By Mark Dempsey
SACRAMENTO/DAVIS, CA – Many people don’t appreciate our dependency on fossil fuels has a local component.
That’s right, the design of our cities, when it precludes walking and encourages longer and longer commuting, builds those greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the structure of daily life, setting them literally in concrete.
Pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use neighborhoods can cut vehicle miles traveled in half (by one-third to two-thirds, depending on the neighborhood).
“Mixed-use” means that there are transit stops, and transit destinations like offices, and/or shops, even light industry, within residential neighborhoods. Look at any pre-1950 neighborhood to see what this looks like.
Are these favored by the [genuflects] market? Yes. (Sacramento’s) McKinley Park, an older mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly Sacramento neighborhood, is literally, per square foot, the most valuable real estate in the region.
As another sign we’re “riding the horse in the direction it’s already going,” the state now mandates “complete streets” (streets designed for pedestrians and bicycles as well as autos) for all new development. State planning standards also have retired fast-flowing traffic as a desirable design criterion, and now focus on minimizing VMT (vehicle miles traveled).
This is very good news and a sign that public policymakers are paying attention to climate, too. The state has been the most receptive government to these observations.
Even the Sacramento Bee’s Extra published an editorial noting that strip malls can be a (mixed-use) source of land for affordable housing. The editorial praised Peter Calthorpe’s designs in this area. Calthorpe designed Laguna West, a mixed-use development sabotaged by its lack of denser housing.
Local architect David Mogavero says there are moves underway right now to develop part of Stockton Blvd. this mixed-use way. The City of Citrus Heights is also formulating plans to make Sunrise Mall a mixed-use transit-friendly destination. (Note: While you can see plans online for the redesigned Sunrise Mall, it’s cheap to draw lines on paper; a bit more to actually build what’s proposed.)
A note of caution: One sticking point for most NIMBYs is density. People impacted by demands for services (parks, schools, etc.) from multi-family development aren’t happy that these plans don’t pay their own way—a sad “side benefit” of Prop 13—and certainly object to a lot of strangers diminishing public services for existing neighbors.
Laguna West couldn’t build apartments because of density objections (and a lack of apartment construction money). Mello-Roos bonds could fix this, but Brandolini’s law still applies: It takes orders of magnitude more energy to debunk the B.S. than to create it in the first place.
At any rate, enough people must be within a comfortable walk of transit stops or neighborhood commerce before either of these are economically viable.
Berkeley planner Robert Cervero’s East Bay studies suggest 11 units per acre (slightly more than duplexes) is the density threshold above which such economically viable transit and neighborhood commerce begin to work. Without this 11-per-acre density and the pedestrian-friendly mixed-use design, transit languishes and must be subsidized.
People in the ‘burbs don’t want to increase the gas tax to pay for transit because they don’t use (and never will use) transit as it currently exists. Land use must support transit, or you get the designed-to-fail-working-as-designed transit Sacramento currently enjoys. (JFYI, the Urban Land Institute’s Dollars & Cents of Shopping Centers confirms Cervero’s research if you calculate a half-mile is not too far for pedestrians to walk to shop or board transit.)
Outlying “greenfield” development encourages commutes too, and the region, which has 20 years’ worth of unbuilt infill, needs literally no more of such development for another couple of decades. Such development needlessly adds more GHG emissions to the region.
So why are the various local government even considering approving more commute-generating greenfield development?
Answer: Because the land speculators can purchase agricultural land for a few thousand dollars an acre then sell that, once development is approved, for 50 to 100 times what they paid for it. They bought 20-foot-under-water floodplain surrounded by weak levees in North Natomas for about $2K/acre and sold it to builders (Winncrest homes) for $200K per acre.
Provide a 5,000 percent – 10,000 percent profit for any venture, and I’d say cockroaches will crawl out from under the baseboards to do it. “Land-speculator-friendly” representatives dominate most local governments and the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO).
So, in addition to lobbying our national government to make petroleum more expensive, I’d encourage environmentalists to object to any locally proposed outlying development like the 1,000+ acres near Elk Grove or the South-of-50 development proposed near Folsom.
(Where did the author come from?: He spent nearly two decades in the real estate business, and roughly half that time on a Sacramento County Community Planning Advisory Council, so he notes he has a land-use planning education with more than just opinion to back it up. You might also try Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck’s Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream for more about the above.)
I hope that the Democrats keep this mindset as their goal all the way through the midterms and beyond to further ensure a conservative landslide.
They’re actually working in the opposite direction to that suggestion. As such, they’re pretty-closely aligned with Republicans.
https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/local/democrats-push-for-state-and-federal-gas-rebates/
Of course, these types of proposals are not as direct as suspending the gas tax, favored by Republicans. Still, it’s a “message” that Democrats at the state and federal government levels are willing to offset the cost of gas-burning cars.
When it comes right down to it, the Democrats only have a green “skin”. It extends no deeper than that.
Even more obvious, when it comes to pursuit of sprawl. That’s when they really start “all looking alike”.
Actually, more likely that they (Republicans and Democrats alike) have “I wanna’ get reelected” skins… note almost all the supporters of the rebate, or ‘tax holiday’ are up for re-election this year… they care not about inflation, public policy, etc. … it’s about them in June and November… they figure they’ll be held immune to inflation, and still be able to point to “we did our best” (fallaciously).
General inflation more impacts our income, than gas prices/gas taxes… yes, the latter are a component, but pumping more $$$ into rebates, tax holidays, will do much more towards inflaming inflation.
Those getting SS will ‘float’ with inflation… many will not, as there are caps on their salaries or retirement benefits.
I am opposed to the rebates AND the tax holidays… they are craven, self-serving, hypocritical, proposals for those seeking election… and BOTH parties are engaging in it… if you think conservative Republicans or progressive Democrats “have your six”… just wait to see what they insert there… for most of the electeds it is truly ‘not about you’, but rather ‘all about them’…
The advantage of a tax reduction on gas is that people who need it the most (drive the most) would get the most ‘back’. $400 doesn’t take into account how much one drives. Of course, that doesn’t discourage driving — but I repeat that until we have stellar transit that is convenient for the masses, encouraging people to drive less will result in little change in mode share, only more burden on those who have to drive to work.
“So, in addition to lobbying our national government to make petroleum more expensive,…”
He can claim victory on this point.
The problem with advocating for a supply restrictive policy is that there is a point at which high energy prices can tip the economy into recession and then you get an election backlash that sets back efforts to control carbon emissions.
To do global warming policy correctly the advocates should focus on incentives to reduce demand instead of supply.
One other point. There is nothing wrong with advocating for less sprawl but in doing so the author neglects to consider the possibility for non-gaspowered transportation or remote work to reduce carbon emissions.
More from Mark Dempsey here:
https://itssimplerthanitlooks.blogspot.com/2022/
Which has nothing to do with anything.
All this talk of transit stops is nothing. You are within uncomfortable walking distance of a bus stop and allows developers to call it transit oriented. That doesn’t make people ride the bus — and everyone has to get real about the fact no significant numbers of people will ever ride the bus, and the transit share has crashed with telecommuting.
Government gives this all lip service. And seriously, protest to South of 50 in Folsom ? They just built the connector road Folsom-Elk Grove, and the multiple square miles of suburb with big houses and windy foothill roads is largely built out and still growing. Not a chance of transit – ever. It’s like a giant cancer on the hills.
So what government is doing is LIP SERVICE.
The only way to change this is NOT to build density around bus stops, it is to MASSIVELY invest in inter-regional rail and connecting systems and time all transit to feed into this system with limited stop hub feeding service – and be REAL that many will still Uber it. With this we might get transit to 10% of trips in a few decades.
Like everything there needs to be a proper positive or negative incentive for a behavior. In my experience in dense urban areas extremely poor traffic makes mass transit desirable for even those can afford to drive themselves. I used to take a crowded N Judah to work because I’d never drive and park in downtown San Francisco on a daily basis.
I’m not sure I understand this reasoning.
> I’m not sure I understand this reasoning.
I wasn’t clear. No significant number of people are ever going to ride local bus transit, no matter how much they tout it. It simply takes too long. For me to walk to a bus stop, transfer, and walk to my destination – be restricted by bus times at my destination for my return — then reverse bus, transfer, bus, walk home — this would add an hour or more to any trip — and if you are trying to reach separate parts of Davis and run three errands — it could take you all day and have to be done in a particular window, adding hours. I add minutes to my errands by biking, but I consider that time that’s getting me some cardio.
So giving developers incentive to build near a local bus stop will do little for the environment, because of the above reasons few people use local transit. Unitrans is great for student housing to UCD, especially on rainy days, because of the mass of people going to the same destination. That is unlikely to work well for any other transit market type. Yes, it works better in San Francisco because of the density and traffic — and because it was one of the few cities that left some of their rail transit lines intact after WWII.
What does work is making regional rail transit fast, frequent and convenient, all over the state, all timed, and linking into timed regional buses where there are not rails/population. This is tens of billions of dollars of investment and a complete change in the way we do things. The idea here is transit will draw people around stations and dense building will appear organically because of the demand for quality car-free transit.
What we are trying to do now give developers money in the vague hope that people will use our sub-par transit system because they live close to a station. A few will most won’t. It’s backwards thinking. The money used to incentivize transit oriented development plus billions should go into financing a complete rebuild of how we get around. Electric cars won’t solve this. People will densify around transit if the transit is five stars. Having developments subsidized near transit for a two-and-a-half star system isn’t going to get people out of their cars in any significant numbers.
We’re doing it all backwards.
And Folsom South is just héll, because you can’t even salvage that. Pavement and automobiles forever out there with more being built as we speak.
Good clarification, Alan… fits with what I guessed you meant… building HD projects next to transit lines is no panacea, for all the reasons you point to… but, it is a tool, that should be used, as opposed to remotely situated HD development, which doesn’t even have transit as a tool.
It’s part of the long game.
Well, that’s the point of building dense residential near transit stops. So that the density of people near those stops makes more sense for them to use the transit. Most of the rail transit left over after WWII in San Francisco was ripped out. The current system is almost completely new.
We don’t really give developers money ; at least not cash. We (cities and state) give them density bonuses. We give them (in some cases) the ability to fast track some projects through the approval process. Builders’ incentives are reaped through selling extra units (from bonus units) and a faster approval process. But these projects usually don’t get direct funds.
Again, I think for the most part you’re confusing high transit area incentive efforts and funding for high speed rail projects. I don’t see the efforts to develop near transit areas as a means to take away funds from other mass transit projects.
The other thing is more of these high density projects near transit will likely become affordable housing projects to a degree (at least 51% of a project). Because of the state laws that rubber stamp approvals for these kinds of projects. The result are a population that is more likely (because of their lesser income status) to use mass transit. And as more people are set up to use mass transit the easier is (in theory) to expand it for more people beyond the current transit areas.
> It’s part of the long game.
I can’t tell if you are joking or not. This is fine strategy in a dense heavily populated city. Davis will never be that.
> Well, that’s the point of building dense residential near transit stops. So that the density of people near those stops makes more sense for them to use the transit.
Yes. I know. Not seeing why you are pointed that out.
>Most of the rail transit left over after WWII in San Francisco was ripped out. The current system is almost completely new.
That is not true. In almost every city nationwide, National City Lines (Standard Oil, Firestone Tires, Mack Truck, General Motors) bought the trolley charters, then sold them for scrap and sold buses to the towns built by GM with Mack Motors, Firestone Tires and burned Standard Oil. There were two major exceptions: Philly & SF. San Francisco did rip out the Geary Street Line, which was highly unfortunate and has not been replaced. And there is new BART, new light rail lines and upgrades — but the base system is very much what it was in the early 1900’s and has not seen decades of service interruption like most cities — before billions were spent to replace, partially, what was lost.
> We don’t really give developers money ; at least not cash. We (cities and state) give them density bonuses. We give them (in some cases) the ability to fast track some projects through the approval process. Builders’ incentives are reaped through selling extra units (from bonus units) and a faster approval process. But these projects usually don’t get direct funds.
That’s what I meant by ‘money’.
> Again, I think for the most part you’re confusing high transit area incentive efforts and funding for high speed rail projects. I don’t see the efforts to develop near transit areas as a means to take away funds from other mass transit projects.
They aren’t a means. My point isn’t literal, it’s that our entire approach is backwards and the transit part is lip service to justify, ‘legally’, the developer bonuses, etc.. Most of these projects in reality are TINOs, Tranist-oriented In Name Only.
> The other thing is more of these high density projects near transit will likely become affordable housing projects to a degree (at least 51% of a project). Because of the state laws that rubber stamp approvals for these kinds of projects.
Yes, that 2nd part was part of my point.
> The result are a population that is more likely (because of their lesser income status) to use mass transit. And as more people are set up to use mass transit the easier is (in theory) to expand it for more people beyond the current transit areas.
That kind of works, but only in very dense areas with high quality service. In a place like Davis, having a bus stop nearby as justification isn’t going to get a lot of people — who are students headed for campus — going anywhere on a bus.
I’m not joking. It’s a long game. Build up the local mass transit. Build up the inter city mass transit. Eventually the two will connect to some degree. The two don’t really effect the other.
>That’s what I meant by ‘money’.
My point being that your worries about efforts to incentivize developers to build transit oriented projects will detract from other transit projects is unfounded. There’s usually little cash going to the developers that would be going to other mass transit projects.
>They aren’t a means. My point isn’t literal, it’s that our entire approach is backwards and the transit part is lip service to justify, ‘legally’, the developer bonuses, etc.. Most of these projects in reality are TINOs, Tranist-oriented In Name Only.
I don’t get what your point is. If these projects don’t take money from the kind of transit you support, then why do you care? And how is it “lip service” if the projects get built and the people in the affordable units (and others) use mass transit?
>That kind of works, but only in very dense areas with high quality service. In a place like Davis, having a bus stop nearby as justification isn’t going to get a lot of people — who are students headed for campus — going anywhere on a bus.
You’re still missing the obvious that if you build to create the dense population around the bus stop then the bus gets used more often. If more people use it then more and better buses can be implemented. The better and more convenient the transit the more it will be used. And if those students keep getting priced further and further out from the campus (the new on campus solutions are going to be expensive), then affordable transit oriented housing solutions will become even more desirable.
In Davis that would be a VERY long game. Yes, Davis is growing, but that doesn’t mean public transit such as found in big cities will ever be even remotely feasible here. Mass my *ss. There will never be mass use of transit — even those that tout it — do they actually around Davis by bus? Even if the bus went right from their house to where they were going? Oops, that’s called Uber. And that is the problem. Local public transit use was crashing even before the pandemic, due to Uber/Lyft. Telework is effecting this as well as people not wanting to be in enclosed boxes with other humans from Rona trauma. Add to this, recent official projections of population growth are no longer straight up and continuing — the projections are much lower and lead to a leveling off. This is quite a change from three years ago.
Maybe that is technically true regarding the word ‘most’ depending on what that means, as some lesser used lines were taken out and replaced with trolley buses. But unlike most cities San Francisco didn’t tear out their busiest core lines nor tear up every inch of trolley rail as most cities did. The J,K,L,M and N Lines are all part of the system that was there over a century ago with no interruption in service and cover much of the City; the T and Wharf lines are ‘new’. The biggest coverage desert is along Geary – a terrible decision to remove that line decades ago.
Yes there were additional routes that were removed — but SF, unlike every other city in California (and most of the country), did not rip up ever inch of trolley. Cities that did rip out every inch include Los Angeles (actually the entire LA Basin with many hundreds of miles of trolley lines), San Diego, Palo Alto, San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley, Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, Marysville/Yuba-City, and Chico. This is not an exhaustive list.
The problem isn’t as direct or obvious as that. It’s things like taxpayers paying for levees that opens up land that developers then cash in on. More my issue is that taxpayer ‘transit’ funding is regularly spent to open up land for developers — often connected developers. This money then does little or nothing to improve transit or even degrades it. I have spent much of my life fighting these schemes.
One of the worst was the track relocation at the Sacramento Depot which opened up the Railyards development. Transit funds were used to ‘improve’ the station, when in actuality there was a small drop in ridership because it now takes nearly five minutes to walk down and up and out to the new platforms, nearly 1200′ from the station now. There was nearly $100 million spent with NO service improvement. The most hair-brained attempt at this ever was the so-called Yolo Rail Relocation that attempted to link three not-necessarily related relocations in West Sac, Woodland and Davis into one using a base of Flood Control dollars! The scheme is so complex I’m not going to explain it here, but it should win an award for hair-brained b@lls.
Because they say it’s about transit, but it’s not. It’s about accessing dollars to open up development. Tying it to transit in a place like Davis is insulting.
First of all, there is no ‘mass’ in Davis for transit. It’s public, not mass. Second, just what I said above. You’re statement assumes there is going to be significant use of transit. Again, except for some commuting to Sacramento, limited lifeline service, and students to UCD, the average Davisite is never going to use the bus to get around Davis. And I say this as a transit advocate — being a unicorn breeder doesn’t help the cause — putting in useful service does. Also, one be real about what Uber/Lyft/Covid-19 have done to local bus ridership all across the country. This is an ongoing downward trend.
You’re missing the obvious point that in Davis that’s never going to amount to a hill of beans. Dense here isn’t that dense. Most of the City is very not dense. Much of the dense if easy biking distance to campus. Other shopping areas and medical facilities are spread throughout the city, plus many more people get most everything delivered now, reducing the need for errands. Sure, any density will increase transit use slightly, but even if transit use doubled, and it won’t, it will never be a significant mode share in this town. Name the multi-story buildings currently proposed for downtown Davis. Yes there are a few spread out elsewhere — spread out is the key phrase here.
Same answer as above.
And Unitrans will accomadate – for this singular market that has point-to-point sufficient origin to destination densities that sort of work in a place like Davis — at least when it raining really, really hard.
This is some really assbackwards/bassackwards stupid reasoning. Land developers don’t just buy land and then the cities and counties then say…yeah…go ahead and build (annexation, tentative and final map approvals). They acquire land that they know (or stands a good chance) of being approved for entitlements. So the political will generally already has to be there for the land developers to develop. So in most cast cases land “speculators” are not the cause of local government approving peripheral (commute generating) developments. They are the response to political will; not the cause.
The political will (cause) to approve peripheral development is often a financial one. Cities need to pay for things and can’t afford to pay for things without creating new revenue streams from new development. Most cities would like to have more infill development for those revenue streams. But infill can be difficult for many cities for the following reasons:
Many cities have a undesirable commercials areas that make attracting new (and more lucrative) commercial tenants. Some cites’ downtowns and commercial areas are just not desirable places to be located.
The local (neighborhood) politics is prohibitive for infill development (the addition of people and traffic) or in other words NIMYB’s.
Most importantly infill development is often cost prohibitive for cities and developers because the expansion of services is often necessary often requiring additional parking structures to be built, widening of streets, additional stop lights…etc….
I would like to take a more balanced approach. If infill development for a community is prohibitive. Then identify the reasons specific reasons why. Approve some peripheral development with the goal of reserving portions of the revenue generated to go towards solving the issues that make infill development difficult or prohibitive.
Developers ensure that the “political will” exists by ensuring that their political allies are elected to office in the first place.
A political campaign (even for a low-paying council position) usually costs many thousands of dollars. Not sure, but I’ve heard figures of around $20K, in one nearby city. For a position that pays almost nothing.
It would be interesting to explore exactly how much these campaigns cost, and where that money comes from. I already know that a lot of it comes from developers. Sometimes, the identity of the contributors is “hidden” via an unknown group name, though everyone (including the candidate) knows where it came from.
The willingness of local politicians to accept contributions from developers is political will. I can’t give you a bribe if you don’t accept it.
You are underestimating the voters.
You’re underestimating the impact of the “choices” that exist, as a direct result of this corrupt process.
The money that’s required for a campaign weeds-out those who would otherwise run. (Those who aren’t aligned with and receive financial support from development interests.)
Owners of apartment buildings benefit from Proposition 13.
In fact, so do all commercial properties, often to a degree (using ownership shenanigans) that homeowners can’t take advantage of.
Ever wonder what Disneyland pays for property taxes?
Of course, all of this assumes that property taxes should be rising more than 2% per year in the first place. (Actually, more than 2%, since there’s always some turnover and reassessment.)
There’s valid reasons why Proposition 13 was enacted. Without it, politicians would have the ability to increase homeowner’s “rent” to the government, as much as they want – as they did in the “old days”. As it is, they’re trying to find ways around it, constantly.
And yet, even though the big commercial interests are the biggest beneficiaries, you rarely hear any complaints about that.
Not before they get their corrupt allies in Congress to ensure that taxpayer money will be used to build levees. Fortunately for them, those political allies are already in place – due to their previous efforts.
Ask the YIMBYs / Wieners / Newsoms what they’re doing about this. They’re the ones running local and state government. (Actually, these types have been running local governments ever since local governments existed. They just went be a different name, in those days.)
Yeah – the Vanguard and Davis city council, for one. Or, is that two?
Hey, at least I can “count” better than those who claim (with a straight face) that DiSC (with its 2,000 plus parking spots – adjacent to a freeway) will be “net zero” greenhouse emissions.
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