to increase the
JPC's independence and expand its role in regional planning
activities.
Proposed Law
Senate Bill 792 requires the Joint Policy Committee (JPC)
to prepare a regional organization plan that includes:
A plan for integrating, by July 1, 2016, major
planning documents prepared by ABAG, MTC, BAAQMD, and
BCDC into a comprehensive regional plan that
addresses: priority infrastructure needs, goals and
policies related to economic development
opportunities, and specified social equity goals.
SB 792 -- 4/22/13 -- Page 3
A plan for consolidating common functions of the
four regional entities, including: human resources,
budget and financial services, electronic data and
communications systems, legal services, contracting
and procurement, public information and outreach,
intergovernmental relations, transportation, land use,
economic, and related forecasting models.
SB 792 requires the JPC's staff to submit a draft regional
organization plan to the JPC on or before December 31,
2014. The JPC must ensure public participation in
developing and adopting the regional organization plan and
must hold at least one public hearing to receive public
comments in each county of the region. The JPC must adopt
a final plan on or before June 30, 2015. The regional
organization plan's provisions related to integrating major
planning documents into a comprehensive regional plan must
be implemented by July 1, 2016.
The bill requires that all cost savings derived from the
regional organization plan's implementation must be
directed to the JPC's General Fund.
Until the JPC adopts a comprehensive regional plan, SB 792
requires it to review draft and adopted versions of:
Specified major planning documents prepared by
ABAG, MTC, BAAQMD, and BCDC.
Policies, plans, and regulations of each regional
entity associated with the major planning documents.
The JPC's review must assess the planning documents,
policies, plans, and regulations' consistency with each
other, with the requirements of Senate Bill 375 (Steinberg,
2008), and with the specified goals and policies related to
economic development opportunities. The JPC must issue a
consistency report describing the findings of each review
and hold public and community hearings in accordance with
its public outreach policies regarding the draft
consistency findings. Each consistency review's finding
must be considered by the applicable regional entity in
connection with any proposed amendment to a planning
document, policy, plan, or regulation.
SB 792 requires the JPC, after providing opportunity for
public comment, to develop and adopt public and community
outreach and inclusive public participation policies. The
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policies, which must be adopted by October 31, 2014, will
govern regular JPC meetings, the JPC's development and
adoption of a regional organization plan, other regional
entities' meetings, standing committee meetings, meetings
of ad hoc or other temporary committees, and workshops.
SB 792 directs the JPC to maintain an Internet Web site
containing relevant information pertaining to its
activities.
SB 792 specifies that the JPC is subject to the Ralph M.
Brown Act's open meeting requirements.
SB 792 requires the JPC to appoint an advisory committee on
economic competitiveness which must include specified
representatives of the business community, educational
institutions, labor, local governments, community
organizations, and other organizations involved with the
private economy.
SB 792 requires the JPC, in consultation with the advisory
committee, to adopt goals and policies related to including
economic development opportunities in regional entities'
plans and the comprehensive regional plan. The goals and
policies also must promote amenities that are special to
the region and contribute to the region's quality of life
and must integrate specified social equity goals.
SB 792 requires the Legislative Analyst's Office to analyze
and report to the Legislature on the voting power that each
city and county in the region has on the governing board of
each of the regional entities, including an analysis of any
voting power disparities based on population, race, and
ethnicity. The analysis must use appropriate metrics, such
as votes per million in population. The LAO must report to
the Legislature by July 1, 2014. The report must include
recommended changes to regional entity governance and
voting, including any recommended legislation that would
lessen any disparities to insignificant levels.
State Revenue Impact
No estimate.
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Comments
1. Purpose of the bill . Some regional planning advocates
express frustration that the JPC does not truly coordinate
the activities of the Bay Area's regional planning
agencies. The JPC currently lacks the authority to make
binding policy decisions or override its member agencies'
decisions. Regional business and community groups have
expressed concerns about the lack of a regional economic
development plan. They would like to see planners give
greater consideration to how regional plans and regulations
affect the region's economic competitiveness. In response
to these concerns, SB 792 seeks to strengthen the JPC's
coordinating role, improves community outreach, and ensure
consideration of the economic impacts of regional plans and
regulations. Unlike some more ambitious attempts to
combine regional institutions, SB 792 neither creates new
agencies nor dissolves existing agencies. The bill relies
on an existing joint policy committee to better integrate
regional planning. This modest effort at coordinating
regional agencies' programs and planning processes reduces
institutional fragmentation, improves regional agencies'
efficiency, and advances efforts to achieve political
consensus about a desirable long-range vision of the Bay
Area.
2. Institutional capacity . Developing a regional
organization plan and merging the Bay Area's major planning
documents into a well-designed and useable comprehensive
regional plan are complex tasks. The JPC depends upon
staff and funding from its member agencies. The only new
resources that the bill directs to the JPC come from
savings that are obtained from implementing the regional
organization plan after it has been adopted. SB 785 does
not provide the JPC with any new resources to use during
the period that it must develop the regional organization
plan, conduct extensive public hearings and workshops, and
merge the region's major planning documents. The bill also
asks the LAO to examine imbalances in voting power and
representation on Bay Area regional agencies' governing
boards. However, the bill does not require that the JPC's
governing board, which must approve the regional
organization plan and regional economic development goals,
to eliminate voting power disparities by adequately
representing all of the region's communities. Without
sufficient staffing, adequate funding, or representative
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membership on its governing board, it is unclear that the
JPC will have the capacity to implement the substantial new
responsibilities that SB 792 imposes on it.
3. Implementation . The 2004 Torlakson bill adding BAAQMD
to the JPC also required the JPC, by 2006, to provide a
report to the Legislature analyzing the feasibility of
consolidating functions performed separately by ABAG and
the MTC. SB 792 similarly requires the JPC to plan for
consolidating specified functions performed by regional
agencies. However, like the earlier consolidation
reporting requirement, the bill does not actually require
the agencies to consolidate any functions. If the 2006 JPC
report on consolidation didn't generate sufficient
consolidation among regional agencies, why will another
non-binding regional consolidation plan produce different
results? The Committee may wish to consider amending SB
792 to require that regional agencies must comply with the
plan for consolidating functions by a specified date.
4. Duplicative ? Some of SB 792's provisions appear to
duplicate existing law. State law requires the JPC to
review and comment on drafts and final versions of major
planning documents produced by ABAG, MTC, BAAQMD, and BCDC.
SB 792 reiterates this requirement, adding some criteria
that the JPC must consider and requiring the JPC to hold
public hearings before it finalizes its review of planning
documents, policies, and regulations. Current law requires
the JPC to comply with the Ralph M. Brown Act's open
meeting requirements. SB 792 reiterates this requirement.
SB 375 (Steinberg, 2008) requires metropolitan planning
organizations and local governments to comply with
extensive public participation requirements that seek to
include a wide range of stakeholders in public hearings and
workshops to consider regional and local planning
proposals. SB 792 requires the JPC to adopt its own public
participation policies to govern its hearings, workshops,
and regional organization plan adoption process. The
Committee may wish to consider amending SB 785 to remove
provisions that duplicate requirements of current law.
5. Let's be clear . Recent amendments to SB 792 could be
misinterpreted as requiring the substantive provisions of a
comprehensive regional plan to be fully implemented by July
1, 2016. The language was intended to clarify only that
the JPC must complete the integration of specified planning
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documents into a comprehensive regional plan by July 1,
2016. The Committee may wish to consider amending SB 792
to clarify that the July 1, 2016 deadline only applies to
the adoption, and not the implementation, of a
comprehensive regional plan.
6. Not the first time . Legislative debates over how to
organize Bay Area regional governance stretch deep into the
last century. The debate over regional transportation
planning emerged from the Bay Area Transportation Study
(BATS) Commission (SB 371, McAteer, 1963). A 1968 bill
required BATS to finish its report (AB 911, Knox, 1968).
One result was the statutory creation of MTC (AB 363,
Foran, 1970). A citizens' group called Action for Regional
Environmental Agency (AREA) pushed to consolidate regional
governments in the early 1970s. BayVision 2020 advocated
improved regional governance in the 1990s. In 2002,
legislation to merge ABAG and the MTC passed the Senate,
but died in the Assembly (SB 1243, Torlakson, 2002). Last
year, the Senate Governance & Finance Committee passed SB
1149 (DeSaulnier, 2012) which created a regionally-elected
Bay Area Regional Commission to improve coordination among
regional agencies. That bill died in the Senate
Appropriations Committee. For the last 40 years the
region's institutions have been stable while the Bay Area's
population and economy have changed. SB 792 presents
legislators with an opportunity take another look at this
perennial challenge.
7. Mandate . The California Constitution requires the
state to reimburse local governments for the costs of new
or expanded state mandated local programs. Because SB 792
imposes new duties on the JPC, Legislative Counsel says
that the bill imposes a new state mandate. SB 792 requires
the state to reimburse local agencies if the Commission on
State Mandates determines that the bill imposes a
reimbursable mandate. Because SB 792 requires that
cost-savings from implementing a regional organization plan
must go to the JPC's general fund, these savings may be
used to offset mandate reimbursements required by the
commission.
8. Double-referral . Because some of SB 792's provisions
fall within the jurisdictions of the Senate Transportation
& Housing Committee and the Senate Governance & Finance
Committee, the Senate Rules Committee ordered a
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double-referral. The Senate Transportation & Housing
Committee passed the bill at its April 16 hearing by a 10-0
vote.
Support and Opposition (4/25/13)
Support : Public Advocates; Urban Habitat.
Opposition : Metropolitan Transportation Commission.