Frequently Asked Questions
Simply click on a question to be directed to the corresponding
answer. Our printable Project
Fact Sheet (PDF) answers many common questions and summarizes
key phases of the Project.
Regarding Smart Growth
What is Smart Growth?
Why must the Bay Area grow in a different way
than it has grown in the past?
The Smart Growth Strategy/Regional Livability Footprint Project
What is the Smart Growth Strategy/Regional
Livability Footprint Project?
How did the Project begin and who manages it?
What are the Project goals?
The Visioning Process
Who was involved in the Smart Growth visioning
process?
What are the results of the visioning process?
How were the concerns and priorities of the
public and local governments reflected in this process?
Products & Implementation
Does the Vision dictate land use to local governments?
The Smart Growth Vision isn't mandated...
how will we see results?
How does Projections 2003 differ from ABAG's
trends-based forecasts?
How will Projections 2003 be used and what
is its intended objective?
When will we see results from Projections
2003?
Project Milestones
What is the timeline for the Smart Growth
Project?
Answers
What is Smart Growth?
The
smart growth concept is about development that creates a balance
of job growth and housing growth, revitalizes cities, supports and
enhances transportation alternatives, and preserves open spaces
and agricultural lands. It is a movement that has grown out of a
nationwide concern that current development patterns are no longer
in the long-term best interest of communities and people. Communities
are questioning the economic costs of neglecting infrastructure
in the city only to rebuild it further out, the social costs of
mismatch between employment locations and where workers actually
live, the "eating up" of open space and prime agricultural
lands at the suburban fringe, and the pollution of an entire region
caused by driving further to get to jobs and homes. Smart growth
is about the connections between development and quality of life
and about leveraging new growth to improve the community. You can
also visit our What is Smart Growth?
page.
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Why must the Bay Area grow in a different
way than it has grown in the past?
Over the next 20 years, all of California is expected to experience
substantial growth. In the Bay Area this growth is projected to be
roughly one million new residents and one million new jobs. If we
were to accommodate this growth the same way we have in the past,
it will mean more freeways and less open space. It will mean longer
commutes and the potential for worsening air quality. It will mean
less time with family and more time on the highway. Overall, it will
mean a degraded quality of life for most Bay Area residents. Unless
housing is built in the Bay Area to accommodate them, about 250,000
people will be living outside the Bay Area -- in the Central Valley,
the Sacramento Valley, the Monterey region -- and commuting to jobs
in the Bay Area.
The premise of Smart Growth is that the Bay Area can grow in a different
way than in the past and reduce the potential that valuable open space
and agricultural land will be consumed to build an excessive amount
of housing "on the edge." Transportation funding would be
re-directed towards building and improving public transportation services
and facilities instead of building more freeways and interchanges,
and our quality of life would improve rather than continue to decline.
In other words, Smart Growth means that by making better land use
and transportation decisions we can accommodate our children and their
children and others that want to make the Bay Area their home.
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What is the Smart Growth Strategy/Regional Livability Footprint
Project?
The Smart Growth Strategy/Regional Livability Footprint Project is
a groundbreaking visioning effort involving local government elected
officials and staff members, community representatives, regional stakeholders,
and business, equity and environmental coalitions. The Project's underlying
objective is to figure out how the Bay Area can maintain its economic
vitality and conserve natural resources while allowing all segments
of society to share in the region's economic and environmental assets.
The goal is to develop a preferred land use pattern, "Vision"
to minimize sprawl, provide adequate and affordable housing, improve
mobility, protect environmental quality, and preserve open space.
The Vision will inform how the Bay Area can grow smarter and become
more sustainable over the next 20-25 years, and will help frame other
Project Goals to identify and secure regulatory changes and fiscal
incentives that promote smart growth, and to develop policy-based
Projections.
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How did the Project begin and who manages
it?
The idea for developing a public workshop process for visioning how
the Bay Area would grow began to ferment in 1999 with staff and elected
officials at the Association of Bay
Area Governments (ABAG). It then was presented to and embraced
by the other four regional agencies: Metropolitan
Transportation Commission, Bay
Area Air Quality Management District, Bay
Conservation and Development Commission, and Regional
Quality Control Board. At about the same time, members of the
Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable
Communities (Bay Area Alliance), a partnership of over forty membership-based
groups organized around the three "E's" of sustainability-a
prosperous economy, a healthy environment and social equity -- began
planning for its own public planning process called the Regional Livability
Footprint. The two projects, the Regional Agencies' Smart Growth Strategy
and the Bay Area Alliance's Footprint Project, came together in 2000
as a joint effort and is being managed by ABAG staff. On-going assistance
has also been provided in this collaborative effort by individuals
representing the participating agencies and social equity, economy,
and environment interests. More information about the history of the
Project is available on our page.
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What are the Project goals?
The Project, from its outset, identified three goals:
- Create a smart growth land use vision for the Bay Area to minimize
sprawl, provide adequate and affordable housing, improve mobility,
protect environmental quality, and preserve open space.
- Identify and obtain regulatory changes and incentives needed
to accomplish these objectives.
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Who was involved in the Smart Growth
visioning process?
Members of the public, local government elected officials and staff
members, and representatives of the three "Es"
of sustainability (Economy, Environment, and Social Equity)
were an essential part of the visioning process.
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What are the results of
the visioning process?
Basically, there are two products from the
workshops. The narrative Smart Growth Vision presents a picture
of the region as it might look 20 years from now if smart growth
principles guide our future land use decision-making. As a Vision,
this narrative (which is highlighted in the Project Final
Report) does not impose a requirement on local governments.
The second product of the workshops is a set of jobs and housing
numbers developed by workshop participants who envisioned how their
communities might look if different land use strategies are used.
More than two thousand participants from the nine Bay Area counties
participated in these workshops. Many different scenarios and kinds
of development were considered, which in the end produced the set
of jobs and housing numbers. These jobs and housing numbers, based
on a decision by the Steering Committee, were used as a starting
point by ABAG staff for the development of policy-based
Projections as contrasted with the traditional trends-based
Projections.
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How were the concerns and priorities
of the public and local governments reflected in this process?
Each step of the Project has involved both the public and local
governments. A Steering Committee made up of representatives of
the regional agencies (all of whom are locally elected officials),
and representatives of the Bay
Area Alliance have overseen the development and implementation
of the Project. The workshops were public and were attended by private
citizens representing a variety of interests, as well as city, county
and regional agency staff members and local elected officials. A
narrative Smart Growth Vision has been approved by the Smart Growth
Steering Committee, and is described in the Project's Final
Report. Projections 2003, the policy-based
growth forecasts that reflect the Vision, underwent a review and
comment process, during which jurisdictions suggested changes to
the final numbers. Any incentives and changes in regulatory decision-making
will be enacted by elected officials at the local and state level.
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Does the Vision dictate land use to local
governments?
The Vision will not control or dictate to counties, cities, and
towns what land use decisions they must make. What comes out of
this process, in addition to the narrative Vision, will be policy-based
Projections, which will be used by the Metropolitan
Transportation Commission as the basis for the 2004 Regional
Transportation Plan, by other regional agencies in their planning
efforts, and by local jurisdictions as a twenty-year smart growth
guideline. Local governments retain their land use authority and
their charge to oversee the growth of their communities. The Project
simply is offering an alternative that can be used by local governments
as a tool to make the best possible land-use decisions to better
shape the future of the Bay Area.
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The Smart Growth Vision isn't mandated...
how will we see results?
We hope to see results primarily in land use decision-making at
the local level that reflects smart growth principles and the enactment
of regulatory changes and fiscal incentives that give local governments
the tools to make these different choices work.
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How does Projections
2003 differ from ABAG's trends-based forecasts?
Historically, ABAG has issued every two years trends-based population,
employment, and land-use projections, with Projections 2002 as the
latest forecast. These forecasts take existing and forecasted economic
conditions and land uses to project future population, housing and
employment. They reflect ABAG's best estimate of what is likely
to occur based on existing local government policies and what has
occurred in the past.
Projections 2003 is based on smart growth policies consistent with
the Vision. These policy-based forecasts will assume local governments
will make land-use decisions in the future that are different from
those they have made in the past, e.g. approving slightly higher
housing densities and/or rezoning commercial land to mixed use.
In other words, policy-based Projections 2003 reflects job and housing
growth scenarios for the next 20 years that are based on the premise
of implementing smart growth land-use policies with the support
of incentives and smart growth regulatory changes at the state level.
More information on policy-based projections is available on the
Projections 2003 page.
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How will Projections 2003 be used and
what is its intended objective?
On March 20, 2003, Projections 2003 was formally adopted by the
ABAG Executive Board. Now the projections will have the following
short and long term applicability:
- They will underscore the Bay Area's commitment to growing in
a "smarter" way, and increase chances that regulatory
changes and incentives can be obtained at the state level.
- The Metropolitan Transportation
Commission will base the development of its 2004 Regional
Transportation Plan on Projections 2003,
thereby beginning to influence transportation funding decisions
which in turn could begin to impact future growth patterns (most
likely after 2008-10 planning time frame).
- They will be used as a benchmark in the future to evaluate how
well the Bay Area moves towards a smarter land use pattern.
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When will we see results from Projections
2003?
This is a long term guideline. The Metropolitan
Transportation Commission and other regional partners will utilize
Projections 2003 to guide long-term infrastructure investments, in
particular transportation improvements. On the other hand, there may
be more immediate results if local governments voluntarily make local
land-use decisions based on smart growth principles. Projections 2003
will periodically be revised and updated to reflect the smart growth
dynamics that the Smart Growth Vision proposes.
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What is the timeline for the Smart Growth
Project?
A Chronology and detailed analysis of the Smart Growth Strategy/Regional
Livability Footprint Project is available on our Project
Chronology.
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