Comment Log Display

November 4, 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. 

The Kennedy Commission is a broad based coalition of community
advocates focused on creating and increasing housing options
available to Orange County’s lowest income residents. More
specifically, the mission of the Kennedy Commission is: to create
the systemic change required to increase the production of housing
for Orange County’s extremely low-income households.  The
Commission’s volunteers and staff strive to develop solutions to
housing needs, to affirm the dignity of families of low and
extremely low income and to unite communities across Orange County
to support affordable housing development.

In Orange County, housing is unaffordable for most working
families. The average median price for a home is $499,999 and the
Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,546, making it
one of the top ten least affordable rental markets in the nation
(National Low Income Housing, 2009). Clearly homeownership and
rentals are out of reach for lower income working families and they
are greatly impacted by the lack of affordable housing
opportunities. The lack of affordability of housing for working
families in Orange County forces many to overcrowd or live in long
distances from jobs in more affordable Counties. This in turn
increases commuter traffic and congestion in our highways. For
these reasons we believe that many of these issues need to be
addressed in a comprehensive regional planning approach that
addresses a better jobs-housing fit.

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, 

Cesar Covarrubias
Executive Director 
Kennedy Commission
17701 Cowan Ave. #200
Irvine, CA 92614
Kennedycommission.org