ABAG Executive Board Meeting

Agenda: http://www.abag.ca.gov/abag/events/agendas/e120513a.htm

6. CONSENT CALENDAR
E. Approval of an Agreement with San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) to Assess Vulnerability of Housing and Communities and Develop Adaptation Responses

Assuming the sea level will be rising, it will probably flood the ground floor level of many dense, multi-story housing projects planned and already built along the Bay shore line. All of these were built relatively recently. During a time that we've been told Global Climate Change would be causing something like this to happen. The development corporations and their finance corporation partners knew this. But of course, these were condominiums that would be sold after the building was complete. The aforementioned entities would disappear from responsibility at that point. But, assuming we want to be a society, WE would be left having to make certain decisions about what to do regarding these structures once the water started to inundate them. That's what this funding is about. It’s just the beginning. WE will eventually be forced to either abandon/tear down these structures or pay to build a levee around the shoreline where these dense populations have been/will be built. The aforementioned entities will not pay for this. They get their money relatively up-front. The entire Bay Area will pay to protect them. This is something similar to what has happened with BART. We subsidized developers/bankers making a bundle off of US first paying for the transportation to be built and then paying for it to be operated/maintained.

7. Presentation on Grand Boulevard Initiative
"The Grand Boulevard Initiative along the El Camino Real in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties provides a successful model for how to promote livable, walkable, and complete communities along a major transit corridor."

Will it? For those on the peninsula – get involved. Do you know how to provide for a vibrant community? Do the urban planners and other associated staffs of many city, county and regional agencies? I know they don't. They've spent their entire lives swimming in neoliberalism. Just like "green washing", all of this will be about providing a veneer of "sustainable communities" while making sure much money is shoveled into the hands of developers and bankers. See where they are heading. Learn what makes a community. Start here: "A Pattern Language : towns, buildings, construction" by Christopher Alexander, et al. [Oxford U Press, 1977]

8. Updates on Plan Bay Area 2013/2017

This is huge. Find out what this means.

9. Report on Implementing Plan Bay Area’s Regional Cap and Trade Revenue Allocation Process

Cap & Trade is generally something that provides a back door for corporations to make money doing something they shouldn't be doing if they were responsible in the first place. Is that what this is about?

10. Update on Priority Development Areas (PDAS) and Priority Conservation Areas (PCAs)
“ ... Timeline and Guidelines for Adding, Removing or Changing PDAs and PCAs; San Rafael Civic Center PDA; ...”

This is from the previous day's meeting. The new rules will be important. For those in Marin County, you should be interested in the San Rafael PDA.