SB 375 Is Now Law!

[rob]

This is big news and should be on everyone's radar. Hopefully, it
will fundamentally transform land use and transportation in
California.

The article below is from Bill Fulton's blog. Fulton is one of the
authors of 'Guide to California Planning', which is a must-read for
anyone in a planning program.
http://www.cp-dr.com/node/2140

SB 375 Is Now Law -- But What Will It Do?
1 October 2008 - 8:32am
SB 375, the anti-sprawl bill signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last
night, is both more and less powerful than it's advertised to be, and
whether it leads to sweeping change depends on how aggressively
California's regional planning agencies implement it.

It's more powerful than advertised because it contains potentially
revolutionary changes in California's arcane processes of regional
planning for transportation and housing - largely by mandating the
creation of "sustainable" regional growth plans.. And those changes
could become more important on Friday, when the California Air
Resources Board is expected to double the greenhouse gas emissions
reduction targets that local governments must meet through land-use
planning.

It also has the potential to significantly rearrange the Regional
Housing Needs Assessment process, and provides significant breaks
under the California Environmental Quality Act for certain types of
transit-oriented projects.

But it's less than revolutionary on the land-use front, largely
because it's incentive-based.
Despite the headlines, the law doesn't "tie state transportation
funding to land use"; it mere charges regional planning agencies,
which are run by local elected officials with making sure their own
funding decisions are consistent with the new regional plans. Local
governments don't have to comply with the plans.

And except for the CEQA exemptions, no on-the-ground change is likely
to be seen for at least three years - until the regional planning
agencies actually adopt the "sustainable communities" growth scenarios
called for in the law.

The bottom line is that the law won't be sweeping unless the state and
the regional planning agencies take it seriously. After all,
California has adopted potentially sweeping land-use reform before -
for example, AB 857, which contains clear and broad-ranging anti-
sprawl language - but that reform has simply not been implemented. And
there is clearly enough wiggle room for the regional planning agencies
to not take the law seriously if they choose not to.

Schwarzenegger said Tuesday "this legislation constitutes the most
sweeping revision of land-use policies since Gov. Ronald Reagan signed
the California Environmental Quality Act."

Senate leader Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said the bill "will be
used as the national framework for fighting sprawl and transforming
inevitable growth to smart growth. This is a historic day for
California."

Schwarzenegger signed the bill only hours before the deadline on
Tuesday - and with more suspense than anybody expected. At the
Commonwealth Club in San Francisco last Friday, the governor was
equivocal about whether he would sign the bill. Unconfirmed reports
suggest that California transportation lobby attempted behind the
scenes to persuade the Administration to veto the bill at the last
minute - but those efforts failed. In the end, Schwarzenegger simply
had to sign the bill, since it implements his much vaunted AB 32 and
was endorsed by local governments, homebuilders, and
environmentalists.

The bill contains five important aspects that California planners
should understand:

1. Creation of regional targets for greenhouse gas emissions reduction
tied to land use.

2. A requirement that regional planning agencies create a plan to meet
those targets, even if that plan is in conflict with local plans.

3. A requirement that regional transportation funding decisions be
consistent with this new plan

4. Tethering together regional transportation planning and housing
efforts for the first time.

5. New CEQA exemptions and streamlining for projects that conform to
the new regional plans, even if they conflict with local plans.

1. Regional Targets

Under the law, the California Air Resources Board has two years -
until September 30, 2010 - to give each of California's metropolitan
planning organizations a greenhouse-gas emissions reduction target for
cars and light trucks - but only through changes in the development
pattern.

As many commentators have observed, reducing emissions from cars and
light trucks is a "three-legged stool." One leg involves greater fuel
efficiency from new vehicles - a requirement called for under former
Assemblymember Fran Pavley's AB 1493, which is currently in dispute
between the state and federal governments. The second leg involves
reducing the carbon content of fuels - a requirement called for under
Schwarzenegger's low-carbon emissions standards.

The third leg of the stool is changes in the growth pattern that
reduce overall driving. The regional targets will cover only this
third leg of the stool.

Under the CARB's "Scoping Plan," required under AB 32, about 20% of
overall emissions reduction must come from cars and light trucks. But
1.2% must come from local governments - and that figure is likely to
double with the release of a revised Scoping Plan on Friday.

The process by which CARB sets the targets is technical, but the
agency will be required to set up a "Regional Targets Advisory
Committee" that includes all stakeholders, including local
governments, builders, and planners. MPOs can propose their own
target. The target will be revised every 8 years, to conform to the
new, unified housing and transportation planning schedule set up by
the bill.


2. The Sustainable Communities Plan Requirement

Once the MPOs have received the regional targets in late 2010, they
will be required to create a "Sustainable Communities Strategy" that
lays out how the emissions reduction will be met. Technically, this
strategy becomes part of the Regional Transportation Plan - an
important point, because it tethers the sustainable strategy to
federal transportation planning law.

The Sustainable Communities Strategy was the subject of major debate
in the Legislature - and as these strategies are shaped by the MPOs
(whether in 2011 or before) they are likely to serve as a lightning
rod for discussion about the future growth patterns in every region.
But the way SB 375 came out of the Legislature, the Sustainable
Communities Strategy isn't quite as bulletproof as you might think.

It does incorporate the RHNA requirement to provide housing to
accommodate all income groups - for the simple reason that, if housing
targets weren't incorporated, the emissions reduction target could be
met simply by cutting growth. But provisions requiring incorporation
of resource and open space land considerations were watered down.

And because it's part of the RTP, the Sustainable Communities Strategy
subject to certain provisions of federal transportation law that could
undercut the anti-sprawl efforts - especially a provision stating that
the RTP must be based on "current planning assumptions" in the region
that take general plans into account. "If a certain type of
development pattern is unlikely to emerge from local decision-making,"
League of California Cities lobbyist Bill Higgins noted recently, "it
will be difficult for the regional agency to say that it reflects
current planning assumptions."

In addition, Higgins and other local government lobbyists succeeded in
inserting language saying that the Sustainable Communities Strategy is
not a land-use plan and SB 375 does not confer land-use authority on
the MPOs. As Higgins said last week at the CCAPA conference in
Hollywood, this means that local governments' own General Plans don't
have to conform to this Sustainable Communities Strategy.

As is typically the case in planning, the Sustainable Communities
Strategy can contain only "feasible" measures to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. If the end result doesn't hit the CARB target, the MPO must
develop a second plan - the "Alternative Planning Strategy," which is
technically separate from the RTP but nevertheless must lay out an
alternative plan to meet the target. The alternative strategy becomes
important in the CEQA exemptions below.


3. Transportation Funding Consistency

Here is where the rubber meets the road - sort of. From the beginning,
SB 375 has been advertised as the law where, at last, state
transportation funding decisions are tied to land use. This is
technically true - but only technically. Under 375, there are no state
bureaucrats in Sacramento doling out transportation money to cities
and counties based on whether the local anti-sprawl efforts are
sufficient. Instead, the bill uses the existing system - which gives
most of the power to make transportation funding decisions to the
regional MPOs.

So the only thing SB 375 says is that the Regional Transportation Plan
has to be internally consistent - meaning the action items and
financing decisions called for in the RTP must be consistent with the
Sustainable Communities Strategy. This means SB 375 is subject to the
same major structure issue as the RTP itself: Ultimately, the
decisions at the regional level are made by MPO board members, who are
local elected officials. And, as we all know, it's unlikely that
elected officials sitting as regional planning board members will pull
the trigger on each other.

In other words, SB 375 talks tough about tying state and federal
transportation dollars to land use decisions, but the bill does not
alter the current regional planning structure, which delegates
decision-making authority to local officials sitting as MPO board
members.


4. Connection to Regional Housing Needs Assessment

SB 375 also changes the state Housing Element law in important ways -
and, for the first time, links regional planning efforts for
transportation and housing. Under the bill, all transportation and
housing planning processes are put on the same eight-year schedule -
that is, the plans must be updated once every eight years. (There's a
penalty for jurisdictions that don't meet the Housing Element
schedule: They must prepare Housing Elements every four years
instead.)

The law also strengthens the language on required rezonings: If a
local jurisdiction must rezone property as a result of the Housing
Element, it must do so within three years and it must include minimum
density and development standards for the site.

Most important, however, is the fact that the RHNA allocation numbers
must conform to the Sustainable Communities Strategy. This has
important consequences for the RHNA process and Housing Element
implementation. The regional planning agencies are required to provide
local governments with a housing allocation representing their "fair
share" of regional growth. But the Sustainable Communities Strategy is
likely to concentrate future development around transit stops. The end
result of the RHNA process in the future is likely to look something
like what the Association of Bay Area Governments has recently done in
this arena - cutting a deal among the local governments to allow more
housing in transit-rich areas, and rearranging the RHNA numbers to
accommodate that goal.


5. CEQA Exemptions and Streamlining

In terms of planning practice, the most powerful provisions of SB 375
have to do with CEQA Exemptions and Streamlining. Under the new law,
certain types of development projects are exempt from CEQA - or
qualify for streamlined review - if they conform to the Sustainable
Communities Strategy. And these projects qualify for streamlined
review even if they conflict with local plans.

But the list of caveats is long, meaning the eventual impact of the
CEQA provisions may not be as significant as you might think.

Two types of projects qualify for CEQA breaks under SB 75 -
residential or mixed use projects and "transit priority projects".

Under the law, a residential or mixed-use project that conforms to the
Sustainable Community Strategy qualifies for CEQA streamlining.
Specifically, the CEQA review does not have to cover growth-inducing
impacts; and it does not have to cover either project-specific or
cumulative impacts dealing with climate change.

More significant as the "transit priority projects". These projects
can qualify for either a full CEQA exemption or a streamlined
environmental assessment if they meet certain criteria.

"Transit priority projects" are projects that meet the following
criteria:

1. Contain at least 50% residential use.
2. Have a minimum net density of 20 units per acre
3. Have a floor-area ratio for the commercial portion of the project
at 0.75
4. Be located within 1/2 mile of either a rail stop, a ferry terminal,
or a bus line with 15-minute headways.

Under the law, projects can qualify for a full CEQA exemption if:

 They are no bigger than 8 acres or 200 units.
 They can be served by existing utilities
 They will not have a significant effect on historic resources
 Their buildings exceed energy efficiency standards
 They provide ANY of the following:
o 5 acres of open space
o 20% moderate income housing
o 10% low income housing
o 5% very low income housing.

Under the law, "transit priority projects that don't meet these
criteria still qualify for a truncated environmental assessment
similar to the truncated environmental assessment permitted for
residential and mixed-use projects specified above.

-- Bill Fulton

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