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This issue has three featured articles, two “Where in the world” photos, four items related directly to Northern Section APA members (including 14 planners highlighted in “Who’s where”), and 12 recaps in Planning news roundup. Enjoy!

By John Kamp and James Rojas, July 5, 2019. When Palo Alto’s California Avenue bicycle and pedestrian underpass was built more than 50 years ago beneath the Caltrain tracks, it was intended to solve one problem: allow pedestrians and bicyclists to safely pass from one side of the tracks to the other. The tunnel’s designers never foresaw that bicycling would ultimately skyrocket — today nearly half of Palo Alto students ride their bikes to school — and thus bicyclists and pedestrians now have to share a particularly confined space. As a result, pedestrians using the tunnel increasingly perceive those who bike through it as disregarding their personal space and coming dangerously close to hitting them.

By Jared Brey, NextCity, June 13, 2019. This article, originally published in Next City, is republished in entirety, with permission. “Like a lot of big universities, Stanford is almost a small city of its own. Operating in the unincorporated town of Stanford, California, in Santa Clara County, Stanford hosts 16,000 students and employs 13,000 people on faculty and staff. It owns more than 8,000 acres of land in six jurisdictions. And it is seeking approval for around 2.275 million square feet of new space through a General Use Permit, a periodically updated document that guides the university’s growth.”

People have been building new cities from scratch for millennia. When countries rise up, when markets emerge, people build new cities. Today, though, we are taking it to unheard-of levels. Guardian Cities has been exploring this phenomenon of cities built from scratch. Here are excerpts from two recent articles in The Guardian.

The California Planning Foundation is now accepting items for the annual CPF auction and raffle to be held at the APA California Conference in Santa Barbara, September 15-18. To donate items for the auction and raffle, please fill out the donation form linked in this article and email it to Aaron Pfannenstiel, or call him at (951) 444-9379 if you have questions.

By Victor Rubin, PolicyLink, June 6, 2019. The Bay Area economy is experiencing phenomenal growth, yet rising inequality and displacement are making it impossible for working-class people and communities of color to stay and thrive — ultimately undermining the region’s future. A new equity data resource, “The Bay Area Equity Atlas,” brings the power of the National Equity Atlas to the local level, providing 21 equity indicators for 271 geographies across the region.

News about Jonathan Atkinson, AICP; Jim Bergdoll, AICP; Jim Carney; Sharon Grewal, AICP; Shayda Haghgoo; James Hinkamp, AICP; Noah Housh; Catarina Kidd, AICP; Edgar Maravilla; Steve McHarris, AICP; Megan Porter, AICP; Avalon Schultz, AICP; Jason Su; and Kristy Weis.

After a whirlwind spring for those of us in the Northern Section — what with APA’s NPC19 in San Francisco and our annual Awards Gala in Oakland — summer has arrived. For many of us, it’s an opportunity to bask in the longer days, take family vacations, or take a little R&R. But your Northern Section board is working on programs for the second half of 2019.

Just under 500 APA members passed the AICP Certification Exam administered in May. The 30 Northern Section members listed below include five who are enrolled in the AICP Candidate Pilot Program and may now use the AICP Candidate designation. Congratulations to all!

We publish 10 times each year as a forum for the exchange of planning ideas and information. Entirely the effort of volunteers, Northern News is written and produced by and for urban planners in northern California.

By Tom Holub, May 3, 2019. I love how cycling changes my experience of moving through the city, and I love sharing that experience with others. The idea of an urban geography tour is to help participants gain greater understanding of the city and its planning issues. This tour began by riding on Oakland’s first protected bike lanes …

Our articles and photos are arranged by Featured articles, Where in the world (photo), Northern Section, and Planning news roundup.

The results are in! Come celebrate the best of Northern California planning at our Awards Gala on Friday, June 7, at the Starline Social Club. Our jurors were Martin Alkire; Hanson Hom, AICP; Rebecca Kohlstrand, AICP; and Aaron Welsh. To purchase tickets, visit our Awards webpage.

By Andrea Arjona, Richard Boggs, Anthony Nachor, Carolyn Neer, and Mindy Nguyen. The community around Diridon Station shares the aspirations and goals outlined in the City’s Envision 2040 General Plan. By pursuing those goals with the concerns and hopes of the community in mind, the new Diridon Station and surrounding area can bring San Jose one step closer to becoming a world-class destination as an urban center, a major transportation hub, and the cultural heart of Silicon Valley.

By Elizabeth “Libby” Tyler, Ph.D., FAICP. NPC 19 was our first opportunity to roll out the (now formally ratified) Planning for Equity Policy Guide. On the opening Saturday, I participated in a panel on “Everyday Racism: What Planners Can Do.”

By Carmela Campbell, Awards Program Co-director. Meet and mingle with fellow planners on Friday evening, June 7, as we present our Northern Section awards at Starline Social Club, a restaurant / bar at 2236 Martin Luther King Junior Way, Oakland.

Re: May issue and demise of the PDFs. Kudos to you all for your hard work in …

What are their concerns, expert opinions, and recommendations? This graduate student video, 8:44, is worth your time.

The 2019 APA California Chapter conference will be held in Santa Barbara September 15–18, hosted by Central Coast Section at the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort. This year’s conference theme is “A Resilient Future.”

2018 and 2019 “Brazilian Urbanism: Past Present & Future” international studies abroad classes reunited May 9th at San Pedro Square in downtown San José.

By Naphtali H. Knox, FAICP, with photos by Hing Wong, AICP. Those attending the meeting learned about the rapidly changing landscape of housing policy legislation, as well as the changes coming in the Regional Housing Needs Allocation: stricter rules for what can be counted as a developable site, and big increases in the housing unit numbers.

By Miroo Desai, AICP. Northern Section has created a Mid-Career Planners Group towards meeting the needs of planners who are midway in their careers. I would love to hear your ideas and thoughts for the type of activities and events that you, as a mid-career planner, would like to see offered by our Section.

By Victor Rubin, PolicyLink, June 6, 2019. The Bay Area economy is experiencing phenomenal growth, yet rising inequality and displacement are making it impossible for working-class people and communities of color to stay and thrive — ultimately undermining the region’s future. A new equity data resource, “The Bay Area Equity Atlas,” brings the power of the National Equity Atlas to the local level, providing 21 equity indicators for 271 geographies across the region.

We publish 10 times each year as a forum for the exchange of planning ideas and information. Entirely the effort of volunteers, Northern News is written and produced by and for urban planners in northern California.

Nonprofits may get dibs on SF apartment buildings • Meet a local planner • WHERE IN THE WORLD • NORCAL APA NEWS • Sustainable Chinatown wins (Environmental Planning) Gold at NPC19 • Director’s note • New! Northern Section webinar series • 2019 Northern Section Awards Gala June 7 • Pro bono planning assistance for California communities • My short course on Working with Difficult People • SF Urban Film Festival news • Storytelling at People of Color mixer • Street Air on Earth Day • PHOTOS FROM NPC19 • PLANNING NEWS ROUNDUP

By Jared Brey, Next City, April 9, 2019. The Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) was passed unanimously by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors April 16th. If the ordinance passes a second vote on April 23rd and is signed by the mayor, nonprofits will have a right of first refusal to buy and preserve existing affordable housing — apartment buildings with more than three units. Landlords who want to sell their buildings would first need to notify qualified nonprofit groups of their intent to sell.

An interview by Catarina Kidd, AICP, associate editor. Kristi Bascom’s undergraduate classes in environmental studies were her first exposure to land use planning. After earning a master’s degree in city planning, she worked for several Bay Area cities. She is now Project Manager at Habitat for Humanity, East Bay/Silicon Valley, a position she took just this January.

From APA, April 15, 2019. Sustainable Chinatown began in 2014 as a collaboration between the Chinatown Community Development Center, SF Planning Department, SF Department of the Environment, and Enterprise Community Partners to create more affordable housing, improve access to public space, and provide services to residents and businesses.

By James A. Castañeda, AICP. I write this after four stimulating days in the halls of Moscone West, still processing from the hugely successful National Planning Conference held here. The vast undertaking is behind us, but I hope our section can continue the themes, energy, and momentum locally.

Throughout 2019, we will hold a series of quarterly webinars on Northern California’s best practices in planning, and offering CM credits. COMPLETE OUR FORM BY APRIL 30 to let us know what YOU would like to present in the webinars.

By Carmela Campbell, Awards Program Co-director. Meet and mingle with fellow planners on Friday evening, June 7, as we present our Northern Section awards at Starline Social Club, a restaurant / bar at 2236 Martin Luther King Junior Way, Oakland.

By Robert Paternoster, FAICP. Do you know of a municipality or group that needs planning assistance but doesn’t have the resources? Or a new or struggling planning function that could benefit from peer review and support? APA California can help with Community Planning Assistance, free to communities in need.

By Steve Matarazzo. This is about arrogance in the public sector workplace, what might be behind it, and how it tends to play out. If you are reading this, I am probably not writing about you. I expect, however, that you will relate to this article.

By Fay Darmawi. SFUFF will hold its sixth season from February 2 through 9, 2020. The festival has extended its submissions deadline to APRIL 30, 2019.

Diversity Directors Cindy Ma, AICP, and Cherise Orange kicked off 2019’s first mixer with STORYTELLING — an art and a creative way to connect people through words and to take their imaginations across distant lands.

Northern News is saddened to announce the passing of its PDF on April 14 in San Francisco. Vital until the very end, Northern News PDF left behind a 37-page April 2019 issue with six major articles, 15,500 words, and 54 images.

By Alex Lantsberg, AICP, and Roxana Aslan. CALIFORNIA is caught in a pair of traps affecting what kind of housing is built and where, and how it is produced. Together, they reinforce a dynamic of suppressed housing construction, unaffordability, and displacement. Policy makers are understandably focused on making it easier to issue permits for where

The story of Mare Island, a Base reuse, and Factory OS By Afshan Hamid, AICP. A HOUSING AND TECHNOLOGY DISRUPTION is occurring on Mare Island in Vallejo, California. For 142 years, the island functioned as a naval shipyard for 40,000 workers and more than 500 ships, including cruisers and battleships that served in several wars,

By Jennifer Gastelum and Charlie Knox, AICP. IN AN EFFORT TO ADDRESS THE STATEWIDE HOUSING SHORTFALL, the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) has begun the process of making money available to every city and county in California to expedite housing construction. Senate Bill 2, the “Building Homes and Jobs Act,” was signed

By Al Savay, AICP. RETHINKING SINGLE FAMILY HOUSE SIZE. The single-family detached house is an icon — a symbol of the American Dream. Owning a single-family home is the culmination of hard work, financial planning, risk, strategic thinking, and sacrifice. Demographic changes have revealed major shifts in how our country views home ownership. Even so,

Samuel Herzberg, AICP. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO, an expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá travelled 1,200 miles up the Alta California coast to explore an overland route for establishing Spanish harbors at San Diego and Monterey Bay. Following well-established footpaths that marked trade routes between native villages, the expedition traveled farther north, and

IN MEMORIAM APA has informed us of the death of its retired APA Executive Director Frank S. So on February 22, 2019. So graduated from Youngstown University and earned his master’s degree in city and regional planning from Ohio State University. He joined the staff of the American Society of Planning Officials in 1967, and

By James A. Castañeda, AICP. WILL THIS BE YOUR FIRST NATIONAL PLANNING CONFERENCE? I remember walking into Union Station in Washington, DC, in the spring of 2004 and marveling at the opening reception. As a student about to graduate with a city and regional planning degree, it was a thrill to be around people in

New regional infrastructure across Berkeley, Oakland, and Emeryville By Matt Taecker, AICP. THIS IS A VISION PLAN that reimagines how the very wide rights-of-way existing along the Shattuck-Adeline-Stanford corridor can be used to increase community livability and promote urban sustainability. These generous rights-of-way originally accommodated rail and were repurposed in the 20th century primarily for

By Catarina Kidd, AICP. MAREN MOEGEL, an urban and architectural designer and master planner with broad international experience, is Studio Director at Studio T-SQ in Oakland, California. She is working on urban mixed-use projects throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. What is your education background? I have lived in Berkeley and the East Bay since

By Catarina Kidd, AICP. JOHN SCHWARZ, an environmental planner for 22 years, is president and principal of JHS Consulting, specializing in environmental planning. He holds an MBA from Santa Clara University and a B.A. in environmental studies from UC Santa Barbara.  What brought you to environmental planning? As a student at UC Santa Barbara, I

By Beth Altshuler and Will Dominie. APA California Northern Section is thrilled to co-sponsor a “Health and Resilient Homes Leadership Program” with the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII), the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and the Great Communities Collaborative. This program’s goals are to: Build a cohort of leaders on healthy, resilient,

By Elizabeth (Libby) Tyler, FAICP. The Northern Section held its annual WINTER ETHICS/LAW TRAINING on February 23, 2019, at the fabulous Wendel Rosen conference facilities overlooking the heart of downtown Oakland. More than 40 Section members participated in the event. In the law session, Wendel Rosen attorney Robert Selna discussed the legalization of cannabis in

By John F. Livingstone, AICP. What if cities required new developments and major additions to plant something that provides food? That food could be used by the residents or occupants of the subdivision or development, or if surplus, donated to local schools, homeless shelters, and food banks. It’s a simple idea. Most cities require landscaping,

Transportation planning and management expert and scholar Joseph Kott, PhD, AICP, was well known at public agencies, private consultancies, and universities, and especially in California. A longtime lecturer at San Jose State University, he was in the midst of teaching two courses, “Introduction to Local Transportation” and “Sustainable Transportation Planning,” when he died unexpectedly and suddenly at his home from a massive heart attack on February 14. He was 71.

By Catarina Kidd, AICP. FIALA is Planning Manager at BCDC. She served on the APA California Northern Section Board, 2014–2016. “We are set up like a traditional planning department: there is a division that handles permits for shoreline development proposals, and my division handles long-range planning. … The most important thing is to care about your employees, be interested in their professional goals, and be courageous enough to give them the constructive feedback that will help them grow.”

By JAMES CASTAÑEDA, AICP. At our section board’s retreat in January, we noted that Northern News is on its way to becoming mobile responsive, and discussed its future and its value to our members. Separately we noted the tremendous effort that goes into coordinating and hosting our many workshops, lectures, and training sessions, and we are looking to make some of our programming available online later this year.

DELLA ACOSTA, University Liaison; DANAE HALL, Co-director, Young Planners Group; MARTA POLOVIN, Student Representative, UC Berkeley; ELLEN YAU, Mentorship Director; and MARK YOUNG, South Bay Regional Activity Coordinator (RAC).

Northern Section Board members ALEX HINDS and JUAN BORRELLI, AICP, traveled to Ouro Preto, Brazil, 100 km north of Rio de Janeiro — a historic former mining town and a UNESCO World Heritage site — in January 2019 with RICK KOS, AICP, and 10 of Rick’s students from San Jose State University.

Northern News lists job moves and promotions that come to our attention. Instead of your counting on LinkedIn to get the word out, tell us, and we’ll tell all of your northern California planning colleagues. This month, we highlight AARON AKNIN, AICP, and TIMOTHY ROOD, AICP.