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Comment 36 for Comments on the RTAC (sb375-rtac-ws) - 1st Workshop.


First Name: Connie
Last Name: Galambos Malloy
Email Address: connie@urbanhabitat.org
Affiliation: Urban Habitat

Subject: SCS - Housing Affordability
Comment:
August 20, 2009

Chairman Mike McKeever and members  
Regional Targets Advisory Committee
California Air Resources Board
1001 I Street
P.O. Box 2815
Sacramento, CA  95812

Dear Chairman McKeever and members of the RTAC: 

I am writing to you representing low income communities and
communities of color in the San Francisco Bay Area who are active
around environmental issues including but not limited to GHG
reductions.  We are concerned that the state’s greenhouse gas
reduction targets could negatively impact the development
community’s ability to offer affordable rents and mortgages to all
Californians and urge you to adopt recommendations that achieve
significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and promote the
development of affordable, compact homes.  

Multiple GHG reduction benefits will accrue if a variety of
housing types and affordability levels are part of the development
pattern in every Sustainable Communities Strategy.  Two crucial
pieces of this include pptimizing the GHG reductions achieved by an
improved jobs-housing balance, and increasing the GHG reductions
achieved by new transit-oriented developments.   

To ensure we meet not both social equity and environmental goals,
Urban Habitat supports Mike Rawson’s July 31, 2009, proposal to
incorporate the following factors and methodologies:

•	Quantification of the effect of housing affordability on GHG
emissions (including affordability in relation to wage levels);  

•	Projections, by region, of the relative increase or decrease in
homes affordable to households at various income levels
(particularly the availability of below-market-rate homes) and
attendant effect on GHG emissions over the target period;  

•	Crediting regions that exceed the housing affordability
projections with quantified GHG reductions; and 

•	Analysis of the potential and actual displacement from compacted
development, quantification of the effect of displacement on GHG
emissions, and GHG reduction credit to regions that prevent or
mitigate displacement.

Additionally, Metropolitan Planning Organizations need a modeling
tool to measure the impacts of potential SCS development patterns
on their region’s land prices and home affordability.  Housing
California is working with an MPO to determine how PECAS could be
adapted to provide this information to policymakers.  With the
information, an MPO can more accurately access whether its
forecasted development pattern is realistic and will achieve the
region’s GHG reduction target.  

It is increasingly clear that cleaner air, healthier families,
vibrant communities, and more affordable homes can be achieved
through improved land use planning.  In solidarity with such
networks as Housing California, we urge you to adopt our
recommendations to spread these benefits to Californians at all
income levels.

Sincerely, 

Connie Galambos Malloy, Director of Programs
Urban Habitat
Oakland, CA


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Date and Time Comment Was Submitted: 2009-08-20 12:11:38



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