A “Smart-Growth” Revolt in California

Posted on August 14, 2014 Written by Lawrence J. McQuillan, the Independent Institute

On June 18, the Lark­spur City Coun­cil voted unan­i­mously to kill a high-density “smart-growth” devel­op­ment plan for this com­mu­nity of 12,000 peo­ple 16 miles north of San Francisco.

The plan called for build­ing 39,500 square feet of office space, 60,000 square feet of hotel space, 77,500 square feet of retail space, and up to 920 res­i­den­tial units in a half-mile radius around a pro­posed Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Tran­sit sta­tion in Lark­spur. The goal was to jam future res­i­dents into high-density hous­ing and high-intensity com­mer­cial space near a future rail sta­tion to pur­port­edly decrease green­house gas emis­sions. But local res­i­dents weren’t buy­ing it.

Accord­ing to the Marin Inde­pen­dent Jour­nal, about 325 peo­ple attended the city coun­cil meet­ing, and all but a hand­ful of speak­ers opposed the Sta­tion Area Plan, as it’s called, and cheered the city coun­cil for an “his­toric” no vote.

The plan was cre­ated after Lark­spur received $480,000 in 2011 from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Trans­porta­tion Com­mis­sion (MTC) and the Asso­ci­a­tion of Bay Area Gov­ern­ments (ABAG). The city of Lark­spur and other agen­cies, such as the Trans­porta­tion Author­ity of Marin, also kicked in $120,000 to com­plete the plan—money wasted to develop a rejected plan.

Unsur­pris­ingly, the MTC and ABAG bankrolled the Lark­spur “stack-and-pack” blue­print. These two unelected regional-government bod­ies also approved Plan Bay Area in 2013, a mas­ter plan for high-density hous­ing, rail-intensive tran­sit, and restricted land use in the nine-county San Fran­cisco Bay Area through 2040. Lark­spur City Coun­cil­man Dan Hillmer has called Plan Bay Area “fun­da­men­tally flawed.”

The res­i­dent out­cry and vote by the Lark­spur City Coun­cil point to the public’s unwill­ing­ness to pas­sively accept Plan Bay Area and its vision of tomor­row, which unelected region­al­ists want to impose on local communities.

Hope­fully, this vote is the open­ing shot of wide­spread revolts in the Bay Area and through­out Cal­i­for­nia against sim­i­lar “smart-growth” plans. But expect the MTC, ABAG, and other unelected region­al­ists to retaliate.

As reported by the Marin Inde­pen­dent Jour­nal, dur­ing the city coun­cil meet­ing, Lark­spur Coun­cil­woman Cather­ine Way asked if “Lark­spur could be at a dis­ad­van­tage when seek­ing future transportation-project fund­ing because of the council’s deci­sion to stop the Sta­tion Area Plan.”

It is almost cer­tain that the MTC will retal­i­ate, with­hold­ing trans­porta­tion fund­ing for Lark­spur and other com­mu­ni­ties that refuse to go along with Plan Bay Area. But pre­serv­ing local con­trol over com­mu­ni­ties is more impor­tant than accept­ing MTC bribes.

http://agenda21news.com/2014/08/smart-growth-revolt-california/