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