BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: SB 878
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: Desaulnier
VERSION: 6/9/11
Analysis by: Art Bauer FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: January 10, 2012
SUBJECT:
San Francisco Bay Area regional planning
DESCRIPTION:
This bill requires the Joint Policy Committee (JPC) to submit a
report to the Legislature on January 31, 2013 describing, among
other things, policies and strategies for a regional sustainable
communities program, for the development of a regional economic
development strategy, and for public participation in regional
programs.
ANALYSIS:
The San Francisco Bay Area is comprised of nine counties:
Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo,
Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. It has four major regional
institutions: the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC),
the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (AQMD), the San
Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC),
and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). SB 849
(Torlakson), Chapter 791, Statutes of 2004 established the JPC.
Each of the four member agencies has five appointments from
their respective governing boards to the JPC. The appointees
must be representatives of local agencies. The purpose of the
JPC is to coordinate various regional planning documents,
including the regional transportation plan prepared by MTC,
AQMD's ozone attainment plan and clean air plan, ABAG's housing
needs plan, and BCDC's San Francisco Bay Plan.
SB 375 (Steinberg) Chapter 728, Statutes of 2008, requires a
regional transportation plan to include a Sustainable
Communities Strategy (SCS) designed to achieve the targets for
greenhouse gas emission reduction. The successful
implementation of the SCS requires close cooperation between
regional and local agencies. Because of the number of regional
and local agencies in the Bay Area, there is no coordinating
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mechanism among the agencies necessary to achieve the goals of
SB 375.
This bill :
1.Requires the JPC to report to Senate Transportation and
Housing committee and the Assembly Transportation Committee by
January 31, 2013 on the methods and strategies for the
following:
a. Developing and implementing a multiagency set of
policies and guidelines for implementing the Bay Area's
sustainable communities strategies.
b. Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of policy
setting and managerial coordination among the regional
agencies that constitute the JPC.
c. Ensuring that the public in the nine county region has
an opportunity to comment on the proposed policies and
standards that the JPC will promulgate for implementing the
sustainable communities strategies.
d. Recommend organizational reform to implement the
proposed methods and strategies, including creating a
regional organization by legislation, a joint powers
agreement or some other institutional arrangement
specifying the terms of interagency collaboration.
2.Requires the JPC to prepare a work plan for a nine-county
economic development strategy and submit this plan to the
Senate Transportation and Housing Committee and the Assembly
Transportation Committee by January 31, 2013. The economic
development strategies must address:
a. The coordination of the regional sustainable communities
strategy with local goals for the recruitment and retention
of manufacturing, production facilities, business services,
and other businesses providing high quality jobs that will
provide incomes sufficient to allow families to live within
the Bay Area.
b. The coordination of infrastructure, including
transportation, for planned employment centers.
c. A common regulatory system for locating
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and permitting energy conservation facilities.
d. The preparation of a plan for the adaption
to climate change.
3.With respect to the reports discussed above, requires the JPC
to hold public meetings in each of the nine counties, use of
social media, and form advisory committees that include the
regional business community, labor, and other interests.
4.Requires the member agencies of the JPC to identify the
outreach efforts that they pursued either individually or
jointly and report to the Senate Transportation and Housing
Committee and the Assembly Transportation Committee by January
31, 2013.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . Between 1955 and 1970, State statute created AQMD,
BCDC, and MTC, and the nine Bay Area counties and the many of
the region's cities created ABAG as a joint power authority.
Each agency has a unique responsibility. MTC is responsible
for regional transportation planning, the programming and
funding of major transportation projects, and through a
subsidiary, the Bay Area Toll Authority, managing and
establishing the tolls for the seven state-owned bay bridges.
BCDC regulates the land uses of the bay shoreline. AQMD
implements certain federal and state air quality laws. ABAG
analyzes and forecasts the region's population, provides
advisory services on regional land use planning to MTC and
other agencies, and allocates shares of the regional housing
need to each city and county.
The region has changed substantially since the last regional
institution was established forty years ago. For example, the
region's population has increased 63% (from 4.6 to 7.5 million
people). The region accommodated this population growth by
creating a network of suburbs. This certainly met the housing
needs for the new population. Some would argue, however, that
the growth resulted in overcrowding of highways, increasingly
longer commutes, and greater pressure on natural resources.
In addition, the structure of the regional economy has
changed. Traditional manufacturing -- auto, government
shipyards (Hunters Point and Mare Island), food processing,
and other similar businesses -- are no longer found in the
region. High-tech industries in electronics, pharmaceuticals,
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and medicine and service industries have replaced these basic
industries.
2.What does SB 878 do ? The underlying assumption of SB 878 is
that there is a need to change the regional structure of
governance to address the issues of regional growth and
development better. To this end, this bill places the burden
of addressing the matter of regional governance on the Bay
Area regional agencies that manage important components of
regional policymaking. The JPC is an obvious forum because
all four agencies are members. This is an alternative to the
Legislature mandating a particular regional structure.
Since the introduction of SB 878, some steps have been taken
to respond to the studies called for in the bill. The JPC and
the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, a regional business
organization, are undertaking a study called the Bay Area
Economic Strategy Framework. Among the anticipated results of
the study are policy recommendations that address regulation,
public-private collaboration, and regional governance issues
related to economic development and regional competitive
challenges. In addition, it is expected that the report will
include strategies for integrating regional/JPC energy and
climate priorities with regional economic strategies. In
addition, SPUR, a private non-profit regional planning and
development organization, is examining regional economic
development issues as well.
3.Informational hearings . During the interim, the committee
held three informational hearings on AB 57 (Beall), a bill in
this committee proposing to alter the structure of
representation on MTC. At the second hearing held in San
Francisco, a panel addressed regional economic development
issues. The witness testified that the Bay Area needs to
integrate economic development and regional decision making
and that models of regional economic development efforts that
have succeeded in other communities that may have
applicability to the Bay Area.
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on
Wednesday, January 4,
2012)
SUPPORT: None received.
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OPPOSED: California Right to Life Committee, Inc.
One individual