May 18, 2005

 

1)      Announcements

• Kids First, Urban Habitat, and others held a rally to protest AC Transit’s proposed fare changes and to preserve a youth bus pass. The rally was very active, with lots of youth and media coverage.
• TALC’s Strategic Plan will be released soon. TALC is starting an individual donor campaign to follow up on the successful pitch at the Annual Summit.

2) Campaign/Issue Updates
a) Transit Villages Campaign
Last Friday MTC released their draft policy to condition transit expansion funds on supportive land uses. Kate O’Hara of Greenbelt Alliance explained that under MTC’s proposed policy, jurisdictions would have to plan for a certain amount of housing and jobs within a ½-mile radius of stations before they get regional transit funds. MTC won’t just demand a plan, but also zoning changes. The policy is a good start, including four elements that we (Greenbelt, NPH, and TALC) pushed for: affordable housing incentives; minimizing parking in station areas (stations have to analyze future TOD demand); including bicycle and pedestrian plans in station area plans; ensuring walkability, reducing auto-orientation within station areas. MTC will be discussing the policy at their workshop on Wednesday May 25, 1-3:00pm. The biggest concern about the policy is that the thresholds for housing and jobs (especially housing) are too low to shift growth patterns.

Kate passed out a flyer with an analysis of the draft policy and a call to contact MTC to support the policy and push MTC to increase the thresholds by at least 20% and make sure 70-80% of the threshold is housing, to provide the homes the Bay Area needs so much. For details, see http://www.transcoalition.org/c/landuse/landuse_home.html and download the flyer from May 2005.

b) Starting a Regional VLF Campaign
At TALC’s Annual Summit, the “Raising new, reliable transportation funding” strategy session recommended that TALC focus on reinstating a regional Vehicle License Fee (for details, see www.transcoalition.org/cal/summit05/summit_results.html). Stuart Cohen of TALC explained that at earliest, this might go on the ballot in 2008. TALC wants to form a working group to start the research and coalition-building. This will be a lunchtime working group that people can call in to. First meeting will be Wednesday June 15, 12:30-1:30pm at TALC offices. If you’re interested, contact Stuart to RSVP and/or request the teleconference number.

c) BART Budget
Susan McDonough of SEIU Local 790 gave a brief update on the status of the BART budget and discussions over contract negotiations. SEIU represents about 1500 BART workers, whose contract expires June 30. Susan says SEIU’s goal is to mitigate effects of budget cuts on riders and workers. SEIU wants to debunk the popular myth that BART workers are the best paid transit workers in the country (not true according to BART study), and is concerned that BART has already cut 415 positions and is preparing to cut more than another 100 (mainly front line service workers). SEIU is hopeful that the BART board will bring the two sides together to work out a new contract before the current one expires, avoiding the showdowns that have happened in previous years.

Kathleen Kelly of BART management explained that they are taking a new budget to the board next Thursday, with expense reductions and revenue enhancements, including new parking programs that could eventually have daily parking charges at all stations. BART’s proposals would also reduce senior and disabled discount from the current 75% to 62.5% and then 50% two years later. Even with these changes, it’s still an unbalanced budget and would need to be modified after the outcome of labor negotiations. The vote on parking charges will be on May 26 at 9:00am.

Stuart Cohen of TALC mentioned that BART may soon be reconsidering it’s 1-for-1 parking replacement policy, and that TALC will send out an email notice to see if anyone is interested in developing a working group on BART parking issues.


3) TALC’s Planning Great Communities Initiative and Bay Meadows
One of the Bay Area’s biggest TOD proposals is the redevelopment of the aging Bay Meadows racetrack, whose draft Specific Plan calls for up to 1500 new homes, plus retail and office space, immediately adjacent to a Baby Bullet Caltrain station. Several years of planning are expected to culminate this summer with city decisions on the Specific Plan.

Jeff Hobson of TALC described TALC's new Great Communities Initiative, which will seek to vastly increase the quality and quantity of public participation in planning and development discussions around transit station areas, with the goal of helping ensure that half of the new homes in the Bay Area are within a half-mile of rapid transit. For today’s discussion, we invited some speakers from San Mateo (including a project opponent) to tell us about the Bay Meadows project. The goal is use Bay Meadows as an example and to spark a discussion on generic lessons about useful roles TALC’s Great Communities Initiative could play in TOD projects throughout the region.

Fred Hansson, Planning Commissioner in City of San Mateo explained the public process that has led to the current proposal. It started 5+ years ago with a Citizens Action Committee, dealing with traffic on El Camino resulting from the dot-com boom. The committee began negotiations with previous Bay Meadows owners about opening Bay Meadows to bicycle traffic (and later, motor vehicle traffic). This process lasted two years, and defined some goals: well planned; range of uses; compact development; minimum auto use; compatible with neighborhoods; bike/ped friendly; financially viable; contributes to neighborhood quality of life. When Caltrain decided to move their station, and it became apparent that Bay Meadows might shut down, the city created a second Citizens Action Group. This committee’s members were appointed by City Council and including neighboring homeowners groups, neighborhood groups, real estate developers, and rep’s from the Planning Commission and City Council. It took three years to get consensus among the 18 members, and the proposal is still in draft stage, but they feel good about the results so far.

Jeff Holtzman of Bay Meadows Land Corporation, the company that owns and is proposing to redevelop the racetrack area, described the current Specific Plan, whose EIR is in front of the city. Jeff noted that the plan would make better use of the regional investment in the Baby Bullet station at Hillsdale, and it is intended to provide three key community benefits: (1) improved street grid with RR-crossings (including bike/ped) on three streets (instead of the current two); (2) new park space; (3) create a neighborhood heart (3 block walkable retail area with a town square). The plan is also being coordinated with Caltrain’s plan to consolidate the existing Hillsdale and Bay Meadows’ stations into one combined station in a new location.

He expects the project will take 10-20 years to build out and would include about 1500 homes, about 1 million square feet of office space, and 150,000 square feet of retail on the main street. The developer is committed to at least 10% affordable homes (the city requirement), and could build more by providing land to a nonprofit housing developer that would build the homes themselves. He noted a design and phasing challenge – how to accommodate change over time, as neighborhood becomes more dense around the transit station? Their solution is to have parking ratios that start higher and then get lower over time as the transit station comes on line and the new neighborhood reaches a critical mass.

Julie Cummings of Greenbelt Alliance’s Compact Development Team said the team has endorsed 136 projects since 1991. The purpose is to direct development into infill areas near transit, include affordable housing. The team consists of volunteers (architects, planners, planning students) who visit sites and talk to developers, city officials, and community members (including project opponents). Criteria include location (infill, not greenfield), effect on auto dependency (near transit or a historic downtown), minimum density (at least 20 units per net acre in urban areas), affordability, design (bike/ped/transit), size, and community input. Julie handed out a copy of the CDT’s endorsement criteria; for more information, see http://www.greenbelt.org/whatwedo/prog_cdt_index.html. Based on these criteria, Greenbelt endorsed Bay Meadows.

Linda Schinkel of Save Bay Meadows said her group has nominated Bay Meadows for the National Register of Historic Places. The group assumes that the city will approve the Specific Plan, and they expect to put a referendum of the decision on the ballot. She said her group supports TOD, but believes there are enough other properties around Caltrain that would allow the racetrack to stay. She is also concerned about the EIR and believes there is a lack of commitment to expanding public transportation in San Mateo County. In particular, she noted that north-south transit is okay but east-west connectivity is not. She proposed that more people would use Caltrain if there were more and better connections. She was also concerned that the corridor plan could harm small independent merchants through new retail. Finally, she stated that given the racetrack’s revenues, the land is too valuable to develop affordable housing. As an alternative, she suggested using some Caltrans property that has a lower market value.

Discussion - what useful role could TALC play in a situation like this?
Meeting participants and presenters made several suggestions for potential TALC roles:

• Share information on best practices for transit oriented development.
• Create a pool of people who could speak at city council meetings, local group meetings, public education (for example, HLCSM has a speakers bureau on affordable housing that would like to be able to include speakers on transportation issues).
• Engage with projects at the earliest stages to educate residents about TOD and to frame them as regional issues.
• As the “transportation experts,” show nearby residents that these projects won’t result in horrible traffic.
• Provide a regional transportation view on proposed projects – assess regional transportation impacts, compared with alternatives
• Provide technical peer review for community members, to address distrust of developers and government. (Acknowledged problem: how to get this funded?)
• Work with, and educate, local groups about technical issues
• Publicize endorsements by Greenbelt’s Compact Development Team

Next Meeting: July 20th, 5:30 pm, featuring a presentation on “The High Cost of Free Parking”.

For more information please see www.transcoalition.org or call 510-740-3150. To suggest items for future agendas please contact Stuart Cohen at stuart@transcoalition.org or call the number above.
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