Regional-Local Sustainability Planning in 11 Bay Area Cities

University of California, Rm 106 Wurster Hall, Berkeley, 11:30am-2:30pm.  CM | self-report option (1-4 credits)

Come hear the final UCB class assessment and recommendations of a SWOT analysis of our One Bay Plan Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS) on local sustainability planning in 11 Bay Area Cities: Berkeley, Dublin, Emeryville, Fremont, Mountain View, Oakland, Petaluma, Richmond, San Francisco, San Jose, and San Rafael.

Join Professor Acey and Scott Edmondson for a one-hour debrief and discussion after the presentations. This work builds on the work of last spring’s class (see posts).

Please RSVP (email Scott Edmondson, SustCommAPA@gmail.com), but attend this free event in any case. The APA California Northern Sustainability Committee is co-sponsoring this event.

Class Project Description 

The California Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008 (SB 375) supports the State’s climate action goals to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through coordinated transportation and land use planning with the goal of more sustainable communities. Each of California’s Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) must prepare a “sustainable communities strategy” (SCS) as an integral part of its regional transportation plan (RTP). The SCS contains land use, housing, and transportation strategies that, if implemented, would allow the region to meet its GHG emission reduction targets. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the SCS has taken shape as Plan Bay Area (see http://onebayarea.org/plan-bay-area.html ) adopted in July 2013.

Each student City-team will prepare a 10-page memo addressed to the planning director of their city and a summary presentation of the assessment and results as follows:

1. Investigating the structure of regional planning and governance for sustainability in the San Francisco Bay Area, and how the Sustainable Communities Strategy and Plan Bay Area fit into this structure.

2. Evaluating and mapping out the specific impacts on the selected city of the current Plan Bay Area under its four elements: of housing and jobs, transportation, environmental impact and equity (e.g. specific projects, priority development areas [PDAs], and the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) process (see http://www.abag.ca.gov/planning/housingneeds/), relaxation of California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requirements, and environmental justice.)

3. Carrying out a SWOT analysis of Plan Bay Area and the SCS on local sustainability planning in your assigned city. This will include evaluating your city’s strengths and weaknesses (SW) with respect to sustainability planning. Your core material for this will be the work done by a previous CP 119 class (spring 2014) evaluating the Team’s city’s sustainability planning against the American Planning Association (APA) sustainability accreditation criteria (see https://norcalapa.org/sustainability-blog/evaluations-ucbapa-compplan-sustainability-criteria/ ). Next, the Team will carry out an assessment of opportunities and threats (OT) posed by Plan Bay Area and the ongoing SCS with respect to city sustainability goals using the results from the research done under #2 above.

Assistant Professor Acey’s Contact Information:

Charisma Acey, M.P.P., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of City and Regional Planning
University of California, Berkeley
228 Wurster Hall, MC #1850
Berkeley, CA 94720-1850
510 643-9658 fax 510 642-1641
charisma.acey@berkeley.edu

http://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/faculty-staff/charisma-acey