One Bay Area

Frequently Asked Questions

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What is Plan Bay Area?

Plan Bay Area is an integrated land use and transportation plan that all metropolitan regions in California must complete under Senate Bill 375. In the San Francisco Bay Area this integration includes ABAG’s Projections and Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) and MTC’s Regional Transportation Plan (RTP).

Why is there a long-range plan?

State and federal laws require MTC, as the metropolitan planning organization for the Bay Area, to develop a 25-year plan – based on a realistic forecast of future revenues – to guide transportation investment in the region, and to update this plan at least every four years based on new projections of population growth and travel demand. State Senate Bill 375, signed into law by then-Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2008, requires the Bay Area (and California’s 17 other metro areas) to develop an integrated long-range transportation and land-use/housing plan to meet statewide targets for reductions in per-capita carbon dioxide emissions from cars and light trucks.

Who will prepare Plan Bay Area?

Within the Bay Area, the law gives joint responsibility for Plan Bay Area to the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). The two agencies will work with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). They will also partner with local governments, county congestion management agencies and a wide range of stakeholders to ensure broad public input into Plan Bay Area’s preparation.

What is the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and what does it do?

MTC is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. The Commission’s job is to make sure the regional transportation network functions as smoothly and efficiently as possible, and to plan responsibly to meet the future mobility needs of our region’s growing population.

What is the Association of Bay Area Governments, and what does it do?

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) is the regional planning agency for the nine counties and 101 cities and towns of the San Francisco Bay region.

Why are regional agencies involved in local planning?

MTC is required by state and federal law to update a long-range regional transportation plan for the nine-county Bay Area every four years. ABAG is obliged under state law to update a Regional Housing Needs Allocation every eight years, and to allocate specific housing targets to individual cities and counties. SB 375 now mandates that ABAG and MTC develop an integrated transportation and housing plan for the Bay Area.

What kinds of forecasts must be made to develop a long-range plan?

Since its establishment by an act of the state Legislature in 1971, MTC has been developing and updating long-term regional transportation plans for the Bay Area. This requires the use of many kinds of forecast models, including those for economic growth, financial resources, demographics and land-use changes, among others.

What will Plan Bay Area do?

State law requires that Plan Bay Area develop a Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS) that accomplishes three principal objectives:

  1. Identify areas to accommodate all the region’s population associated with Bay Area economic growth, including all income groups, for at least the next twenty-five years;
  2. Develop a Regional Transportation Plan that meets the needs of the region; and
  3. Reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles and light trucks.

In responding to these three state mandates, Plan Bay Area will also need to be responsive to a host of other regional and local quality-of-life concerns.

What size population will Plan Bay Area need to accommodate?

The Bay Area currently has about 7 million people. ABAG projects that over the next twenty-five years the region will grow by about another two million people. ABAG uses federal, state and in-house data sources to develop regional population forecasts. The rate of growth depends on several variables, including age distribution, predicted birth and death rates, and estimated migration into the Bay Area.

What are the greenhouse-gas reduction targets?

On September 23, 2010, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) adopted greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets for regions across California, as mandated by SB 375. For the San Francisco Bay Area, the board followed the recommendation adopted by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission on July 28 — a 7 percent per capita reduction target for 2020 and 15 percent per capita reduction target for 2035, relative to 2005 levels.

Why should anyone care about greenhouse gas emissions?

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions are part of the state’s plan to protect public health, lower energy consumption and reduce the need for driving. In addition, there are existing laws that require Plan Bay Area to demonstrate attainment of federal and state air quality standards for several pollutants. Lastly, SB 375, signed into law by then-Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2008, requires California to reduce GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and requires each of the state’s 18 metropolitan planning organizations to develop a long-range transportation and land-use/housing plan that will reduce its region’s per-capita carbon dioxide emissions from cars and light trucks to meet this target.

Why the emphasis on automobiles and light trucks?

Transportation is the largest single source of greenhouse gases in California. In the Bay Area, it accounts for 41 percent of our emissions, and over three quarters of these come from personal travel in on-road vehicles. If we are to significantly reduce our contribution to global warming, then we need to reduce the impact of our travel within the region. Plan Bay Area aims to reduce emissions by:

  • Reducing the separation of land uses (jobs, stores, schools, and homes) and encouraging more complete, mixed-use communities, so people can drive less and increase their walking, biking, and use of transit;
  • Clustering more homes, jobs and other activities around transit, so people will be encouraged to take transit rather than drive; and
  • Planning land uses and transportation together, so we can manage traffic congestion and vehicle speeds, reducing emissions from excessive idling and other inefficiencies.

How can a regional transportation and land-use plan reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

The primary strategy is by working with local agencies to plan for more people living near their jobs and other essential services, in tandem with better access to mass transit and other transportation choices, so residents need not drive as much. Less driving means less tailpipe emissions.

Are businesses being consulted as part of the Plan Bay Area process?

Yes. MTC met with business leaders from throughout the region at key points during development of the Initial Vision Scenario in 2011-12, and has held several meetings that included representatives from the California Building Industries Association, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the Bay Area Council, among other business groups. MTC and ABAG will continue to consult with businesses as development of Plan Bay Area proceeds.

How are you engaging local governments and concerned organizations?

Local officials, as well as environmental, social justice, faith-based, public-health and business leaders, are engaging in Plan Bay Area through a Regional Advisory Working Group that meets monthly to give staff detailed input on planning and policy issues before finalizing recommendations for presentation to the MTC and ABAG boards. The agencies also seek input from a range of interest groups through MTC’s Policy Advisory Council and ABAG’s Regional Advisory Committee.

How much is being spent on public outreach for Plan Bay Area?

SB 375 (Chapter 728) requires substantial public involvement in the development of the region’s Sustainable Communities Strategy. MTC’s 2011-12 budget for Plan Bay Area public outreach and involvement is $400,000. This includes funds for public meetings and web-based activities, as well as costs associated with public events, workshops and briefings (e.g. assistance from firms with expertise in meeting facilitation, recording and review of public comments, facility rentals, food, language translations, publication design and printing, web material development, etc.).

How does Plan Bay Area relate to the Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS), Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) and Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA)?

Plan Bay Area combines these three elements into a single, integrated regional plan. For example, Regional Transportation Plans traditionally include land use projections. For Plan Bay Area the SCS will be the land use allocation in the next RTP, slated for adoption in March 2013. SB 375 also stipulates that the SCS will incorporate an 8-year housing projection and allocation pursuant to RHNA.

Is Plan Bay Area going to usurp local land-use control?

SB 375 is explicit that neither ABAG nor MTC has the legal authority to supersede “the land use authority of cities and counties in the region.” However, the law does require that Plan Bay Area be consistent with the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) and therefore affects the next iteration of housing elements in local general plans.

Aside from the RHNA requirement, why would local governments want to conform to Plan Bay Area?

  • To improve the quality of life of our neighborhoods by providing cleaner air, improved public health, better mobility, more walkable streets, and homes closer to transit, jobs, and services.
  • To benefit from incentives that will be available to conforming localities — for example, Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) funding, Station Area Planning Grants, investments from the Regional Transportation Plan, and assistance in meeting the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA);

What is a Priority Development Area?

Priority Development Areas, or PDAs for short, are areas within existing communities that have been identified and approved by city or county governments to take on larger shares of future growth. These areas typically are easily accessible to transit, jobs, shopping and other services.

What is open space and who owns it?

Open space generally refers to undeveloped lands or water areas; land may be publically or privately owned.

Is there any relationship between Plan Bay Area and U.N. Agenda 21?

No. Plan Bay Area is mandated by California Senate Bill 375. For more information, read the American Planning Association fact sheet “Agenda 21: Myths and Facts” (PDF).

What is environmental justice?

Environmental justice stems from a Presidential Executive Order to promote the fair distribution of benefits and burdens for disadvantaged communities and to promote the inclusion of minority and low-income communities in decision making. The federal government, which oversees the development of our regional planning efforts, states that: “Each federal agency shall make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies and activities on minority populations and low-income populations.” As a recipient of federal funds, MTC is required to incorporate environmental justice principles in all its planning efforts, including the sustainable communities strategy to be incorporated into Plan Bay Area.

What is social equity?

Social equity includes the idea that all persons should have fair and equal access to opportunity. In Plan Bay Area, this includes MTC’s and ABAG’s adopted targets to house all persons at all income levels in the region, achieve greater air quality improvements in impacted areas and improve the affordability of housing and transportation for lower-income households. MTC and ABAG are analyzing planning scenarios for equity implications at each stage of the plan’s development. For more information, visit the One Bay Area web page on equity.

Land use development changes very slowly and many places will not change much. How much difference can Plan Bay Area really make?

We acknowledge that it will likely be decades before changes in the land use pattern make an appreciable difference in the total emissions from personal vehicles. Improvements in vehicle technology and transportation pricing mechanisms (e.g., parking) are likely to have a greater impact, both in the short and longer term. However, the impact of more efficient vehicles could be significantly reduced if the amount we drive and congestion continue to increase because of inefficient land uses. There is a broad consensus that there isn’t just one thing that we should do; we will need to move on all fronts. Changes in technology will have to be accompanied by changes in travel behavior if we are have any hope of reducing emissions to the levels required by the middle of this century. If we are to be successful in reconfiguring the region by 2050 or so, we need to start now.

While we implement the long-term land-use changes, is there anything we can do that will have more immediate impact?

Yes. SB 375, the state law that requires a Sustainable Communities Strategy allows us to use transportation measures and policies. These might include road pricing (new and increased tolls), parking regulations and incentives to accelerate the adoption of alternative vehicles like electric cars, among others.

The extraordinarily high gas prices in 2008 demonstrated that an increase in the cost of driving had an immediate effect on travel patterns: fewer people drove, while more took transit. However, while transportation pricing policies could be powerful and fast-acting measures, the impact on people’s pocketbooks would be politically contentious and difficult to implement. In addition, the equity consequences could be particularly challenging: we do not want to make life more unaffordable for those who are already struggling. If we increase the costs of driving, we need to supply land-use and transportation choices so people have a genuine ability to avoid or mitigate those costs.

What are some of the other regional efforts related to Plan Bay Area?

The Air District and BCDC are developing policies and regulations that will affect the region’s land use pattern and placement of public infrastructure, including transportation.

In its effort to control local and regional air pollution (smog, particulate matter and airborne toxins), the Air District is considering an indirect source review rule (ISR) that would regulate the air quality impacts of transportation and other sources associated with land development. The ISR will likely include incentives to encourage development that minimizes automobile use and emissions and may require mitigation or payments for development that increases automobile travel and vehicle emissions. The Air District also recently adopted new thresholds for the evaluation of development projects under CEQA.

BCDC has amended its Bay Plan to prepare for inevitable sea-level rise and storm surges affecting areas on and near the Bay shoreline. Sea level rise will have implications for the location of future development and perhaps for the relocation of existing development and infrastructure. Plan Bay Area needs to consider this adaptation work.

What if Plan Bay Area is not able to meet its targets?

If we cannot meet the greenhouse-gas reduction targets in Plan Bay Area, then we must prepare an Alternative Planning Strategy (APS) to accompany the Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS). The APS will be structured like the SCS, but it is an unconstrained plan that does not have to be as feasible or achievable as the SCS, since it would not be adopted as part of Plan Bay Area. The APS would identify the physical, economic, or political conditions required to meet the regional greenhouse gas targets. The APS may provide some streamlining of requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to housing or mixed-use development projects which are consistent with certain aspects of its land use pattern.

What type of assistance in meeting requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) might be provided through Plan Bay Area?

The CEQA relief to be provided through Plan Bay Area could include the following:

    1. Residential or mixed use projects that comply with the general use designation, density, building intensity and other policies specified for the project area will not be required to deal with growth-inducing impacts or transportation-related project-specific or cumulative impacts on global warming or on the regional transportation network required by CEQA.
    2. Transit priority projects, which meet a number of land use, density and location criteria as well as including high-quality transit might be totally exempt from CEQA or might qualify for a streamlined review called a sustainable communities environmental assessment.

Plan Bay Area sounds like a big project. Are we starting from scratch?

Thankfully, we are not. For decades, the Bay Area has been encouraging more focused and compact growth to help revitalize older communities, develop complete communities, reduce travel time and expense, make better use of the existing transportation system, control the costs of providing new infrastructure, protect resource land and environmental assets, promote affordability, and generally improve the quality of life for all Bay Area residents. Reducing greenhouse-gas emissions just provides another reason to continue and accelerate these ongoing efforts.

Responding to the regional agencies’ FOCUS program, over sixty local governments have voluntarily designated over 120 Priority Development Areas (PDAs). Located within existing urbanized areas and served by high-quality public transit, PDAs consume only about three percent of the region’s land area but are being planned by their local jurisdictions to house nearly one-half of the region’s projected population growth to the year 2035. FOCUS PDAs and associated incentive programs like Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) – which reached its 10-year anniversary in 2008 – provide a solid foundation upon which to build Plan Bay Area.

How much time do we have to complete Plan Bay Area?

MTC and ABAG are scheduled to adopt Plan Bay Area in April 2013.

How can I get involved?

Public engagement is essential to the success of all the regional efforts that are part of the One Bay Area initiative, as well as to the multi-year development of one of our most comprehensive regional planning efforts to date, Plan Bay Area. Simply put, we need the input of all stakeholders — most especially the people who live and work in Bay Area communities — if we’re going to build a plan that meets their vision, goals and aspirations for a prosperous future.

There are many ways to get involved. A great way to start is by getting engaged in the development of Plan Bay Area. You can go to our Get Involved page to sign up for alerts about meetings and other opportunities to have your voice heard. We also encourage you to visit our Public Process page, which explains the nuts and bolts of what can be an admittedly complicated multi-year planning process.

Finally, if you’re on Facebook or Twitter, please visit our One Bay Area social media pages for more updates and conversation. Over time, we hope these sites will become an online hub of activity for a whole community of engaged Bay Area citizens. We need you to be our partners!

How is my input considered by ABAG and MTC?

Public comments from workshops, along with written comments and correspondence, results from a telephone survey, a web survey and focus groups, will be analyzed, summarized and presented to the MTC and ABAG boards in spring 2012. A recommendation for a draft preferred land use/transportation investment scenario from staff is also expected this spring, and decision makers are expected to approve a preferred scenario by May/June 2012. A Plan Bay Area document and a companion environmental impact report (EIR) will be prepared for the preferred scenario, leading to release of a draft in late 2012 and a final in spring 2013; we anticipate another round of public outreach between release of the draft Plan Bay Area/draft EIR and adoption of the final documents.

Who should I contact with questions?

  • Doug Kimsey, MTC
    (510) 817-5790
    dkimsey@mtc.ca.gov
  • Ken Kirkey, ABAG
    (5410) 464-7955
    kennethk@abag.ca.gov
  • Henry Hilken, BAAQMD
    (415) 749-4642
    hhilken@baaqmd.gov
  • Joe LaClair, BCDC
    (415) 352-3656
    joel@bcdc.ca.gov
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info@onebayarea.org

510.817.5831 –or– 510.464.7995