homesmillbrae.com » Mtc

A Bay Area Plan for Development and Displacement – Jul 29

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 22:07:38 +0000

On July 18 the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) approved a thirty-year Smart Growth regional plan. Most notably, the plan seeks to steer the majority of the regions real estate development into specified locations including most of San Franciscos eastern neighborhoods–despite projections that the strategy will displace tens of thousands and a finding by a state agency that it is in violation of state law.

Under the plan entitled Plan Bay Area, San Francisco is expected to grow its population by over 35%, to over 1,080,000 by 2040 (by comparison, Marin is asked to accommodate a 13% increase). Eleventh hour amendments spearheaded by progressives may eventually mitigate or at least soften some of the negative impacts but these broadly stated amendments to the plan leave their outcomes uncertain. And even as amended, the adopted plan fails to incorporate the primary recommendations of an alternative plan proposed by environmental and social equity advocates that would have distributed regional growth more evenly and yielded environmental and social equity outcomes ranked as superior even by the standards set by MTC/ABAGs own researchers.

Although it is too early to assess the full implications of Plan Bay Area it is already clear that if state regulators allow MTC/ABAG to proceed, this plan will have consequences unlike the regions vision statements of the past. Plan Bay Area is literally a road map for public and private investment.

For the first time, this plan knits together land use planning with long term transportation investmentsmore than $280 Billion in roads, highways, and transit programs over the life of the plan. Where those investments go, private developers will follow with the blessings of regional planners. The plans selected transit accessible target communities and neighborhoods for that intensive growth, known as Priority Development Areas (PDAs), will then be expected to accommodate more than 60% of the regions growth in jobs and 70% of the new housing.

In the abstract, concentrating future development near transit comes across as sensible Smart Growth. And for some relatively undeveloped PDAs, there will be few negative consequences.

But as critics have noted, many PDAs include existing mostly working class neighborhoods with high concentrations of renters. As a result of refocusing growth in these older urban communities, by MTC/ABAGs own very conservative estimates, the PDA strategy will put tens of thousands of families and seniors of modest means at greater risk of displacement, including most of the eastern third of San Francisco where a majority of lower income minority residents live and where many also work.

Some of the locations considered to be the best targets for smart growth today are those urban neighborhoods with transit reliant communities that persevered through decades of disinvestment from middle class suburban flight.

How do the regional agencies rationalize how their plan will put tens of thousands of existing Bay Area residents at risk of displacement? First, in their environmental impact analysis the agencies assert that although there will be local displacement at the community/neighborhood level, their plans for overall regional housing production will offset that loss by providing another place in the Bay Area for that displaced family to land. They also reference to San Franciscos rent control as a policy that will control for local displacement. And finally, they assert that the benefits of improving neighborhoods will outweigh the impacts of displacement.

The inadequacies of the latter two claims are obvious to San Franciscans who have witnessed the gentrification of formerly economically diverse neighborhoods throughout the City. But the slight-of-hand logic of the first claim deserves additional attention.

Although the Plan Bay Area claims that it will house 100% of the regions projected growth, the plan fails to explain how that housing will be affordable to anyone but the upper middle class and very wealthy. For decades, ABAG has been setting goals for housing production for cities and counties in the region, including goals for housing affordable to lower and moderate income households.

But the only goals that have ever been met entirely have been for market rate housing affordable only for upper income households. MTC and ABAG could have set more rigorous standards to achieve these affordability goals in Plan Bay Area. They could have also followed their staff recommendations to dedicate anticipated future revenue from the states cap and trade program to affordable housing. But MTC and ABAG commissioners rejected those options. Instead, Plan Bay Areas claim to address the risk of local displacement by promising affordable housing regionally remains based upon its mythical affordable housing goals.

But those goals have been called into question by the states Department of Housing and Community Development . The state agency has challenged the core policy of Plan Bay Area which allows cities and counties in the region to in effect reduce how much housing they will produce by failing to designate PDAs (shortly before the approval of the plan, Marin withdrew its PDA designations apparently for this purpose).

State law requires that all localities accommodate their fair share of a regions need for housing production. In June, HCD found the PDA policy violates that law and instructed ABAG to revise the policy and adjust its goals. But ABAG disregarded HCDs instructions and approved the unrevised housing goals on July 18 along with the adoption of Plan Bay Area. HCDs response has not yet been announced. Whatever the states next move, the survival of the regions economically and ethnically diverse communities is likely to require a concerted effort to divert Plan Bay Area from its present path towards unequal development and increased displacement.

Gen Fujioka is the public policy manager at Chinatown Community Development Center. For further supporting documentation see this link.

Article source: http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/A_Bay_Area_Plan_for_Development_and_Displacement_11633.html

A Bay Area Plan for Development and Displacement

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 15:59:06 +0000

In the abstract, concentrating future development near transit comes across as sensible Smart Growth. And for some relatively undeveloped PDAs, there will be few negative consequences.

Gen Fujioka is the public policy manager at Chinatown Community Development Center. For further supporting documentation see this link.

Article source: http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=11633

MTC’s real estate deal likely legal but financially risky, says state auditor – Marin Independent

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 17:46:21 +0000

SACRAMENTO — The Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s use of $180 million in bridge toll money to buy a downtown San Francisco office building was likely legal but exposes taxpayers to unknown financial risk, concluded the state’s top auditor.

The Bay Area agency’s 30-year cash-flow projections “had some shortcomings,” State Auditor Elaine Howle wrote in her analysis released Tuesday. “Toll payers may not be fully repaid as originally claimed by the transportation commission.”

Nonetheless, the commission’s purchase of the eight-story office building as a multi-agency regional government center appears to be within its legal authority as the state-created Bay Area Toll Authority, Howle concluded. Established by the Legislature in 2003, the authority manages the toll proceeds of the Bay Area’s seven state-owned bridges.

The auditor examined the commission’s action at the request of Senate Transportation and Housing Committee Chairman Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, a vocal critic of the real estate deal that he characterized as unacceptable real estate speculation with toll-payer dollars.

“I thought the auditor’s report was very well done, although I don’t agree with everything in it,” DeSaulnier said. “I still believe the purchase was illegal and I would never have supported the past increases in tolls if I had known this is how the commission was going to spend the money.”

If legislators feel the agency has overstepped, the state

auditor suggested they amend the state law and more narrowly define the allowed uses of the money.

The senator said he will hold a hearing on the audit later this year and may introduce a bill next year to do just that.

DeSaulnier’s primary beef is with the commission’s use of toll money to buy a building twice as large as it needs, and the reliance on rental income to repay the bridge toll fund.

While the decision appears legal, the agency failed to discount the value of future cash flows to today’s dollars and its subsequent rehabilitation plan significantly reduced the amount of available rental space, Howle concluded.

Commission staff projected the rental cash would cover the purchase price and generate an additional $40 million over 30 years.

Using the adjusted assumptions, the auditor calculated rental income could fall short of repaying the toll fund by as much as $53.7 million over the next three decades.

The more pessimistic predictions should have been presented to the 19 voting commissioners during the deliberation process, the auditor wrote.

San Francisco rental prices and occupancy rates would have to deteriorate substantially to meet the auditor’s worst-case scenario, countered MTC spokesman Randy Rentschler.

“The auditor’s calculations show the building will make money even if the market conditions remain exactly the same as they are today,” Rentschler said. “We simply disagree with the auditor’s methodology.”

The commission bought the former U.S. Postal Service building at 390 Main St. in late 2011 as part of a plan to co-locate its planning and toll management operations with other regional agencies.

Elected and business leaders in the East Bay opposed the purchase of the building, which was one of five sites under consideration. The others were rejected for location, price or both.

Today, however, the commission only has one confirmed government partner. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has signed a lease with an option to buy space.

The San Francisco Bay Area Conservation and Development Commission had planned to move into the building when its lease expires. But Gov. Jerry Brown has mandated that all state agencies must rent available state-owned offices. The agency is seeking dispensation but the outcome is uncertain.

The Association of Bay Area Governments, which shares an Oakland office with the transportation commission, rejected the San Francisco location as inconvenient and too far from a BART station. But it is now rethinking its position.

In the meantime, the new building is being remodeled and the commission plans to relocate from its Oakland headquarters in 2013.

Contact Lisa Vorderbrueggen at 925-945-4773, Twitter/lvorderbrueggen or facebook.com/lvorderbrueggen.

Auditor’s report

Read the California State Auditor’s report on the MTC building purchase at http://www.bsa.ca.gov/reports/summary/2011-127.
Read the MTC’s response at http://www.mtc.ca.gov/news/press_releases/rel579.htm.

Article source: http://www.marinij.com/ci_21418357/mtcs-san-francisco-office-building-purchase-bridge-tolls

MTC’s real estate deal likely legal but financially risky, says state auditor

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 02:57:25 +0000