San Diego's "Sustainable Communities Strategy" Faces Critical Vote on Friday, October 28
Thursday, October 27, 2011
By: Michael Thornton

Regional advocates voice serious concerns about the plan

San Diego's "Sustainable Communities Strategy" Faces Critical Vote on Friday, October 28
Regional advocates voice serious concerns about the plan

At their regularly scheduled October 28, 2011, meeting, the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) Board will vote on what has proven to be acontroversial Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS). In addition to the regional impacts of the plan, this SCS has statewide implications because it will be the first of 18 reviewed by the California Air Resources Board.

In the San Diego Union Tribune, SANDAG Chairman Jerome Stocks describes the blueprint as "balanced". However, regional advocates have serious concerns. Steve Padilla is the director of Sustainable San Diego, a coalition of community groups and neighborhood initiatives. Padilla told KPBS Radio that -- in spite of public input -- the plan favors widening roads rather than expanding public transit.

"The transit component of this plan, most of those investments are back loaded," he said. "They are a second priority. They come years, sometimes decades, down the line and the front loading of the plan is all about road improvements. I think our fundamental objection is that thinking is backwards."

Housing California has weighed in on the statewide implications of the SANDAG SCS in an opinion piece that was distributed to major newspapers across California saying, in part: "California's first [SCS] . . . falls far too short of upholding the goals of Senate Bill 375 -- the nation's first law to control greenhouse gas emissions by aligning transportation, housing, and land-use planning. California needs a stronger plan from SANDAG, one that does more to create compact and healthy neighborhoods and one that invests now in improving transit."

California State Attorney General Kamala Harris also calls the plan a missed opportunity.

Contact: Mike Thornton, 916.447.0503 x111 or mthornton@housingca.org.