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Land Development

Marin power/a closer look

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Marinscope newspapers.  Newspointer

October 13-19,  1993

Meandering , Dwayne Hunn

Marin’s Economic Conference talked about what affordable housing producers have bemoaned for over a decade. In countless council and planning commission presentations, housing advocates campaigned to bring jobs and affordable housing closer together to benefit economics as well as families.

Housing professionals from North Bay Ecumenical Housing, where I once worked, and the Ecumenical Association for Housing attracted little support relative to the need. Warnings that forcing latch key families into longer distance commutes would come back to harm the region were ignored. Why ignored? Because Marin’s power brokers:

1) Believe Marin is too rich and beautiful to suffer even from a national tidal wave of sick economics;

2) Have successfully convinced Marin that they are the White Knights protecting Marin from the omnipresent Darth Vader developers and businesses.

You know those Devious Vader characters — like one developer, who through an equity sharing trust fund wanted to make over half the 2500 units at his proposed Hamilton development affordable for ownership to people earning under $40,000; like the Buck Center on Aging which wants to build a research center dealing with aging ills; or just profit hungry developers who wanted to build 40 relatively affordable units on 20 acres of land but are told by Marin city councils that only six mega-expensive estates will be allowed.

Marin’s power brokers have done a superb job. It helps that the handful of them attach environmental sounding titles to their names. Titles that through much of the nation have done good things for the environment. Consequently, the good vibes created by those environmentalists working outside of Marin benefits Marin’s NIMBYIZED environmentalists.

Marin voters who are unable or unwilling to learn of true local needs believe that whatever Marin’s environmental power brokers have to say is good and right. Those who have tried to aid Marin’s housing and business needs have been ignored for years in front of permit approving agencies. To them Sacramento’s Marin moniker rings true, “the Capitol of NIMBYISM.”

Too many business and developers don’t realize where power lies. Today’s frontiers of growth do not hinge on conquering a physical frontier, resources, courage, skill on technology. Today’s frontiers are perceptual.

When I comment to the guy in the YMCA’s steam room about the IJ’s “Economic forum” headline that, “I don’t have to go to know what was discussed at the forum — expensive housing, long commutes — and the environmental community ignores their pleas.”

“Lucky for us, or we’d be like Oakland…” he responds.

There it is. Perception. A stellar PR selling job. Is he uninformed, unwilling to learn or baked as a rock hard NIMBY? How can you be like Oakland when 88% of the land is in open space agricultural reserve or parks? When only 3% of the land, mostly in the County’s developmental corridor along the railroad track east of the 101, remains for development? How can you become like Oakland?

Today perception scores victories. It’s not how well you can hit a line drive or build a business or create a user friendly, ecologically sound, affordable mixed used development. The skill and building is the easy part. Getting the chance to play the right bail game is the tough part.

A suggestion to businesses and developers. Realize the game is, unfortunately, early and long term politics and marketing. Give a quality product that addresses real environmental, family and economic needs. Join forces regionally to supply those answers.

For example, let me resurrect a regional answer I worked on years ago to little avail..  I tried to convince ten large land-holders along the Marin-Sonoma rail line to jointly draw up plans for what they would like to do with their land. Their planning limits would be to address regional needs with their combined regional developments.

Sonoma wants a train and less freeway. Sonoma wants Marin to provide more of it’s own affordable housing needs. Sonoma and Marin want to reduce 101’s traffic. Marin businesses need large office buildings which their office workers can easily reach. Some communities are hurting for sales tax revenues and a regional tax sharing plan would alleviate the trend toward over commercialization. So work together and draw up a master plan to address those regional needs. Don’t waste time, money and energy skirmishing with the power brokers one-on-one, community by community– without a unified grand vision. Landowners hold the most basic answer to many human and environmental needs–the dirt.

Don’t wait for the government to stumble through decades of devising a regional plan– do it better by yourself. With a plan that offers a host of beneficial answers, you can start winning the perception battle. The perception battle determines the economic and environmental winners.

 

 

Library

Lobby Diamond initiated lawsuits

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LAW OFFICES OF

ROGER JON DIAMOND

2115 MAIN STREET

SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA 90405-2215

TELEPHONE (310) 399-3259

FAX (310) 392-9029

September 10, 1993

Dwayne Hunn

359 Jean Street

Mill Valley, CA 94941

Re:       People’s Lobby

Dear Dwayne:

Further to my letter of September 8, 1993, I located a list of People’s Lobby cases. They are as follows:

  1. People’s Lobby v. Joe Gonzalves, LASC No. 104128 (1974);
  1. Fair Political Practices Commission v. Superior Court, 25 Cal.3d 33 (1979);
  1. People’s Lobby v. The MaY Department Stores, LASC No. WEC30641 (1974) ;
  1. People’s Lobby v. Legislature of the State of California, Sacramento Superior Court No. 246263 (1974);
  1. Los Anaeles County-Fair Association v. People’s Lobby, LASC No. EAC112O5 (1970) ;
  1. People’s Lobby v. Board of Supervisors, 30 Cal.App.3d 869 (1973) ;
  1. People’s Lobby v. Post, California Supreme Court No. SAC79 37;
  1. People’s Lobby v Ed Reinecke, LASC No. CA000l5l (1974);
  1. People’s Lobby v. Ed Reinecke, LASC No. WEC25264 (1972);
  1. Helena Rubenstin International v. Younger, 71 Cal.App.3d 406 (1977) ;
  1. People’s Lobby v. Younger, LASC No. 98983 and Second Civil No. 45770 (Court of Appeal);
  1. Peo~1e’s Lobby v. Standard Oil Company, LASC No. 024291 (1972) ;
  1. People’s Lobby v. Public Utilities Commission, 76 PUC 414 (1974);
  1. People’s Lobby v. Texaco, L~.SC No. 984102 (1970);
  1. People’s Lobby v. Younger, California Supreme Court No. SF23174 (1974)
  1. People’s Lobby v. Younger, LASC No. 98983;
  1. Kou~al v. Rosales, LASC No. 0138728;
  1. Kou~a1 v. Los Angeles Air Pollution Control District, USDC, Central District of California No. 70-92—FW (1970);
  1. Danielson v. Alioto, San Francisco Superior Court No. 680381 and 680369 (1974) ;
  1. Diamond v. Bland, 3 Cal.3d 653 (1970) and 11 Cal.3d 331 (1974)

If you would like to discuss these cases in detail with me please let me know.

Sincerely,

ROGER JON DIAMOND

RJD:jb

Library

Roger Diamond remembers

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LAW OFFICES OF

ROGER JON DIAMOND

2115 MAIN STREET

SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA 90405-2215

TELEPHONE 1310) 399-3259

FAX 13101 392-9029

 September 8, 1993

Dwayne Hunn

359 Jean Street

Mill Valley, CA 94941

Re:       People’s Lobby

Dear Dwayne:

Thank you for your letter of August 19, 1993. It did not arrive until September 2, 1993 by fax.

I would like to help you in any way I can. I think that your project is extremely worthwhile and will be quite a tribute to Ed and Joyce.

With respect to your 22 questions, I will briefly answer them now but I can give more detailed responses should you choose to interview me.

First, I met Ed and Joyce in 1968 or 1969 shortly after they ran the recall Reagan campaign. They had run a statewide recall measure designed to recall Governor Ronald Reagan. I had just helped begin an organization known as the Clean Air Council. had suggested to the Clean Air Council that we run a statewide initiative to stop air pollution.

Ed and Joyce heard about the Clean Air Council and our plans to do an initiative and we combined forces because of Ed and Joyce’s experience in doing a statewide petition.

I drafted the Clean Environment Act Initiative Petition and we began circulating it in 1969. We wanted to qualify it in time for the June 1970 ballot. I was one of the official proponents of the measure.

Ed, Joyce, and I had circulators out at numerous establishments including shopping centers.

A volunteer circulator, William Duxler, was ordered to leave the Inland Center in San Bernardino on October 30, 1969. The shopping center claimed he was trespassing on private property. I prepared and filed a lawsuit on November 5, 1969 against the Sheriff of San Bernardino County, Frank Bland and numerous other defendants, including the shopping center owner. I went to San Bernardino and sought a temporary restraining order from Judge Haberkorn on November 5, 1969.

He denied the TRO but set it down for preliminary injunction hearing on November 14, 1969. On that day I had just completed my first jury trial and while the jury was deliberating in East Los Angeles, I drove to San Bernardino in time for the 1:30 court appearance. At that time I argued the shopping center case. Judge James E. Cunningham, an ex State Senator heard the case and denied the injunction.

I appealed to the California Court of Appeal on an expedited basis. On May 25, 1970, the Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment of the Superior Court that we had no right of access. then petitioned the State Supreme Court for review.

Incidentally, the initiative campaign failed in January of 1970. However, we planned another initiative for the 1972 ballot.

At the same time, I was a candidate for State Assembly. I won the June 1970 primary and was on the ballot for November 2, 1970.

I went to Sacramento on November 3, 1970, the day I lost the general election, to argue the case before the Supreme Court. Because United Airlines lost my luggage, I had to argue the case in a borrowed suit. It was my first argument before the Supreme Court.

I began the argument by telling the Court that we needed a speedy decision because the People’s Lobby was planning to do another initiative and we needed to get access to shopping centers right away. Chief Justice Donald Wright leaned over and told me that they always decide their cases quickly.

In any event, the California Supreme Court on December 16, 1970 reversed the lower courts and ruled that we did have a right to go on to shopping centers to get other signatures. It was a landmark ruling.

With access to shopping centers guaranteed by the Diamond v. Bland decision, People’s Lobby proceeded to circulate and qualify the Clean Environment Act Initiative for the June 1972 election.

I again ran for State Assembly and won the primary in June of  1972.  Unfortunately, the Clean Environment Act, which qualified for the ballot (Proposition 9) was defeated.

We then decided that we wanted to do political reform before we tried to solve the environmental mess and we returned to the streets with the Political Reform Act which qualified for the 1974 ballot and which won. Proposition 9 became law.

I had not been politically active prior to the People’s Lobby.

Indeed, it was in January 1970 when I was speaking to the Santa Monica Democratic Club to support the initiative that was then being circulated, the Santa Monica Democratic Club suggested that I run for State Assembly. Thus, it was the People’s Lobby at work itself that got me involved in politics.

With respect to my participation in the People’s Lobby, it remained. I testified before United States Senate Committee on the national initiative.

Ed and Joyce were truly wonderful people to work with. Our greatest ability was the ability to move quickly. We were not a bureaucratical organization. Ed, Joyce, and I could decide matters very quickly. We had a great ability to get to court on a moments notice.

We took the question of whether Ed Reinecke was disqualified from holding office by virtue of his perjury conviction to the Supreme Court in a matter of days. Ed was very charismatic and Joyce was very thoughtful and helpful.

I remember Ed debating the President of the State Chamber of Commerce on statewide television just prior to the 1972 election regarding the Clean Environment Act.

The most disappointing thing was losing the 1972 election and the most gratifying was winning the 1974 Political Reform Act Initiative.

I would like to offer additional thoughts and memories but time does not permit. I would be glad to sit for a lengthy interview and give you my thoughts and memories in more detail.

There are countless People’s Lobby cases you have not mentioned in your letter to me. You reviewed most of the appellate court decisions but there were numerous other cases that you should mention in any book you are writing.

I would be glad to send you a list or discuss that if you should come down to Los Angeles.

Keep up the good work. I hope you complete the project.

Sincerely,

ROGER JON DIAMOND

RJD:jb

Land Development, SunTrain

Pedestrian Pockets II

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Mill Valley Herald  April 7–13, 1993
Dwayne Hunn

Last week’s interview with Architect Peter Calthorpe touched on some of the economic consequences of short-sighted land use policy. This column touches on some political and policy problems.

We have no technological problems with providing the answers. Architects and engineers can design cost efficient housing and transit solutions. Build it and they will comeapplies as well to the heavy on the brown mustard, hot dog eating baseball fan, as to the American desiring enjoyable and affordable housing and transportation. The snobbish estate dweller, however, doesn’t want one blade of grass touched in his Fields of Green to allow Joe Sixpack to live nearby.

Houseboat liver Calthorpe’s architectural work hinges on the belief that:

“We need to design communities and housing for a more diverse cross section. We need to think about affordability in terms of transportation as well as mortgage and rental costs. This all adds up to design that is more integrated– mixed-use, walkable communities where every trip doesn’t have to be in an automobile.”

This week’s column refers to the decade long 101 Corridor Study Plan which, wounded from its Transit Tax defeat in 1990, stumbles along. That plan concluded that Rail/Highway & Bus/Highway transit alternatives would yield the most effective transit solutions for Marin and Sonoma counties.

Rail and Pedestrian Pocket developments offer an invigorating symbiotic mix for what ails our nation today. The diversity and self-sufficiency offered in Pedestrian Pockets is given environmentally sound travel mobility when built adjacent to a rail line. Being able to move from one PP to another, or to a shopping center while viewing patches of open space in between, or to work in the big city–offers economy, free time and pleasure– three gifts lacking when strapped behind a freeway wheel.

 What hinders Pedestrian Pockets implementation?

Main hindrance is inertia. Inertia of: existing zoning regulations, existing vested land use designations, a financial community which feels safest repeating last year’s products, and developers who only want to deal with their isolated site rather. than regional concerns. And, quite honestly, the inertia of envinonnienta1ists who see their role in resisting any development rather than defining and advocating an ecological pattern of growth for an entire region.

The sum total of this inertia is what propels a pattern of growth which we know is bad for the environment, costly to communities, individually and socially stressful, and quite frankly, esthetically repugnant to most. But we do it anyway.

How do PPs fit with the 101 Corridor Committee’s two preferred alternatives — Rail/Highway and Bus/Highway?

A difficult question. I believe ultimately a healthy pattern of growth for a region will require and sustain light rail. If the BART study’s 40% utilization can be generated by PPs, this demand could only be satisfied by light rail. But it is a bit of the chicken and egg problem — how do we get there from here? If PPs are built without light rail, they would generate too much auto traffic. Without PPs, light rail would have a very low ridership and need to be heavily subsidized.

It is the transition time that is tricky. One scenario would use the right-of-way for express buses and carpools while the PPs are developing. When they mature and the ridership is high, a light rail should be installed. The danger, of course, is that it would never be installed and the pressures to turn the bus way into an auto expressway would be great. Although less efficient in the short run, I favor the light rail as a way of committing our growth to this compact transit oriented future configuration.

If we look 20-30 years down the road, we know we have to make such an investment. Even though it seems expensive now, it will be just more expensive later. I recently read that the CEO of Exxon expected to be out of the oil business by 2010 because US oil reserves would be depleted by then. We must plan our communities with that perspective in mind.

 How much of Marin and Sonoma’s projected population do you believe could be housed in PPs?

Anywhere from 50-70% of the Association of Bay Area Governments’ projections could fit in viable sites for both counties. The numbers are much lower for Marin because we have only a few viable sites left. Sonoma, however, has a great capacity for this type of development. The Marin sites along the North West Pacific right-of-way are limited by their adjacency to wetlands. Sonoma really doesn’t have this limitation north of Petaluma.

So the concept is not to eliminate all of our single family subdivisions and office parks, but merely to create a land use pattern that offers an alternative to people in businesses seeking more convenient accessibility and more affordable options.

Does Marin still have time to do this?

Unfortunately, in Marin these sites are dropping by the wayside as they develop oriented toward the freeway or lower density single use activities. The fabric of these developments should be diverse–townhouses, condos, elderly and young, in-law and rental units. We don’t need to build isolated, segregated apartment blocks. We should be integrating our needs for private ownership with the need for affordable rental, housing for elderly and college students by allowing in-law apartments in our communities.

Mixed-use zones, where you have jobs and retail, must be the center these developments. Our current land use policies segregate our land uses, we must get away from that. Diversity is the idea. Ground floor  retail. Second floor apartments.

Most popular office parks are now integrating retail and services. In the East Bay a lot of the areas that are being focused toward carpooling understand that if they want people to carpool they have to create a pedestrian environment for their mid-day and afternoon trips.

 

Common Sense Opeds, Land Development

Interviewing Angelo Siracusa — Bay Area Council boss

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Marinscope / Mill Valley Herald  March 29–April 4, 1993
 Dwayne Hunn

In 1966 he began working for the Bay Area Council (BAC). Today he runs it. In 1973 he moved to Sausalito, and his Berkeley girlfriend followed. In 1983 Angelo and Diana Siracusa bought their Hawk Hill home overlooking Tam Junction.

If you enjoy an engaging speaker who pulls few punches and knows his subject, listen to him when you can. Until then, read this.

What does the Bay Area Council do?

BAC is a business supported membership organization that engages in public policy issues that have an economic and social dimension. We are involved in housing, transportation, job training, economic development and growth management.

Our economic perspective is through the eyes of business so some in the environmental community dispute whether we act in the public interest. We believe we do. Housing affordability, for example, is a public interest issue, effecting peoples’ livelihood as well as corporate location and business expansion.

How has BAC’s agenda changed over the last 20 to 30 years?

Oddly, not very much. When the Council was first formed almost 50 years ago, we were almost exclusively an economic development, growth-oriented organization concerned about promoting post-war growth.

For the past 20 years we have been close to the stuff that is affected by and affects land use. For a while, when the Association of Bay Area Governments was doing the Bay Area Management Plan, we were more deeply involved in environmental questions. We are now in environmental issues largely because of the relationship between air quality and transportation.

Oddly enough, almost 20 years ago we were deeply involved in regional planning when then Assemblyman Jack Knox introduced regional planning and governance bills. Now they are back at the top of our agenda. Recently, we were significantly involved in the development and legislative work of SB 797 which would have created a regional growth management for the Bay Area.

Prior to the 1962 ballot election on whether to issue $792 million to construct 75 miles of the BART system, San Mateo and Marin dropped out. Why did Marin drop out?

Marin dropped out for the same reason Marin resists transportation today. They thought transit would be growth inducing.

They may have hid under the argument of the Golden Gate Bridge’s inadequate engineering capacity to handle fixed rail, but the real reason was the attitude that exists today. That is Marin doesn’t want a transit system that would generate what transit systems should generate–higher density development close to transportation corridors.

How would BART or a light rail system through the North Bay effect land use?

Tough to say. When we were first thinking about BART in the Bay Area, the Mayor of Toronto gave us a presentation showing how well theirs works. His slide presentation showed clusters of high density activity around their subway stations. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on where you stand, Toronto has a metropolitan system that was able to force not just transit decisions but related land use decisions. We don’t have that in the Bay Area. Here a city or a county can say, “Even though there’s a transit station here, we don’t want to change the land patterns.” The transit station’s existence should promote development there. Instead, the will of the local government too often stymies that sensible land use.

Do you think increased rail systems development would increase the development of Sausalito architect Peter Calthorpe’s Pedestrian Pockets?

Calthorpe’s PPs is really founded on the notion that you can get a home to work environment. A jobs-housing balance creates less of a necessity for either highways or transit. Therefore, I don’t see a necessary causal relationship between PPs and transit.

The Calthorpe idea, which I strongly endorse, is “let’s create a physical, psychological and economic environment where a person can and will want to live and work in the same general area.” That “will want to” is very important.

What’s one thing you’d like Marinites to think more deeply about?

Their narrow view of their own self interest. We all want open space next to us and less traffic. It’s part of our view of quality of life. Yet that can be a very narrow, parochial, selfish view. Marin is the worse example of that.

Marin’s density pattern is appallingly low. Density can be good for the environment — although others will disagree. There is nothing wrong with protecting the dairy lands of West Marin, but I don’t buy anti-development arguments surrounding Hamilton Field or Silvera (Ranch). We need to have the jobs-housing balance that sensible development at those sites can provide.

I’m unhappy with Marin’s extreme NIM­BYism. Yet I can understand it. All of us believe that our view of the environment is the world view of the environment, but Marin’s predominant view isn’t environmentalism. It’s extreme NIMBYism.

Do you think the 11 cities in Marin have dif­ferent attitudes regarding these problems?

No doubt about it. The political philosophies of southern and northern Marin are terribly dif­ferent. As it turns out, NIMBYism happens to transcend political philosophy. Even conservatives who love the market place and property rights can be as exclusionary as extreme environmentalists. So while they are different, it’s as difficult to get things done in Novato as in Mill Valley.

When you are on the social circuit, maybe at Marin parties, are you…

I’m the outcast. Yeah, I’m not too popular.  A lot of people think I state my beliefs with respect to other communities but not Mill Valley. My beliefs are also true for Mill Valley. We should develop different kinds of density patterns even in my hometown.

Somebody wanted to build a home in my neighborhood, and somebody else passed a peti­tion to not allow it. I testified on behalf of the developer. Not because I liked the developer, but because that person had a right to build there. An infrastructure existed. Homes were already there. Development did not change the character of the community.

Could hearing characters like Angelo Siracusa improve Marin or just hurt the gray stuff between exclusive ears?

Land Development

Neighborhoods at St.Vincent’s-Silveira?

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Mill Valley Herald  March 29–April 4, 1993

Meanderings  by Dwayne Hunn, 

Final interview series on Pedestrian Pockets.

 If you are interested in various Pedestrian Pocket designs, visit St. Vincent’s Design competition on display through April, sponsored to provide the city with development ideas on one of Marin’s most significant remaining pieces of land.

Eight years ago Peter Calthorpe’s business was struggling. He was struggling to get people to listen and build the old fashioned way—with neighborhoods embedded in Pedestrian Pockets (PP). Remember the neighborhoods—playing in the street, biking to a neighborhood park, returning a coke bottle to the Mom and Pop store—for pennies or a stick of licorice?

Sometimes the best quality of changing, growing, adapting is in returning us to where we began. In a shrinking world where ideas, change, competition and dollars fly ever faster, shortsightedness and political selfishness can damn a nation’s development if her most basic resource—land—is used wastefully.

Today Calthorpe continually appears in print and has appeared on network nightly news. His Sacramento Laguna West Development, about 1,000 acres for 10,000 residents with bungalows from $20,000 to custom homes at $400,000, is the nation’s largest Pedestrian Pocket. Nonetheless, not enough people understand the importance inherent in moving the political process that stymies this common sense land use approach which fosters economic security and a healthier life.

At least, however the idea of community centered development woven together by narrow streets, front porches, easily identifiable civic buildings and walkable thoroughfares has moved beyond idealized discussion into market reality. Even housing market analyst and owner of Market Perspectives, John Schleimer, reversed his critical PP market beliefs based on the results of his survey of 619 homeowners at Laguna West and three other “neo-traditional” neighborhoods in Florida, Washington D.C. and Memphis. Those homeowners were willing to pay a “premium” because they felt their homes would appreciate more than the traditional suburban neighborhood.

Here in Marin it remains to be seen whether the debate over the need for Pedestrian Pocket development reaches the level of sense. Marin’s environmental movement, long controlled by a handful of politically astute, so-called environmentalists, has been opposed to PPs. If some fresh thinkers, concerned about community, affordability and environmental sensitivity ever get into the inner sanctums of these organizations, an interesting debate over true environmental issues might ensue.

Are PPs working anywhere else?

They work all over Europe where the traditional towns are mixed use communities in which rail transportation provides a healthy alternative to auto use. In Canada there are regions that have directed growth into transit oriented communities. In Marin, prior to the Golden Gate Bridge construction, we had many fine models that grew around rail stops. These town centers, such as Mill Valley, are among the most desirable places to live because of their mixed-use qualities.

If you were a planner in charge of the remaining land in Sonoma and Marin, what would you have cities, counties and developers do?

Zone for mixed use growth along the North West Pacific rail corridor. In some cases, this would merely mean transferring development rights from one part of a site to another.

For example, take the St. Vincent site. Presently San Rafael has St. Vincent’s thousand acres zoned for low density housing spread over a large portion of that land, along with some commercial uses. This development could be clustered into a 100 acre of mixed-use adjacent to the rail line leaving the wetlands and beautiful rolling hills as open space. None of the development would be visible from the freeway. The community would gain valuable open space, transit ridership would be reinforced and the land owner would still be allowed a reasonable level of return for his property.

    Some environmentalists fear that PPs development and rail transit may impact the wetlands. What is your response?

The wetland areas are critical issues mainly in northern Marin and south Petaluma. Much of the rail corridor is to the north as will be much of the growth. Therefore a lot of the PP development should take place in areas away from the wetlands.

In Marin there are few viable sites for PPs. In these sites development in the wetlands should be avoided. Once again, clustered development would provide the means to preserve the open space permanently by exchanging the development rights in the pocket for permanent open space easements on the wetlands and other important open space areas.

What is needed to move the PP concept to the next stage?

Some model PPs that the environmental and financial community can look at and judge. We are now working on opportunities along the new rail line in San Jose and in Sacramento. If these are built they would generate the concept and test its results. These two cities with their existing light rail systems are in an advanced position to test the idea.

In Marin and Sonoma the next step must be for the 101 Corridor Committee to study a transit option which forces transit oriented land uses. If such a study proves the case, we would have the basis for moving ahead with financing for transit and land use studies in each county and municipality. But such a regional unifying study has to be a prerequisite.

Land Development

Pedestrian pockets

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Mill Valley Herald  March 15–21, 1993

Meandering by Dwayne Hunn

This Is the first of a series, of columns on land use and transit problems facIng the North Bay, as well as the nation. Whether you live In San Rafael, Novato, Ross, Mill Valley or a big city, the way we use our most basic resource–the land– affects you, your loved ones and the environment. If you have comments, address them to Letters to the Editor or to the columnist.

 Across much of our nation short-sighted land use and transit planning burdens us with traffic congestion and longer commutes. In a failing economy, when the. full cost of car ownership is added to the cost of insufficient affordable housing not dependent on a car for work, the sum soon adds homeless, cardboard shacks and Safeway carts to the streets.

With one clogged artery running through its verdant body. Maria County frustrates workers pumping the North Bay’s economic life blood. With its penchant for downzoning developments to allow only pricey estates, Marin has a dearth of affordable housing. Each feeds off the other, sapping the diversity that provides quality and economic security to life.

Like the human body, what you put into the region’s body determines Its health. As one of the richest counties in the world, Marin fools itself by believing only exclusive estates and lack of diversity make a healthy economy.

Answers exist. Answer-givers live in our backyards. But politics and lack of visionary leadership, keep the answers out of town.

Sausalito architect Peter Calthorpe has been offering us an answer for more than 10 years, yet Marin politics has stopped him from doing a Pedestrian Pocket answer In his backyard. Recognized nationally, he is one of the members of the St. Vincent’s-Silveira Design Competition Review Board, which is looking across the nation for land use answers for one of Marine most significant pieces of land.

Marinites concerned about traffic, the environment and a jobs-housing balance should know the. benefits of Pedestrian Pocket development. The next three columns as. drawn from updated Interviews I did with Peter Calthorpe for our North Bay Transportation Management Association’s 1990 Land Use Conference.

What are Pedestrian Pockets?

 A simple and old strategy that builds communities around a mix of jobs,  housing and recreational activities. Our traditional towns were designed around pedestrians to provide a mix of walking, biking, mass transit, auto use and recreation. Recreating that mix Is the goal of pedestrian pockets. Beyond transportation, however, the goal of the pedestrian pocket (PP) concept is to cluster development and thereby save valuable open space and environmentally sensitive lands.

Hand in hand with transportation and land use objectives rides the Issue of affordability In housing end its corollary – a healthy regional economy. it has been shown time and time again — regions which do not balance jobs with appropriate and affordable housing lose their economic base. The loss occurs In both public services and in overall market place activity. Pedestrian pockets go a long way toward creating diversity and opportunity for affordable housing by creating more affordable life styles, as well as by reducing housing development casts.

PP’s three goals are: 1) support alternative transportation without denylng  the car; 2) cluster development to preserve open space/ag land and sensitive areas; 3) provide a development pattern which Is efficient and, thereby, affordable to a, broader range of citizens.

Physically, the PP is bounded by a .not-so-arbitrary 1/4 mille walking radius from the town’ center, which should include neighborhood retail, jobs and a transit station. Within the 14 mile, which is equivalent to about 100 acres of land, there could be 1,000 to 2,000 units of housing and up to 3,000 jobs. Beyond the simple mix and clustering of activities Is a critical design factor– design for the pedestrian.

In most of our suburban growth we seemed to have lost the talent for designing spaces, streets and plazas which are comfortable and enjoyable to walk in. It Is not enough to just have a destination within walking range. We must also begin to rediscover the scale and quality of our traditional pedestrian world. For example, a store or transit stop may be within walking distance, but if you have to cross a four-lane arterial and acres of parking to get there few people take the trouble. Therefore, the essential ingredient for a PP becomes a mix of uses and activities that results In a highly refined pedestrian environment. This pedestrian environment must also allow for free access of the auto in all areas.

Why did you develop the Pedestrian Pocket idea for the NWP right-of-way?

I had been working on the concept of ecological and sustainable communities for many years. Its so doing, It became apparent to me that no matter how efficiently or ecologically Isolated communities or stand-alone towns were designed, they would fail because It was unlikely that people would live and work in the same place.  So it occurred to me that we needed  a corridor of sustainable communities that were linked, so that people could get from one to the other without having to use their car. The North West Pacific right-of-way offered such an opportunity.

A very important study just completed on BART has documented that 40 percent of people who live and work within five minutes walking distances of a BART station, use BART. Only I percent of those who live outside of that five minute walking radius use BART. This Is significant because BART stations are not even designed to be walked to. They are designed for the car.

In a Pedestrian Pocket one may have 3,000 job opportunities, but if the NWP right-of-way were developed with a series of PP’s, one could have 60,000 job opportunities within walking distance of the transit line. Those numbers allow one to conclude that transit would become usable and convenient. So the guiding block of the concept has to be a transit corridor.

 What’s the benefit of PPs to Marin and Sonoma?

 Benefit would include: reduced traffic on 101, land use patterns would support and make viable a mass transit system, the preserving of open space and the opportunity to provide more affordable housing and more desirable job location. It’s becoming apparent that many businesses would rather locate in mixed use areas than in isolated office parks. They understand that areas In which people can walk for their midday errands are desirable. They also understand that a region which has a good balance between affordable housing and jobs provides them a better work force.

 

Land Development

Everyone wants transit?

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Mill Valley Herald, June 29–July 5, 1992
By Dwayne Hunn

In April John Eells, Transportation Planner for Marin from 1985-1992, spoke at a Mill Valley Library public meeting on the difficulties of bringing a rail transit system to the North Bay. If you are a true environmentalist, tired of congested 101 or think a party train back and forth to Yosemite would be more fun than lashing chains to tires, his remarks may be informative.

“For years there was little or no involvement by Marin environmentalists in the 101 Corridor planning effort,”Eells said. After the plan for Transit Tax was completed, they came out against the Transit Tax….Marin is the only California county with a sales tax for trains that has ever lost!

“The Marin Conservation League may be the only environmental organization in the world against transit because they believe it is growth-induced…

“Sonoma’s elected officials only wanted to widen the freeway even though their public opinion surveys showed the public was 4 to 1 in favor of trains. The elected officials kept saying the public was wrong. The result was a compromise. Light rail in Marin and cheaper commuter diesel rail in Sonoma. Unfortunately one week after the light/rail commuter rail compromise was adopted by the 101 Corridor Action Committee, the elected officials in Sonoma abandoned the train all together…

“What happened in Marin?” an audience member fresh to Marin politics asked.

“The Marin Light Rail got tagged by the Marin environmentalists as the ‘Little train to nowhere.’ Yet the majority of the cars on the freeway between Novato and San Rafael are going to San Rafael. The environmentalists were very successful in creating a tremendous fear that the train would turn Marin into Hong Kong or Tokyo. The train would overwhelm all, negate all local land use plans, and destroy all common sense.

“What this tells us is that reality can be irrelevant. Perception is what counts. If by being hysterical, you can dominate the campaign by fear— you can win.”

“What kind of grassroots work was done for the train?”

“Not enough. The business community and transit advocates were outgunned. The environmentalists, or Nimbys, depending on your perspective, know how to run a campaign. The anti-train slogans stuck. Surveys showed that voters clearly remembered their slogans.

“What many define as environmental — like slowing global warming or preventing the ozone hole from spreading — is of little concern to Marin’s environmental movement. Marin’s environmentalists are focused primarily on stopping local growth.”

“Could workshops to educate the community on the need for transit work?”

“I am not optimistic about this, because the Marin Sierra Club, Audubon Society and Conservation League can deliver the votes against transit solutions, painting them as growth inducing.”

“So how do we get environmentally beneficial rail in the North Bay?”

“Unfortunately, Marin may be a preview of California’s future. Marin’s growth hysteria will probably spread to other parts of the state. Developers and proponents of rail plans must be prepared to handle growth, so it is not detrimental to those who are already here. The battle has become a conflict between the haves and the have-nots. Growth per se is not causing the deterioration in the quality of life as much as the inability of the infrastructure to keep up…

“The 50’s and 60 s were the heyday of infrastructure development. We built the world’s finest highway system. Now it is crumbling all at the same time. A full 95% of the gas taxes Californians are paying is being used for highway maintenance, and the system is still falling apart… Our highway system is broke. It would take 1,000 years of today’s revenues to build what we have today.

“Some talk about using Federal money to extend BART to the North Bay. Unfortunately, the entire federal rail budget would not be enough to get BART from San Francisco to Sausalito.”

“What has the Marin experience taught you?”

“Local politics is more difficult than I expected. To reach a political consensus is tremendously difficult. In school you can develop ‘overlays to locate constraints and analyze the overlays to determine where you can build. But in real life there are tremendous controversies and nebulous solutions.

“I’ve been in the public sector for 15 years, and its ability to deliver has declined dramatically. I want to make something beneficial happen in my lifetime.. If that means working with private visionaries, that’s what I’ll do.”

Library

LA’s tribute to Joyce

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City of Los Angeles

IN TRIBUTE

THE LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCIL EXTENDS ITS

DEEPEST SYMPATHY TO YOU IN THE PASSING OF

YOUR LOVED ONE

JOYCE KOUPAL

IN WHOSE MEMORY

ALL MEMBERS STOOD IN TRIBUTE AND REVERENCE

AS THE COUNCIL ADJOURNED ITS MEETING OF MARCH 31, 1992.

Common Sense Opeds, Peace Corps

Misery and hunger in land of plenty

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San Francisco Examiner September 25, 1991

Misery and hunger in land of plenty

Dwayne Hunn
Bombay sidewalk hutments.

“Buck sheis de do, shab?  Khanna mangta hai.  Boock laga  hai…” he said, as he tugged my hand.  He stood belt level and I  turned away after glancing at him.  He kept holding and tugging, as  the teeming masses of Indians moved beside us on the sidewalk.

“Boock laga hai, boock laga hai, tora khanna mangta  hai…” he said as he rubbed his stomach and tugged my hand.  I tried  to look  at him as we kept walking in the crowd.  In  training  they had  told us that we would have to decide how to handle  beggars.  In  training, they had told us that 1/2 of India’s  beggars  were purposefully maimed.

“How do they get a statistic like that, does the  government go around and ask, `Did you purposefully maim your kid?'”  I  had skeptically asked.

During  my first five minutes in the streets, I had  trouble starring into the face of this boy whose cheek had a whole in  it the  size  of a Kennedy silver dollar, ringed  with  pus,  sores, exposed  teeth  and ugly gums.   Ahead, curbside on  the  street, were skateboards that American kids careen around on for fun.  In Bombay  they  are used by kids without hands, ankles or  legs  to reach  the  car or taxi at the light, grab its  handle  and  beg, “Paise de do, shab…  Gorib admi, shab..”

The  homeless  and  poor seemed to be  everywhere.   In  the financial district of the city, where piles of garbage were  left to  be picked up early in the morning, I naively asked the  scavenger, searching the piles which the rats always worked,  what he was  doing.   A weak “Khana (food), shab,” was his reply,  as  he continued  slowly  searching the mounds of garbage.  On  a  train trip, I laid on my pack at a village station and watched a family with a pants-less child defecate diarrhea on the train  platform, and use his fingers to lick it.

As  a kid living on the poor side of Cleveland, I  met  only one  beggar, whose cut foot my mother cleaned after  she  brought him  into the house and fed him.  As a Peace Corps  volunteer,  I saw them maimed and crippled and begging all day, everywhere.

Of  course,  I got to see the Taj Mahal, Ajanta  and  Allora Caves and stuff a kid from a working class family would not  have had  the  vacation money to see.  Those tourist  sights  made  me develop  a simplified philosophy of why the India I knew  in  the late-60’s  had the human problems it had, and has.  To build  the palaces for the rich, and naturally cooled, hand carved caves for the  influential religious classes took a tremendous  number  of  manhours and resources.  Energy that was not spent on  irrigation systems, infrastructure and education.

Little  did I realize how some of those experiences  working on Urban Community Development in the slums of Bombay would  prep me  for  today’s America.  My first work site, the  Worli  Chawls slum had  water available for only an hour a day,  usually  with enough pressure to reach the 2nd story of the typical four  story tenements, from about 3:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m.  If you lived on the third  or  fourth story, you bucketed water up to store  in  your water drums.

For  years now I have lived in affluent Marin County,  California,  where in recent years we were limited to 50  gallons  of water per day per person.  The I captured rain water in drums and saved shower water in buckets and bucketed it to some very  basic toiletry  needs.  Homelessness and  begging has become a  growing problem  in  Marin   and a bigger problem in  Big  Brotherly  San Francisco.

On a shrinking planet whose resources are limited and  whose population  is  pushing 5 billion  with an increasing  number  of homeless and hungry, there is little justification in doing  more Taj  Mahals, even if we had powerful S&L financing and  visionary Trumph leadership.  There is obvious justification for increasing irrigation systems, infrastructure and education worldwide.

My  two  years of oversees work reinforced  my  belief  that there is a tremendous need for expanding the Peace Corps overseas and  its  resultant  educational benefits at  home.   Working  on affordable housing and land use problems in the North Bay of  San Francisco for almost 9 years continually exposed me to  opponents of  affordable housing, whose view of the world is  dominated  by preserving what they got and only allowing more palatial  estates to  be built.  How their relatively powerful actions play on  the stage the rest of the world must live on matters not.  They  fail to  see  how the use of our land to support  and  provide  energy efficient transit modes and affordable ownership housing  impacts not only those near their county borders but those oceans away in our  shrinking and ecologically fragile planet.  The NIMBYs  (Not In  My  Backyard)  elect NIMTOs (Not In My Term  of  Office)  who usually produce LULUs (Less than Useful Land Uses) by doing DECME (Density Erasers Causing Million Dollar Estates) projects  rather than meeting the working people’s and the environment’s  housing, transit and community development needs.

The  Maharajas’  produced  Taj Mahals by edict.   We  do  it through  a  more democratic process of meetings that  produces  a veiled but often similar result.  To a Peace Corps volunteer  who has seen and sensed what wasted hours and resources can do, it is hard  to fathom why people would fight to add another 2%  of  Marin’s land to the 88% which is already in open space, agricultural preserve and parks; rather than support a rail oriented development that would provide affordable housing, child care and less car-dependent communities.

Failing  to  comprehend  such logic, I often  fall  back  to thoughts Kishore Thakar, an Indian friend, left me.  Referring to his own caste-and-class riddled society he said, “People need  to walk a mile in other peoples’ sandals to understand the toil  and misery that goes into living the life of those who struggle.  For those  who move about easily,  the blisters developed  from  that walk  remove both the calloused perceptions some have  of  others and the scales that blind their view of what their actions do  to others.  It would do the world good if more people who move about easily  served a few years doing what you Peace Corps are  trying to do.

“Buddhists believe that each life should bring more enlightenment  and less need for selfish desires.    If in this life  we do  not become enlighten over what our actions cause  to  others, then  our reincarnation should be to walk endless miles  in  the sandals of those upon whom our actions stepped most heavily.”

Dwayne Hunn is a Mill Valley free lance writer.