01 - Laserfiche WebLink

PUBLIC HEARINGS AND OTHER MATTERS 11. Review and comment on the Association of Bay Area Government's (ABAG) and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission's (MTC) Initial Vision Scenario for the Bay Area Community Development Director Dolan gave an overview of the City's review and comment on the ABAG and MTC Initial Vision Scenario (IVS) in response to SB 375. Over the next several months, ABAG and MTC will develop alternative vision scenarios and a preferred scenario for the Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS), and there will be future opportunities for the City and the public to comment. Councilmember Sullivan expressed concerns of the plan superseding land use authority of cities and also questioned calculations and types of forecasted household and job growth. Mr. Dolan noted the SCS is proposed to link land use with the Regional Transportation Plan, and theoretically, fund those communities which are consistent with the plan. He reviewed key dates in the process and numbers cf additional households in the region over what is in the current regional plans. Councilmember Sullivan referred to the City's LAVMA system which pumps sewage treatment being roughly the size for the existing General Plan build-out and asked how the IVS growth numbers compare to this capacity. Mr. Dolan said this has not been calculated precisely, but there is a lot of capacity beyond the build-out number. Vice Mayor Cook-Kallio referred to the I-Gate numbers and creation of over 17,000 jobs. She asked whether these numbers are being taken into consideration and whether the same formulas are being used. City Manager Fialho stated the City's job numbers were based on the General Plan primarily as a result of East Pleasanton. If the City ends up rezoning those areas to look differently, the job growth will not be there which then potentially impacts some of the assumptions in the report. He agreed it was a bit flawed. Vice Mayor Cook-Kallio said that in moving to 2035 she would hope there are adjustments to be made given the economy and other factors that might affect housing. Mr. Dolan agreed the individual RHNA numbers will be affected by this. ABAG/MTC have said 10,000 units is based on how the economy has been, but the City should not expect this to be an event distribution over the RHNA period, as the City will probably be assigned a lower number next time and then grow towards 2035, depending on the economy. Mayor Hosterman said the pipeline example is just an example of one of the many barriers to meeting this type of growth. The City has its share of housing allocated to it and they will do everything to meet this within reason, given barriers and obstacles that need to be considered along the way. Councilmember Thorne questioned the wisdom of putting out a number such as 10,000 new units, as this will truly scare some and he thinks it is unrealistic. Mayor Hosterman opened they were no speakers to address this item. Councilmember Sullivan hoped that some of the questions raised can be filtered back into the process such as how job growth and housing is calculated. However, being an advocate of the concepts such as compact development, transit-oriented, and pedestrian-friendly developments, with optimistic numbers it is almost growth-inducing and counter-intuitive to what the goal is. He City Council Minutes Page 2 of 5 June 7, 2011