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Comment 16 for Comments in general on ARB Implementation of SB 375 (sb375-general-ws) - 1st Workshop.


First Name: Erin
Last Name: Camarena
Email Address: ecamarena@lisc.org
Affiliation:

Subject: In Support of Housing Affordability in the Greenhouse Gas Equation
Comment:
November 3, 2009


Mary Nichols
Chair, Air Resources Board
1001 "I" Street
P.O. Box 2815 
Sacramento, CA 95812


Dear Chairwoman Nichols and members of the board: 

We urge you to adopt the comprehensive recommendations from the
Regional Targets Advisory Committee (RTAC) at your November 19,
2009, meeting.  Crafted by a representative group of stakeholders
and your able staff, the RTAC report carefully balances greenhouse
gas reduction goals with social equity considerations of the
impacts on lower-income Californians. 

Bay Area Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is part of a
national nonprofit and is one of twenty-nine field offices across
the country. Bay Area LISC’s work spans the nine-county Bay Area
and extends as far north as Sacramento, with the majority focused
in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara
Counties. Our goal it to help community-based organizations
transform communities and neighborhoods into healthy ones: good
places to live, do business, work and raise families. We believe in
taking an equitable approach to community development. This means
working to ensure that low-income communities throughout the Bay
Area have improved access to affordable housing and jobs, and share
the co-benefits of regional efforts to reduced greenhouse gas
emissions. 

Although supportive of the report as a whole, we urge your
particular consideration of the following recommendations:     

1.	Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) should update their
data collection and modeling to quantify the greenhouse gas
reduction impacts of housing affordability, gentrification, and
jobs-housing fit.  As defined in the report, "jobs-housing fit" is
the extent to which the rents and mortgages in a community are
affordable to people who work there.  In theory, a stronger
jobs-housing fit should allow Californians to reduce their commute
times and distances.  However, this link needs to be tested and
quantified, as do the links between home affordability generally
and gentrification.
2.	Performance measures for the sustainable communities strategy
should include the jobs-housing fit and 5 other housing-related
measures.    
3.	MPOs' progress in meeting goals should be measured through
modeling and other sound scientific approaches.
4.	The co-benefits of greenhouse gas reductions should be measured
and reported. 
We appreciate your consideration of our views.     

Sincerely, 

Erin Camarena
Assistant Program Officer: Green Connection
Bay Area LISC 

Attachment: www.arb.ca.gov/lists/sb375-general-ws/20-bay_area_lisc_letter.doc

Original File Name: Bay Area LISC Letter.doc

Date and Time Comment Was Submitted: 2009-11-03 15:58:30



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