BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 441
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Date of Hearing: April 6, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Cameron Smyth, Chair
AB 441 (Monning) - As Amended: March 24, 2011
SUBJECT : State planning.
SUMMARY : Requires the Governor's Office of Planning and
Research (OPR) to develop guidelines that contain advice on how
local and regional agencies can incorporate health issues into
local or regional general plans and requires the California
Transportation Commission (CTC) to include health issues in
guidelines promulgated by CTC for the preparation of regional
transportation plans. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires the general plan guidelines to contain voluntary
guidelines for local and regional agencies to incorporate
health and health equity factors, strategies, goals, and
objectives.
2)Requires OPR to develop guidelines, with the appropriate state
agencies and departments, for cities and counties to include
health and health equity factors, goals, strategies, and
objectives in local general, specific, or regional plans.
3)States that health and health equity factors, goals,
strategies, and objectives can be included as an optional
element of a general plan or can be integrated into one of the
mandatory elements.
4)Requires OPR to include a variety of equity factors, goals,
strategies, and objectives in the guidelines, including, but
not limited to, data, goals, strategies, and policies to
improve:
a) Community health status;
b) Opportunities for recreational and physical activities;
c) Availability of retail food establishments offering
fresh produce;
d) Health-promoting transportation systems;
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e) Social networks, capital, and civic participation; and,
f) Economic and community development
5)Requires OPR, if requested, to provide technical assistance to
local and state agencies and departments on incorporating
health equity criteria into local general, specific, or
regional plans.
6)Requires OPR to report to the Governor, Legislature, and any
relevant local and state agencies regarding the number of
general plans that include health equity criteria and to
provide best practices or models for incorporation into local
general, specific, or regional plans.
7)Requires CTC, in consultation with the appropriate state
agencies and departments, to include, at the next revision,
health and health equity factors, strategies, goals, and
objectives in the regional transportation plan (RTP)
guidelines.
8)Specifies that until the next revision of the RTP guidelines,
CTC shall include an appendix to the current guidelines to
highlight best practices, share resources and support the
adoption of health equity criteria in RTPs.
9)Makes findings and declarations regarding the need to have
health in all policies.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires each planning agency to prepare and the legislative
body of each county and city adopt a comprehensive, long-term
general plan for the physical development of the county or
city, and of any land outside its boundaries which in the
planning agency's judgment bears relation to its planning.
2)Requires that the general plan consist of a statement of
development policies and shall include a diagram or diagrams
and text setting forth objectives, principles, standards, and
plan proposals.
3)Requires OPR to develop and adopt guidelines for the
preparation of and content of mandatory elements of city and
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county general plans.
4)Authorizes the CTC, in cooperation with the regional
transportation planning agencies,
to prescribe study areas for analysis and evaluation by such
agencies and guidelines for
the preparation of the RTPs.
5)Requires CTC, in consultation with Caltrans and the State Air
Resources Board, to
maintain guidelines for travel demand models used in the
development of RTPs by
federally-designated metropolitan planning organizations.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
physical inactivity contributes to increased risk of many
chronic diseases and conditions, including obesity,
hypertension, non-insulin-dependent diabetes, colon cancer,
osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and coronary heart disease.
Despite the health benefits of physical activity, 74% of U.S.
adults do not get enough physical activity to meet public
health recommendations and about one in four U.S. adults
remains completely inactive during their leisure time.
The U.S. Surgeon General's Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation
2010 states that two-thirds of adults and nearly one in three
children are overweight or obese, and the prevalence of
obesity in the U.S. more than doubled (from 15% to 34%) among
adults and more than tripled (from 5% to 17%) among children
and adolescents from 1980 to 2008. The U.S. Surgeon General
goes on to say that "neighborhoods and communities should
become actively involved in creating healthier environments.
Communities should consider the geographic availability of
their supermarkets, improving residents' access to outdoor
recreational facilities, limiting advertisements of less
healthy foods and beverages, building and enhancing
infrastructures to support more walking and bicycling, and
improving the safety of neighborhoods to facilitate outdoor
physical activity."
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A healthy community provides opportunities for people of all
ages and abilities to engage in routine daily physical
activity in a safe environment, be it walking to a transit
stop or school, commuting by bicycle to work, or playing in a
neighborhood park. Healthy communities are also supported by
food environments that ensure access to healthy foods, and
make healthy eating the more accessible and more appealing
option. Cities, counties, and school districts play key roles
in the creation and support of healthy communities.
2)To some degree health has always been a factor in making land
use decisions. Going back to the 1926 U.S. Supreme Court
decision in Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co., 272
U.S. 365 (1926), where the practice of zoning was upheld, the
justices said Euclid would promote "the health and safety of
the community" by protecting residential areas from the
"danger of fire, contagion and disorder, which attach ? to the
location of stores, shops or factories." In the years that
followed, many other government policies promoted population
increases in suburbs designed using the new template,
separating the components of the city into isolated segments
for residential, shopping, office, industrial and
institutional uses.
A 2005 article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine
stated that "zoning was born and grew up in a time
dramatically different from today. Instead of overcrowding
and the spread of fire and disease, American cities confront
an array of health and economic challenges ?. Population
declines and stagnant economies continue to plague many cities
and inner suburbs as market forces and government policies
have redirected jobs and housing into outlying suburban and
rural communities. Zoning's separation of uses created vast
suburban communities where routine daily trips to stores and
schools must be done in automobiles. Walking ? is often not a
practical or safe alternative."
Complementary land use controls play a critical role in the
design and construction of more healthy and active
communities. New urbanist statutes and codes, such as
transit-oriented development and form-based coding, are now
leading the charge for land use change. While zoning has a
long public health lineage, the public health challenges of
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today will require a concerted effort to help address health
equity issues through zoning and land use planning.
3)California has taken some steps to include health in planning.
One of the most notable is requiring a reduction in vehicle
miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions through
coordinating regional transportation and land use plans �SB
375 (Steinberg), Chapter 728, Statutes of 2008]. Moreover,
the Strategic Growth Council (SGC) has been working to
implement Governor Schwarzenegger's Executive Order (EO-04-10)
which created a Health in All Policies (HiAP) task force. The
HiAP task force was created to collaborate with existing SGC
working groups to identify priority programs, policies, and
strategies to improve the health of Californians while
advancing the SGC's goals of improving air and water quality,
protecting natural resources and agricultural lands,
increasing the
availability of affordable housing, improving infrastructure
systems, promoting public
health, planning sustainable communities, and meeting the
state's climate change goals. In its report the HiAP task
force focused on two strategic directions: a) building
healthy and safe communities with opportunities for active
transportation; safe, healthy, affordable housing; places to
be active, including parks, green space, and healthy tree
canopy; the ability to be active without fear of violence or
crime; and access to healthy, affordable foods; and, b)
finding opportunities to add a health lens in public policy
and program development and increase collaboration across
agencies and with communities. One of the recommendations to
come out of the task force was to promote health equity in
planning, the objective of AB 441.
4)AB 441 incorporates voluntary health criteria into OPR's
General Plan Guidelines and CTC's RTP Guidelines. If this
measure were to pass, it would not be the first time that OPR
has created a technical advisory document. As part of its
technical assistance program, OPR offers a variety of
publications on land use planning. These publications range
from general topics, including guides to planning in
California for citizens and planning commissioners, to
technical advice for planners on fire hazard planning, to
guidelines on tribal consultation.
5)There are numerous times when state agencies have conflicting
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policy goals, including goals that effect land use planning.
One example of a conflict is the promotion of infill
development and the conflict that may cause when a project is
reviewed for air quality concerns and deemed to have issues
because of the project being close to a freeway. The state
needs to work to resolve these conflicts and determine
adequate mitigation measures. The author may wish to consider
adding in the requirement that OPR also develop best practices
for local governments to follow to help mitigate conflicting
policies of state agencies. Also, some of the categories
currently listed in the bill are very broad in scope, i.e. the
sections on economic development and civic engagement. The
author may wish to narrow and more define the health equity
policies that OPR should cover in the guidelines in
relationship to those categories.
6)Support arguments: According to the sponsors, California
Pan-Ethnic Health Network,
AB 441 promotes creating communities that are designed to
prevent health conditions before they occur. Supporters
believe that AB 441 enables the state to provide a flexible
blueprint on integrating health criteria into planning so that
local governments can use these guidelines to begin developing
plans that increase access to healthier food, safer parks, and
transit option strategies that meet the needs of all users.
Opposition arguments: Opposition could argue that since the
guidelines in AB 441 are optional for cities and counties to
use, there really is no need for a bill since locals already
have the authority to include health in planning. In fact,
opposition could say that there are already many communities
across the state and even the country that are already
including health equity in planning and that other communities
that want to do the same can just follow those best practices
without adding additional costs to the state to create the
guidelines.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
AB 441
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Support
CA Pan-Ethnic Health Network �SPONSOR]
American Heart Association
American Lung Association in CA
American Stroke Association
Asian Health Services
CA Food Policy Advocates
Children Now
County of Santa Cruz Public Health Department
Health Access CA
Human Impact Partners
Latino Health Access
Libreria del Pueblo Inc.
Madera Coalition for Community Justice
Natural Resources Defense Council
PolicyLink
Public Health Law & Policy
Regional Asthma Management Prevention
The G.R.E.E.N. Foundation
Time for Change Foundation
Individual letter (1)
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Katie Kolitsos / L. GOV. / (916)
319-3958