01 8-27-2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

Councilmember Sullivan referred to the CarrAmerica project and questioned how it relates to the BART TOD project and how the City currently evaluates traffic in Hacienda as it may not necessarily be the way the City would do it in the future. His understanding is that because of the development agreement, Hacienda has entitlements to a certain number of square feet. Somewhere along the lines, traffic calculations revealed that 12 million square feet equals so many traffic trips. In looking at some of the projects, whether they go forward sooner or later, if CarrAmerica is approved outside of this process and it has additional traffic allocations, he questioned whether this would impact what the City could possibly do at the Hacienda TOD project or does it then limit traffic allocations. Mr. Iserson said preliminarily, staff feels it will work; it looks like CarrAmerica would still stay within the commercial square footage cap in Hacienda of 10 million square feet of commercial. He said staff feels there is enough commercial, that we can take some of it and give it to CarrAmerica and still have some left for TOD development. But preliminary results they are getting back from the EIR for the General Plan show that from a traffic point of view, if we stay at the commercial cap, move it over to CarrAmerica, give them some additional development potential, replace it with residential in the park, that it all could work. Councilmember Sullivan referred to state legislation, some of which has already been enacted, and he questioned how this may affect or fit into what the City is trying to do. He said one piece of legislation is the Cost Zoning Law---if you exceed 30 units per acre, you get some sort of credit towards RHNA allocations. Mr. Iserson said the state requires that when you are zoning land for RHNA numbers, that you do it at sufficient densities with reasonable development standards that will enable higher density which will produce more affordability at a lesser cost. The idea is density by design; provide enough density so developers can offer the housing product at a lower cost that will then be more affordable to low and very low income people, and by doing this, it will facilitate the City's meeting the RHNA obligation. Councilmember Sullivan referred to SB 375; tying transportation funds to SMART growth, and AB 32 (Global Warming Solutions Act) and said there are some major implications for cities and projects going forward on how one addresses global warming issues from development projects or General Plans. Mr. Dolan felt there is some relationship between these laws and TOD. He said AB 32 is in the rule making process and developing a scoping plan as to how it will be implemented. A lot of the elements they are considering address energy-efficiency programs and opportunities to reduce greenhouse gases outside of the development arena, in industry and car emissions. The new scoping plan does include a section that reaches out to local government actions and greenhouse gases targets, and it is starting to explore those areas. The plan has been the subject for comment, and a theme of comments is that it does not get to local land use and it under-estimates cities' abilities to address greenhouse gases through that avenue. He said the proposals in SB 375 were a reaction to that inadequacy in the other bill, so it concentrates on that connection and is still being discussed. AB 32 requires the Air Resources Board to assign greenhouse gas target levels to each metropolitan area and those assignments then need to be incorporated into cities' regional transportation plans, a component called a sustainable community strategy must be prepared which will include things like TOD and other land use and design relationships. It involves the use of modeling where one must document whether it is a sustainable community and whether the strategy actually achieves the target levels of reduction. It does then make a connection between funding for regional projects and cities' ability to meet their targets. He said it also connects the REHNA housing allocation to that plan. The allocation will have to consider and be connected to the sustainable community strategy, and it will reward cities in providing relief from some CEQA requirements. He said it is still evolving, the League is supporting it, and it is likely that this type CCIPC Joint Workshop Minutes 6 August 27, 2008